Buckingham Palace and Parliament Square ... end of a lovely day

A poignant sign at the Parliament Square protests

The final leg of our big day out in London took us on a tube from Kensington to Green Park, a walk through the park spotting and naming trees, walnuts, chestnuts, squirrels and excited chatter as we approached Buckingham Palace. Alex was just explaining that if the flag is flying, then the Queen is in residence ... and as we arrived we saw the flag was indeed flying. Imogen spotted a room with a light on and declared that the Queen must be in that room as the light was on, she was probably reading a book!

on the Tube

at the Palace

watching the guards

A little more rain but nothing to stop the enjoyment of walking around, or even running around the Victoria Memorial opposite. Imogen watched the Guards with great interest, especially the marching and wanted to see them up close to see their "grumpy" faces (as we'd explained they don't smile or move much as they concentrate hard). Pictures taken, we decided to walk through St James Park to Westminster and onto Parliament Square. Imogen decided she was going to be one of the guards and started her own style of marching, maybe a little more like Monty Python than the palace guards though - see below ...
... it made us all smile and laugh.

We saw what remained of the Parliament Square protestors, mostly signs about Iraq, Afghanistan and was and troops in general. There was also this sign which gives food for thought.

Parliament Square

Big Ben in the glorious light of the sunset

We arrived at Westminster around 7.30pm and the light was just wonderful as it reflected off Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament. Imogen was excited to be at Big Ben for the chimes at 8pm (usually one little girls bedtime but still a few hours travel from home). Lots of photographs taken - Big Ben looking glorious in the glowing sunset, and photos of the parliament square protesters.

Look, it's my bedtime
... and I'm wide awake and a long way from my bed!

Over the bridge, back to the train station

A walk across Westminster Bridge, past the London Eye, and onto Waterloo for a much needed coffee before catching the train home again.

at the coffee shop