This is a photo of the daily exercising of one of the Queens Regiments.
Sitting having breakfast at Hyde Park House overlooking Hyde Park the view is wonderful. We are here in London from 05/05/2012 until Monday 14/05/2012 to compete in the Cumberland Cup Teams Racing event. This is an invitation only event to all Royal (or equivalent) yacht clubs using two team boats (J80's) and we compete against 7 other teams. We arrived yesterday (midday'ish) from Perth via Dubai on Emirates Airways. Great flight, and flying the A380 was magnificent; such a magnificent aircraft. Walked around Knightsbridge yesterday afternoon. Had to go into Harrods and have a look around, which was great - damn busy with all sorts of people. Had coffee just outside Harrods watching all the luxury cars (with & without chauffeurs) pull up and park outside.
We then wandered down Knightsbridge and did some window shopping, and Vera bought her first item of clothing (leather jacket) for an extremely good price. Vera is very happy with me as she said I was the one that made her decide on buying the jacket; otherwise she would have just left it - good parchase. We and had an early meal and pint at a corner pub just on Knightsbridge.
We then went for a late afternoon walk around Hyde Park - magificent park, and came back and wandered through the eastern end of Knightsbridge looking at all the luxury cars, little terrace houses that have been turned into luxury residences - very, very high priced. One note is that their are a huge amount of Balkan's (Russian, Ukrainian, etc), and a hell of a lot of money.
Today we are going for a Big Bus Tour of London, and make our way to Ocean Leisure Chandlery to pick up a couple of things and have a look at what boating items I would like but probably wont get. We will then probably hire a bike in Hyde Park and have a ride around the area.
When we finish here we will be head over to France via Eurostar for a week; with a few days in the SE of France (Burgundy) at our fellow RPYC club members hotel that is being renovated (Lechatelet), and then back to Paris for a few days. Then we are off to Croatia; Dubrovnik for a couple of days and then off to Split where we pick up a Junneau Sun Odyssey 36i charter boat for a week. Then back to Split and Dubrovnik for a night each before we head off to Greece for a week and a half. We arrive in Thessaloniki, Greece, and then head west over to the Prespes region to see Vera's Mum's village for 2 nights. Then we drive down to the island of Lefkada in the SW for 2 nights, and drive over to Athens for about a week. Then back home via Dubai again.
I will attempt to Blog as often as possible while we are away to keep family and friends updated.
Today was also the annual SS34 Association Commodores Race at Fremantle Sailing Club. Because we are away I had Phil Somerville-Ryan and Murray Gardiner sail the boat down for the race. They should be finished soon, so I will message them shortly to see how they went.