London!

An early walk for Henry and I in the dark this morning. We were off to London for the day without him. He would not have liked it. I did see a wee dog on the tube. Is that allowed? It must be rather terrifying for a wee dog. It's terrifying enough for country bumpkins...

We met up with Chamaeleo, who was an excellent London speciality tour guide. I put my requests in (coffee, NHM, exhibition, coffee, lunch, London landmarks, river, bridges and of course, coffee) and it was delivered.

We went straight to the NHM where Chamaeleo works. The queues were a mile long, it being school holidays. But Chamaeleo flashed a staff ID card, and we waltzed in. Felt like royalty!

The building itself is spectacular. I felt I knew it because of Chamaeleo's wonderful HDR blips of the interior. I chose this one to blip, because although it's been done better by you-know-who, I used the new stitch app that CBLinks told me about. This is three photos, and I quite liked the 'ghosts'. And I anyway, I couldn't do anything about them! I added a monkey here.

But the highlight of the whole trip was indeed going to the Wildlife Photographic Exhibition in the NHM. It was truly amazing. The 100 photos were displayed with light behind them, and they were huge. We were continually saying, 'WOW! Look at that!' Truly well worth going!

After having a coffee at a nearby groovy cafe, we walked through Trafalgar Square - it was dark by this time- which was lovely with the Christmas lights and coloured fountains. We spent ages taking photos. On to the river and more snapping. I was REALLY regretting not having my DSLR and my tripod. I had to find walls to lean the camera on. I will put Big Ben in the folio.

There were so many people with big cameras and tripods. I eventually asked one chap if he was a blipper. When they answer, 'A what?' you know not to pursue it further. Turns out he was a professional photographer, knew one of the photographers in the exhibition, and in fact had been with him photographing bears!! But he might have just been saying that...

Glad to get a seat on the train back, we soon realised we were on the wrong train. Well, not the wrong train exactly, but not the right train...

We had booked returns from Brighton, but were on the Hove train. JR worried the whole way that we'd be trapped by one of those electronic gates and not be able to get out and have to get the next train to Brighton.

I suggested finding a staff member and crying and pretending to be silly old biddies, or else just making a run for it. But in the end we did have a real person who didn't even wait to hear my excuse, but just, rather curtly, waived us on. A bit disappointing, actually.

But all in all, a superb day! Thanks Chamaeleo!