23.59

Long day.

A reasonably early start to farewell our very smart uniform bound junior hosts (and our very smart even in jeans senior host too!) then some wake-up showers, packing and off into town.  An almost unsuccessful search for brunch found us in the rather lovely Joe something (can't remember - but just off the Strand).  Though Mr B and CarbBoy ended up with only about 5 minutes to wolf down their food (happily CarbBoy had pancakes, which he tends to hoover down at top speed) before dashing off to the cinema to see the longest movie ever (talk about Infinity Wars....)  TallGirl and I lingered over coffee and the bill, then wandered off for job one of the day.

TallGirl was in charge of navigation and with a few gentle corrections ("are you SURE it's this way?") we ended up at Lillywhites where a man took all the air out of CarbBoy's basketball so it would be hand luggage compliant.

Then some shopping and general wandering, including a very restrained bookshop trip where we only allowed ourselves one each.  Jamaican lunch with the boys when they emerged, blinking, into the light, and a quick trip to the Portrait Gallery (dullsville for kids, apparently) though poor Mr B ended up in the foyer on a call for the whole time we were there.

He kindly chummed us along the first transport stage to Stansted, and then after all the rigmarole of security (they took my passport away for a while, which was worrying), some less restrained book buying, some very unrestrained wine gums buying and a slight delay... we were finally off.  A thunderstorm on landing livened things up in an unwelcome way (though happily TallGirl had her eyes shut so didn't know about the storm until after we'd landed) and home to an odd late supper.

It has been fabulously exhausting to have a break from normal life, which will hit with a big bang tomorrow.