London Duck Tour - Quack Quack

Something I've been wanted to do for a while is the London Duck Tour. You see the distinctive yellow vehicles driving around Westminster, so we boarded. We did the classic sightseeing tour, through Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, then to Vauxhall Bridge to enter the water. The girls were screaming as we entered the water, they loved it!!!! We bobbed along the Thames, passing Millbank Tower. We were on the water for 30 minutes, then back on dry land. Very little leg room for a 6ft tall person, but incredibly fun. However, it's £23 per person. Little information on the tour, but that's not what it's about, it's about riding in a vehicle from the D-Day landings and being in an anphibious vehicle. The girls absolutely loved it, so much, that after we visited Hamleys and they could have been in a supermarket for how much they enjoyed it, they were just shattered.

The pricey Wimpole Estate

I've wanted to visit the Wimpole Estate for a while, so the Shackells-Saunders visited on a very wet spring day, including hail stones! We first went inside the house. At £15 per adult for a ticket to visit the whole property, it's not cheap! The girls had an activity sheet to complete, sadly there wasn't an activity in each room, so we saw every other room! The library holds 10,000 books and a ladder like the one in My Fair Lady. We pretended to sit at the dinner table, and saw a huge bath tub. It was lovely. We then walked to Home Farm to seee piglets, Highland cows, Shetland ponies, groomed a donkey, played on the tractor and saw lambs being fed. We walked back through the walled garden. Although lovely, I left feeling the price was still a bit steep, especially when you have to pay for the car park separately!.

A long walk around Marston Vale

A favourite walk, but it wasn't Sailors favourite today. After 2.5 hours of walking, he was very tired and lagging behind. He didn't recover for 48 hours after the walk! It was lovely, spring is in the air, I burnt my shoulders, and there are green buds on the trees. Walking in the morning is best as it gets pretty crowded, but a walk around both lakes really stretches the legs, especially Sailors.

Punting on the Cam

What a civilised day...almost. The Shackells and Griffiths' went punting in Cambridge, well kind of, it was about half an hour before we left the dock. Cous Cous was quite a pro at going backwards, and we liked going into the cherry tree which covered him in blossom. However, we got the knack, Cous Cous punted, I rowed. We had a few hiccups on the way, with a very low lying willow tree where cous cous had to lie on the punt in order to get under the branch. We were fine as long as we were by the wall. However, our neighbour didn't quite have they swing, their punt got stuck in the mud but they kept on going, punt-less. We then had a head on collison, with such a force that luckily Cous Cous fell into the punt, instead of the alternative of flying backwards. A great day, much cheaper than going on a tour, and I hadn't laughed that much for years!