Time for tea.........

Thankfully no headache after pills at 4:30am and was feeling well enough for meeting family in London for something we had arranged weeks ago.

Afternoon tea was booked in a place near Charing Cross station for 1:30pm, however, afternoon tea takes a lot longer than you may think hahaha. I drove round to collect Daughter at 10:30am and she drove (to save my head) in my car  (to save miles on her car which does oh so many) to London (to save very expensive train fare). As usual we decided to park at Newbury Park (endish of the main A12 before hitting city traffic) and use the underground for the rest. As it was raining and because of the time we tried the station car park first (also expensive but convenient) but there were no spaces so we found a space in a nearby side road. Parking around there is a little complicated if you're not familiar with it as you can park on single yellow lines during the day but not between 11am and noon unless inside a marked white box. We parked but not in a white box,  just as another car parked in front of us, but it was 11:50am so we decided to sit in the car for 10mins in case a traffic warden was nearby and laughed as the people in the other car didn't get out either so we knew they were having the same conversation as us. When we all eventually got out we had a little chat as we'd obviously developed a parking bond lol.

Newbury Park station on the central line to Tottenham Court Road, changed to northern line for two stops to Charing Cross. We were actually about 30 mins early so even though it was raining a little we went for a walk and found some gardens and looked at the statues. No sign of any geocache nearby (Daughter always checks) but we found a tap dedicated to Henry Fawcett by all his grateful women (snigger/smirk/giggle)!

Daughter and I were the first to arrive at the pretty little tea shop (straight to the loo of course) very quickly joined by SisterS and sisterP and not long after that by nieceV who is beautifully pregnant at 32 weeks. 

Lots of non-stop lovely chat between us all and lots of yummy food as you can see

SisterP had to leave just before 4pm as she needed to get a bus then get her commuter coach back to Kent but we stayed chatting nearly another hour then all walked together a little way for different journeys home to Middlesex, Surrey and Suffolk (that's why meetups are rare and special).

So for us back on the northern line at Charing Cross changing to the central line at Tottenham Court Road (disappointing lack of buskers in any of these stations). By now the trains were sardine packed and after a few stops I was getting far too hot so off at Bank Station hoping to walk a bit to cool off but it was raining quite hard so we jumped on a bus (number 25 that I used school days and when I worked in the city in my former life) and got off at Mile End (where I lived from age 6 to 20) and there is now a large park built right across the main road which we decided to investigate as Daughter was convinced there'd be another geocache there but unfortunately not. 

Back underground for the tube Mile End to Gants Hill for a very quick visit to our favourite Biegel Bakery and loaded up with enough to eat fresh and more for the freezer, back down for one more stop to Newbury Park and to the car. 

I was finally home about 9:30pm needing another cup of tea and my bed :-)

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