It’s the first instalment of our tour diary, brought to you by Springfree Trampoline.  This week’s diary will cover our trip from Cape Town to London, and our experiences in the outskirts of London and central London itself.

20th July 2010 (Tuesday)

It is currently winter in Cape Town, and we were off to London which is experiencing one of their best summers in recent years.  When you leave in winter for a country which is in summer, you feel like you’re beating the system – almost as if you’re actively going against Mother Nature and deciding to take the seasons into your own hands – “Winter?  Nope, not for me this year, I’ll take another order of summer.”

Unfortunately this feeling was lost because we actually left on quite a nice day.

Our flight departed Cape Town International Airport round 6:45pm and landed in Johannesburg round 8:30pm, then left for Doha at about 9:00pm.  I can’t be exact with times because I was too busy watching Date Night and episodes of 30 Rock on the in-flight entertainment.  Obviously Qatar airlines had heard of my arrival and specially catered for my crush on Tina Fey.

21st July 2010 (Wednesday)

I also can’t be exact with times because it’s incredibly confusing.  Doha is one hour ahead of Cape Town, and London is two hours behind Cape Town.  I’m not sure whether we gained time or lost time, but I do know we got two suppers on the plane for some obscure reason, and breakfast was served at 5:00am Doha time, which was 4am Cape Town time.  Considering I was still running on Cape Town time this was closer to being a midnight snack than being a breakfast.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or simply the altitude, but Dylan and I both highly recommend The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid for a good laugh.

We arrived in Doha at 7:00am and had a while to kill whilst we waited for our plane to London, so we passed the time by filming a video whilst trying not to get thrown out of the airport.  Apparently you can wear your hoody backwards and stroll through the airport without much hassle.  Perhaps this was because my hoody was black and it could have just looked like a badly made birka.  I’ll remember not to do this in France.

Round lunch we headed back into the plane and I slept, which was okay, because I wasn’t the pilot.  We landed in London Heathrow Airport in the evening and caught the tube to Uxbridge Station where we were then whisked away by Roz Battaliou to Gerad’s Cross in Buckinghamshire, where we’d be staying with the Battaliou’s for the next couple of days.
 
22nd July 2010 (Thursday)

London isn’t cold in summer.  For some reason both Dylan and I had assumed London was going to be cold, but it’s not.  This is bad news for the thermal underwear I packed for the trip.  It’s also bad news for the thick rain jacket Dyl brought along with him, although, a few days later he would find out that his cat had urinated on this jacket before he left, so I guess in light of that, it’s not the jacket’s worst news.

The summer we’re experiencing is a lot like a Cape Town summer, only perhaps a bit more rain, but by no means cold, or completely unpleasant.  However, the locals are calling this a better than usual summer, so perhaps this is a surprisingly pleasant by-product of Global Warming.

The weather was good so this was the day we headed to Slough.  Yes Slough.  I know it’s not your regular tourist destination, but the Brunel Roundabout is in Slough, and that particular roundabout is famous for being in the opening credits of The Office, so we had to see it.  We also went to Windsor whose claim to fame is having a castle.

In Windsor we began a mission which we have yet to complete.  We packed a bunch of CDs and inlays in our bags, but left the CD cases because we thought it would save space and it’d be easy to get cases when we were in the UK.  You’d think it would be easy, but not the case.  (Pun intended.)

Anyways, Windsor Castle was flying a British flag which we were told meant that the Queen was currently residing in it.  We were quite happy with this little nugget of information, our first British fact, but this wasn’t particularly true, because when we got back home we found out the Queen had been at a garden party elsewhere.  More untrue British facts to follow.

23rd July 2010 (Friday)

Our first few days in London with the Battaliou’s included a lot of sport.  Martin and Roz have two sons, and the younger son can be particularly persuasive when it comes to getting you to play cricket and soccer with him, neither of which I’m particularly good at, but the games were evenly matched because he’s only eight.  Embarrassingly too evenly matched.

Dyl and the older brother joined in for most games, so we had a lot of fun playing games until the sun set and play had to be stopped.  Incidentally this would end up being quite late at night, because the British sun is overeager in summer and sets just before 10pm - which I imagine is why they don’t get very active vampires in summer, which perhaps explains why I haven’t seen any goths.

We headed out to Gerard’s Cross where the search for CD cases continued, and where once again we were let down by WHSmith.

That night we drove past Pinewood Studios (the legendary lot where James Bond was filmed) on our way to Palm Suite Restaurant where we were treated to supper by our host family.  If you’re a film fan, you have to visit Palm Suite – we sat next to big poster of Batman Returns which had an original slate from the film sitting above it.  Please remind me to claim my nerd points at IMDB after this blog.

We ended the night with visiting our first British pub, The Three Pigeons, after which we performed for the members of the family which were still awake, and auditioned the older son to claim a role in the Brothers Streep in the absence of the other three members of the band.  Tim Price, you may or may not have been replaced, we’ll keep you posted.

24th July 2010 (Saturday)

We said goodbye to our awesome host family in the morning, and made our way to Clapham Common to meet the long lost daughter of Tim Minchin.  Well, her name is actually Elly Gay, but I’m not convinced she’s telling the truth when she says she isn’t related to Minchin - besides the obvious gender difference, they’re identical.  Either that, or I simply think all red heads look the same, which is a prejudice too controversial to address in a light hearted recounting of tour events.

Elly guided us to our next residence, where we met up with her friend and roommate and our host Laura Jacobs.  We began to discuss the evening’s plans, which had to be fairly monumental because it was Anna Paquin’s birthday.  Oh and it also happened to be Dylan’s birthday.

That evening our tour guides Laura and Elly led us into London where we experienced our first Burger King, our second British Pub (Tom Cribb), stand-up at the London Comedy Club in the West End, chilling on the lions at Trafalgar Square, and a bunch of other nonsense which at the end of the day, along with everything else that night, made Dyl’s birthday a birthday to remember.  I even think Anna Paquin would have been suitably proud.

25th July 2010 (Sunday)

We began Sunday by heading off to Speaker’s Corner at Hyde Park.  We were considering taking our guitars along and simply performing some songs at Speaker’s Corner, but I think alongside the Muslim man preaching against capitalism, and the Christian man preaching against Muslims, I think we might not have fit in.

After Hyde Park we trekked down Oxford Street to visit the large HMV, and then to Regent Street to visit Hamleys.  We might be in a band, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like our toys.

Oh and in case you’re interested, Tescos might sell close to everything under the sun, but empty CD jewel cases evidently come from another solar system.

26th July 2010 (Monday)

Maybe it’s because I’m writing this late at night and am genuinely tired, or maybe it’s because everything else we did this day paled in comparison, but the only thing I really wish to mention is Avenue Q.

If you’re living in London and haven’t seen Avenue Q yet, you need to sort your life out.  It’s a musical comedy with puppets.  I would say more, but I don’t think I need to.

Photos from our tour are available on Facebook, click here to get up to date photos from our journeys in the UK.