Wicked @ West End

Sorry it's took a while to put up a post! I've been very busy recently!

Anyway, during the last week in November, I took my nieces down to London to watch Wicked as a treat! I'd promised I would take them a few years ago after I showed them the trailer after going to see it myself. One weekend I went home with a poster of the show, the tickets and a poster I'd made which showed them the things they would do in London. I did a treasure hunt where they had to follow the clues to find the prize. After a while they eventually found it and boy, where they excited! It was lovely to see their little faces light up!

Fast forward 2 months and my sister and nieces arrived at my flat late on the Friday evening. It was my nieces birthday so they drove up straight from her birthday party. After going to Asda to buy magazines for the journey and some snacks for the next day, we went back to my flat, watched Jonathon Ross on the TV and went to bed.

The next morning we got up super early and I made everyone sausage and bacon muffins before we left to catch the bus. The five of us jumped into a taxi and got to the bus station a bit too early - think Pete was a bit anxious that we'd miss the bus otherwise! The bus turned up on time (so only a 35 min wait in the cold!), and so we got on and began our journey. It did seem to last quite a long time, but the fact that the bus wasn't too busy meant that we could all stretch ourselves out on the coach and just while away the hours until we got to London. After what seemed like forever, we finally entered the city! The sites were amazing and the sun seemed to shine the whole way to Victoria coach station. The kids and my sister definately enjoyed the sights from the inside of the coach.

Once we had arrived, we met up with Mark, who had travelled down from Birmingham. The first thing we did was to walk to our hotels (which took a while to locate on the maps!) and to dump our stuff. Luckily Dawn and the kids hotel was quite close to our hotel. We left the girls to freshen up and unpack whilst we went and did the same. 40 minutes later we all met up and went and purchased our tickets for the tube, during which time Mark got lost! After finding him, we jumped the tube to Oxford St, where we spent a few hours looking in Topshop, Hamleys and had a Subway. It was nice to see the pretty lights and the shops, but I'd advise taking a load of London virgins to Oxford Street 4 weeks before Christmas on a Saturday afternoon! It was not fun!

After a little walk around town, we got the tube to Victoria station (my nieces directing us quite well after being taught how to read the tube map), and met Tim who was joining us for the show. Everyone was very excited, including myself who'd already seen the show twice before! The nieces bought a t-shirt each and I got my Wicked hoodie (thanks Pete), and we settled ourselves down to watch the show. It was enthralling, and enjoyable on every level - I don't think I'll ever get bored of this show! The kids particularly enjoyed Defying Gravity, and my sister actually cried! My bro enjoyed the show as well, because although he'd seen it before, this time he had better seats. He's becoming almost as West End cultured as I am - having seen Avenue Q, Spring Awakening and now Wicked twice in the past year! It must be the London bug!

Afterwards, we tried waiting for autographs, but I think that we'd missed the majority of the cast due to spending too long in toilet queues. This was a shame, but didn't ruin our evening. We went to Leicester Square and spent a couple of hours wandering round admiring the sites which everyone enjoyed, before returning to our hotels and getting some shut eye for the night.

Everyone was up bright and early the next day - breakfast was served at 8ish, and for the price of the hotel, it wasn't much kop! We dumped our bags in the luggage room and went for a wander around central London. The kids enjoyed walked around Buckingham Palace and the London Eye. We all enjoyed a boat trip up the Thames, which was suprisingly cheap! The day was quite miserable but didn't dampen our spirits (Ok, well only Beckys!). We met up with Tim once again and she acted as tour guide along with Peter! We spent a while in Harrods, were Dawn bought us some lovely cakes, before returning to our hotel and picking up the bags. Afterwards we returned to the city centre, where we went Ice Skating! Only myself, Dawn and the kids did this as the others wanted to sit inside and enjoy a hot chocolate. I think this may have been a good idea in hindsight as it was raining cats and dogs! It didn't matter though to be honest as we all enjoyed ourselves. We then went and had a quick look at Convent Garden, before biding farewell to Tim and Mark who were returning to their respective homes, and taking the tube to Euston Station. En route, Danw bought a load of souveniers for everyone back home, and the girls got their very own "I heart London" hoodies, which they were very impressed with!

Once at Euston station, we realised that we had around half an hour to spare and so we went and got a burger king (pete and zoe a harry ramsdens). We then boarded the train and everyone fell asleep on the way home, were reality awaited us! Dawn and the kids drove back to Skem and me and Peter tidied up before falling asleep!

It was a great weekend, which hopefully the children, and my sister will remember for a very long time! I hope they return to London in the future and that it gives them the theatre bug! x