12 Days, 4 Countries, 2 Women, 1 Car (and 1 drivers licence) - Mum Diaries #2

Log Two, May 11: Today was a success! As we drove into London central for the second time we only got cut off 3 times and beeped at 4-5 times! And when an irritated bus driver opened his window to ask why we were driving in the Bus Lane my, very sweet Mum replied with "BECAUSE WE'RE AUSTRALIAN!" And blew him a kiss as we drove off! Haha. I was pretty surprised at Mums response as I don’t ever recall her having a sarcastic nature – or a good sense of humour – before I left for England!

Harrods was the 1st on our list for the day and boy isn’t Harrods amazing! Filled with beautiful clothing and yummy cakes, most of it far too expensive for us! Mum and I were wanting to buy Nana a lovely scarf from Harrods but we weren’t finding anything for less than 200 pounds (sorry Nana). However, we did find a reasonably nice scarf in the souvenir section for a tenner! All we did was cut off the label and VOILA`! It’s a fancy Harrods scarf... Kidding, it was closer to 20 or 30 pounds – I just wanted to fit “tenner” in here somewhere.
When our bellies started rumbling we sat outside to eat our sandwiches – purchased from Harrods – while listening to a bag-pipe player and watched a Rolls-Royce - with no number plates and very tinted windows - pull-up for the shop staff to load the boot with bags of clothing.

Before leaving of course Mum had to disturb the bag-pipe player for a photo (he didn’t even acknowledge us, haha)

Then, it was off to Buckingham Palace for us! Driving there was surprisingly easy, only a few minutes away and parking wasn’t too far. We hung around for maybe 30 minutes taking the usual tourist photos and helping other tourists take theirs.

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Mum wasn’t fussed about going to Trafalgar Square (too much traffic and walking) so we found a Starbucks to rest our feet and ordered – what Mum called – buckets of coffee before making our way back to Sheffield for an early night. The rental car and ourselves are safe for another day and we're off to the beautiful Bakewell in the morning!

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Bakewell is such a lovely town, everything I thought England would be with the cobble stone roads, buildings and fences. Famous for its Bakewell Tarts – the most delicious things that you could ever eat!
I’m combining our next 2 days into this log because I feel that – although they are amazing – writing about how we pigged out on tarts and cakes isn’t worth a story on it’s own :-p I wish I had more photos to share of this trip but unfortunately a courier service man stole my laptop from my suitcase when I was having it shipped over to Australia (my fault for being naive enough not to lock it). And unfortunately for him I had AVAST installed at the time and we were able to give his whereabouts to the local bobby, that found many other stolen items in his possession. The courier service man had wiped my hard drive and over-written most of the space with his own content so we weren’t able to retrieve everything… now I am OBSESSED with backups and Mega Drive!
So yes, lots of eating occurred over the next 2 days, first eating all of the tarts and then I took my Mum to the old English pub I worked at while I was in Sheffied. We had a traditional Sunday dinner at The Phoenix, Ridgeway.

Next time, Scotland!