Getting High

Well hi!

It’s been a while hasn’t it? The month of March hurried to an end, which meant saying a big goodbye to someone very special…

As you’ll know if you stop by often enough, I live in a house share with girls who became my best friends :), but one of our number left us for Australia! She’s the other part of my ‘scheme dream team’ – we’re always coming up with plots and plans and we’ve done loads of fun stuff from music festivals, to charity runs and all sorts. So when she asked me if I could help her out by organising her London-goodbye, I knew it was time to go ALL out.

She wanted to go somewhere ‘up high’ for a nice meal and the rest was down to me. First up, I booked Duck and Waffle. Located in the Heron tower, for a midnight feast. Duck and Waffle is a 24 hour restaurant with amazing views across the city. You’ll hurtle up in a lift and be welcomed into the super cool bar area. We were ushered through to our seats (booking is essential if you want to eat!) and we went ALL out…

I decided to take ‘high up’ as a theme, and wrote out some clues which would take her around London. I whipped up my specialty – eggs  benedict 😉 – for the crew in the morning.

The first clue would take L to Tower Bridge, to walk over the glass wall which looks down to the road below, and makes your legs feel like jelly as you walk over… but the views are really something special…

The walk at Tower Bridge is heaps of fun, and you can go round the glass walkway if you’re not keen on heights. It’s not too busy all things considered and it’s quick to queue for tickets. We were through and paid within about 10 mins in the middle of the day!

Once she’d completed this task, L got her second clue, which took her to Monument! You can climb all 311 steps to the very top of Monument and you get 360 views around London. Word of warning, you’ll queue a little while, and you’ll also need cash to pay the £4.50 to go up. We powered on up, and got to the top out of breath but amazed by the view. We could spot Tower Bridge in the distance, where we’d just been, too!

The Monument climb is a little less friendly to the height-phobic. I’m not great with heights and found this a bit more challenging because of the proximity of the edge. At the top of Monument, L got her final clue…

The last clue took us to Mr Foggs tavern in Covent Garden. It’s a kitsch ye olde England style bar, but I wasn’t blown away by the food or the drinks. The decor is fun though, and I suspect if you do one of the Gin classes there it’d be a fun experience. I probably wouldn’t go back to the restaurant bit.

We all headed home, and spent the rest of the day reminiscing over the past two years, how our paths had crossed and toasting L on her new adventure.

I’m going to really miss her! As A A Milne said, ‘how lucky I am to have something which makes saying goodbye so hard.’ AND it means I now have an excuse to hop on a plane and visit Down Under! I think it’s time I got my scheming-book out again 😉

Have you been to any of these places in L ondon? What’s your favourite way to be a tourist in your own city?

 

Kate x