Earlier this week, a day trip to London was set off for – and began after 2 hours on a very crowded train: we got off at Euston station in London…

…and there were Terry’s mint chocolate oranges advertised everywhere, it was like a compressed airport terminal due to the numbers of people, and I forgot what else I saw on sale; but open flat makeup bags were advertised, and it got even more compressed as an escalator wasn’t working, so a couple of spiral staircases had to be walked down amidst a mass of people. Next, we got on a tube train that was horrendously loud and a bit gusty (meaning I was extremely thankful I’d brought a hairbrush) and had Douston ceramic water filter systems advertised on it…

…armed police officers were by the carriage gates, a big statue of Oliver Cromwell with a massive lion in front of him was in Parliament Square, and we went into the parliament building for the charity event we’d travelled for through the Cromwell Green entrance: we were given visitor lanyards (and I could hear bagpipes somewhere), joined a queue down a metal ramp, Big Ben did it’s quarter of an hour chiming at 1.30pm, police officers in bullet proof vests and armed with guns were around there as well, and the grass to the side of this ramp was mowed into stripes. Inside, metal detectors had to be walked through, bags went through airport security scanners, I had to be felt up by a human staff member due to setting off a scanner, badges were given to all of us entering; and I heard some Japanese accents amongst visitors.

The visitor badges were worn by everyone in there, things were rather packed by the toilets and gift shop, a man was walking around with a foldable walking stick; and the shop had Christmas baubles, chiming Big Ben soft toys, all sorts of rubber ducks (including Big Ben ducks and suffragette ducks), Christmas puddings, House of Lords teddy bears, London stacking games, Attlee the cat soft toys (with an explanation of why they had that name) and lots of stuff I forgot (and then remembered golf balls) in an extremely small place; and there were lots of armed security guards on the way through Westminster Hall. Plaques on the stone stairs were about Queen Elizabeth, then there were lots of plaques I forgot, and statues were in a corridor towards the Parliamentary lobby – of men including William Pitt, William Murray, and Charles James Fox.

By 2.15pm we were sat in a room (which Mum thought was called ‘The Strangers Dining Room), and 3 minutes later a lady started talking (from a plinth with a microphone), told us all the schedule, and a short video of an the chief executive of the charity talking about the charity’s 75th Birthday was played on 4 TV screens. Someone then told us all about children in Afghanistan, and Herat earthquakes (in 2023) and Kunar earthquakes this year, pictures of a punctured tyre of a metal truck were shown, he read out something I forgot, and then a man from Ghana was introduced: he talked about food shortages, droughts, and bushfires, praying that you would see tomorrow, and that he had made himself proud. At 3pm the room was left, and someone started talking to us in the next 1 (called Pugins Room – which had a ginormous chandelier dangling from the ceiling), tiny dishes of rather spicy salad were available for consumption, tiny cones of fish and chips and tiny bowls of steak and chips appeared, and wine and what may’ve been champagne were in glasses; Mum started chatting to a very thin woman; the room was really noisy when a sort of pudding substance got brought in, and I stood by a table and consumed a dish. I chatted to a lady who I think said she was from Nigeria; and presentations restarted just before 4pm: I couldn’t remember if the lady speaking was the same one as earlier (I was later told that she was), a bloke was sat at a table at the back of the room with a laptop (and seemed to be controlling the slideshow being shown on the 4 screens erected on poles in the room), she said stuff about a medical centre, armbands that measure if a child is malnourished, a latrine block in a school, household clusters, a closing ceremony in Uganda – and a video of school kids in Uganda singing was played. Then the global director of emergency communications got up and talked about the Democratic Republic of Congo, about child friendly spaces in Ukraine, the hurricane that’s hit Haiti, and he mentioned a super typhoon currently in the Philippines. The lady returned and thanked everyone, and told us all to collect a small present from them before leaving, she was applauded; and that was it – and leaving involved handing in lanyards and going through metal turnstiles.

It was getting dark outside, Big Ben chimed 4.45pm, the cranes everywhere were lighting up, a building with ‘Munich Cricket Club’ on it was just off Victoria Street, a Christmas tree was up somewhere I forgot, a shop said ‘les freaks c’est chic’ in the window; and back in Victoria Station was a busking pitch and a lady seemed to be begging by a wall. A massive advert (for some sort of drink) down in the tube said ‘SLOSH IT’, and we got on a bumpy and squashed Victoria Line train, where Mum had a seat donated to her, and a robot was saying the Metropolitan Line was part suspended and telling people which side of the train the doors would open on. We got off at 5.17pm at Euston, Europe’s largest screampark was advertised on a poster by the platform, Mum did something I forgot because a board was looked at for trains to Manchester, 1 was spotted, and it moved at 5.39pm with us on it – and home was eventually returned to about 2 hours later.