London : Hyde Park & High St Kensington!

London : Hyde Park & High St Kensington!
Firstly, I know we are a bit behind in the blogging.. I promise I will finish the blog from Italy by the end of the week. When I get motivated I can knock these things off very quickly... I think it's been a bit cold and miserable (not unusual for London!) and I have found it hard to get inspired to finish it off. But I am on a roll now..

Saturday (2nd February, 2008), Steve and I awoke to a special greeting by the London sunshine... We can't complain actually the weather has been pretty good this last week. A fair bit of sunshine surrounded still by some brisk and chilly temperatures. Any sunshine is GOOD sunshine, so Steve and I took ourselves to Hyde Park for some exercise "Al Fresco" and to get in touch with nature! For those of you who haven't been to Hyde Park before.. there is a rather large community of very tame and cheeky squirrels to muck around and feed.

Tanya and I had been a couple of weeks before to try and have more of a look around and I wanted to take Tanya to Kensington Palace. Unfortunately for us, we got completely rained out. The weather was appalling...so we retreated to the warmth of a Starbuck's on Kensington High St to dry off and try and escape the rain! But before we got completely rained out, Tanya & I wandered into a part of Hyde Park and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by cheeky squirrels looking for food... Lucky for us - Tanya had a food stock in her backpack that we could entice them with! Still, after a while the rain just got too much and so ended our fun and forced us to bail for higher and drier ground! LOL

Anyway back to Hyde Park - We started at Hyde Park Corner. Realising we hadn't been there before we came across a number of Memorials. The Wellington Arch (also known as the Constitution Arch) was built between 1826 - 1830 to commemorate the Britain's Victories in the Napoleonic Wars. Hyde Park Corner also contains an Australia War Memorial (added in 2003) and a New Zealand War Memorial (added in 2006) and the Royal Artillary Memorial (1925).

It was a pretty spectacular day - weather wise I must admit. Amazing how just a little sunshine can change the whole mood of your day. I also realised that Hyde Park Corner and that part of Hyde Park seems to be a high AIR TRAFFIC area... I can't explain it, but I have this fascination with aeroplanes. For most of you that have read that blog know that I don't seem to fly well but it doesn't stop the curiosity with the humble aeroplane. Jumbo Jets particularly... ANYWAY... While at Hyde Park Corner & the park.. I turned our camera to the sky to take some pictures of my fabulous flying machines.


Steve and I then made our way through to Hyde Park (armed with my bag of Nuts for feeding my woodland friends!) . How CUTE are they? The are so cheeky and so tame, they will physically climb onto you if you entice them up your leg to grab the food from your hands... AMAZING really!? But HOW CUTE is this little guy?


Anyway, after playing with my little woodland FRIENDS, the sun was fast going down and the temperature was starting to get a little harder and frostier so we escaped down to High St Kensington for a Starbuck's Coffee.. and to have a bit more of a look around. We came across a HUGE store called "Whole Foods". Hungry and looking for something to put in our fridge, we wandered into this HUGE store to have a nosey around. What we discovered was a wonderful world of food we couldn't possibly imagine. Inexplicable unless you saw it with your own eyes.. Speciality store I would call it maybe. Bread? Any type you can imagine - Rye, Sourdough, Cranberry & Ginger, Brioche were just a few examples and CHEESE! " I love Cheese, really I Do!" When we were in France, Steve took a liking to Gorgonzola Cheese (Blue Vein Cheese), so we chose one and I prefer my cheese not to smell like smelly socks.. so I enjoy the beautiful creamy Brie... YUM! With two cheeses and a wine bar in the premises, we consulted the experts and came home with two wines to compliment the cheeses we had chosen. By the time we finished there this is what our special feast looked like ------>




We also picked up some Spanish Chorizo, some crackers, dip, Polish Horseradish (Chwikla) - with Beetroot. A Muscat Wine and a fresh French White wine.. YUM! A feast fit for a King & Queen (and to clog the arteries a bit too!) but it was once off treat. I think we will go back to the Whole Foods Market to perhaps pick up some different foods in the future...and maybe the Cheese! Deliscious... Needless to say - Steve and I went to bed rubbing out bellies! *giggles*..

Bon Appetite!

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