London, baby in Hello.

I’ve just about sorted out our trip to London week after next. I’m taking Belle and Eleanor for a few days as a birthday treat for us all. In November Eleanor turns 16, Belle 20 and I’ll be 50. And seeing as we haven’t gone on holiday for 3 years now, we decided we’d go to London.
I really wanted to go see the Totoro play at the Barbican, so I bought tickets for that a while ago. I’ve booked us into an Airbnb in Kew, which is really handy for the tube. We’re going on a National Express coach as the trains are really unreliable at the moment with the strikes. So we’re catching the overnight from Carlisle, which will get us in to London at 7.20am. I’m hoping I get at least some sleep, so I can enjoy or first day in London. We can’t check in till 3pm, so we’ll have our bags with us.
We haven’t made any solid plans yet, other than the play, but there’s a few things I’d like to visit. Camden, the Japanese garden at Kew, feeding the birds in St James’, a ghost walk or boat ride, the tower and a Victorian operating theatre museum are on there. Maybe a museum, I’m not sure yet. I’m not really into the really touristy things, but I’ve asked the girls to make their own lists, so we can arrange days that would make us all happy! I’d like to try some different and unusual foods as well, but my girls both love Chinese and Japanese food, so I think we’ll probably end up in Chinatown at some point.

Yesterday at work was farcical. Honestly, if it wasn’t such a pain in the bum, you’d think you were watching some crap British comedy or something. We knew we had some Japanese guests onsite. We didn’t have a crib sheet, we only had on our tour sheet “Visit Japan group, 4pm”. 4pm rolled round, no show. We’d seen them walking round with higher management all day, they’d been in the bistro for food as well, but we couldn’t find them anywhere. Next thing, a minibus pulls up outside and a lady comes in “hi, sorry we’re late, we’re the Visit Japan group....”
Nobody had realised that the other group worked in Japanese sales. We had 2 Japanese groups on site and nobody had thought to differentiate them by doing something like, I dunno.... TAKING A NAME! 🙄