UK and France: Leg 1 - UK

Our first holiday from Dubai - well, our first outside of the Emirates, anyway. For two weeks we left Dubai, to spend time in London, Paris and then at Euro Disney. We flew through Amsterdam, on KLM. Angela, one of Delanie's best friends, was our very gracious host - she picked us up from the Airport, took us on a day out to the Cotswolds, and even arranged to vacate her apartment in Swiss Cottage and stay with friends so that we had somewhere to stay. Many thanks to her!
Jack and Jaime experienced rain for the first time in six months! Kind of cool to see rain, actually, but getting wet was something strange, as was waking up in the morning and looking out of the window trying to work out what the day was going to do to work out what we should wear! That's a much simpler process in Dubai...

The drive to and through the Cotswolds was really lovely. We went to the Upper and Lower Slaughters and Bidbury. Had scones, cream and jam to make it authentic.

On the Sunday we went to Greenwich, to meet Andrew, Cheryl, Robi and Alex Henderson in the park for a picnic. It was all fun until the other Andrew ruptured the tendon in his finger catching a ball. That was the picnic ended and the other family started off to the hospital.

Jack stood with one foot in the west and one foot in the east along the Meridian. We caught the tube and then a boat to the park it was great. We found London very easy to get around thanks to great instructions by Angela. We ended up legends on the tube!

We did a lot of touristy stuff - including the London Eye. We did a lot of walking which Jack coped with well. We won't mention the other child.

We met James and Caroline (who have sold their house in Whitby and are now based back in the UK). We spent the day with them, having lunch and doing some shopping. James even managed to find a coffee shop run by Kiwis called flat white. Tiny pokey place but the coffee was good.

We met Simon, Delanie's cousin, at the St Pauls Cathedral steps. We had lunch with him and then went to the Science Centre. Jack and Andrew toured around while I took Jaime home so I could sleep off a migraine. Managed to catch the tube home and even change lines all with my eye sight funny.

On our last full day we did a bus tour round London, after we had met our friend Alan, from Wellington. Its a great way to see the city. We saw Buckingham Place and Big Ben. Loving the old architecture in the city, great history. We took the kids to the Hamleys toy shop twice - got sucked into buying these amazing felt pens but my skills with them are not as amazing as the demonstrators....