Shopping and Super Heroes in central London

Since we had a relaxing day in yesterday watching the last day of Ascot on our TV at the hotel and doing the domestic stuff (laundry).

Today the focus was on getting out and picking up a few bits and pieces to take home and we managed to tick off a majority of what we had planned. All in all, we accomplished more than we expected plus visited some interesting places and saw some more amazing architecture.

Top of Jeanette's list (not so much mine) was a visit to Harrods -To get there it was off to Paddington to catch the overland train to South Kensington - Very straight forward! We had to laugh as we walked passed the Q&A Museum a few minutes from the station. Last time we were here we decided to walk from Paddington to V&A got lost and spent hours of foot blistering agony struggling around the area. To know we could have just taken a lazy 20 minute tube ride to get there was both quite funny -although it certainly wasn't at the time!

Harrods is a bit of a beast of a store, massive and very easy to get lost. That seemed to bother me much more than Jeanette to be fair. We seemed to spend ages in the jewelry area, I know for sure we did at least 2 laps as Tiffany jewelry appeared twice - not good for my blood pressure especially when Jeanette stopped to have a really good look at a couple of pieces - they had no price but based on the items around them even selling the house would likely be a deposit only!

Reason we visit Harrods is mainly due to Jeanette's fascination for their Christmas decorations, we were in luck (if that's the right word) even though the Christmas decoration section was reduced to cover 2 shelves, they still had a good selection including the much sort after 2025 Harrods Christmas bauble.

We popped upstairs to the Men's department I had a look at a sales rack and found a jacket that was orange and cream like tartan wool that reminded me of the wool blankets we had as kids. It was reduced by 50% down to 1375 pound. Definitely not the place for me to be shopping! Prices aside it was very busy on the food hall floors but quite empty in the serious shopping area. Jeanette really enjoyed the window shopping and riding up and down in the very fancy lifts. The Egyptian escalator was also very impressive.

To get to the next stop on our 'essential' shopping list it was back on the tube to Kings Cross station to pop into the Harry Potter Shop within the station complex (yup I thought I was done with him after our last trip, but the little bugger has come back to haunt me again). It was a very busy station; unsurprising as Kings Cross is next door to St Pancras International Station- which apparently also has an association with Harry Potter. The Harry Potter shop was packed but we managed to get what we needed and move on quite quickly - shopping section of day almost done - big sigh of relief.

Leicester Square has a pretty bad wrap for being over hyped and overrated, for good reason but we were in the area with a bit of time so called in for a look. There was a big screen in the main square with the Queens Tennis Tournament on show. Quite a big crowd was engaged. There were some nice statues on display in and around the square including people as diverse as: Charlie Chaplin, Mr Bean, Paddington Bear, Gene Kelly (singing in the rain) and Mary Poppins. After our look around we headed down the escalators into the bowels of the Kings Cross underground along the way there was a guy dressed as Spiderman playing an electric organ to entertain commuters as they walked by. I tipped him and asked for a photo, as befits his superhero status he invited me to be part of the photo as well. We really enjoy street entertainment/theatre but haven't seen much on this trip, perhaps because we haven't ventured too far. We also think if we want a photo we should definitely tip, and our new favourite superhero certainly appreciated it. As we left another lady tried to take a photo without making a donation which I think is really rude. Superhero guy was less cooperative - good on him I say!

We popped to the Victoria Pub for a quite drink then dropped off our purchases before heading to The Mitre for dinner. After a nice dinner and a quite drink we finished the night watching the quarter finals of the European championship U21 competition. France beat Denmark in a thrilling game 3-2 while Italy and Germany are locked 0-0 in a dour battle as we write this. We'll update the result tomorrow.

FOOTBALL UPDATE:

Things really kicked off in the second half, Italy had 2 players sent off (including Leeds Utds Willy Gnonto). Germany were 2-1 up until the last kick of the match when Italy scored a screamer of a direct free kick from 25 metres to send the game into extra time. Italy's 9 men battled manfully but Germany scored the winner late on.