LONDON TRIP (competition win)
Monday 21 March 2005
Caught
the 10.15am British Airways plane to Heathrow and then took the very
overcrowded tube to Hyde Park Corner. Wheeled our luggage to the Dorchester and
checked in.
One of the receptionists booked us in and showed us to our
beautiful room and explained about all the facilities.
We unpacked and went for
a stroll. Had soup and a roll in a nearby café. We then changed and set off for
our pre-dinner cocktails at Vertigo. Eventually found it and were seated
overlooking Tower Bridge. We had a great view from the 42nd floor.
We ordered a bottle of wine and I had a cognac and champagne cocktail. This
took up £42 of our £50 allowance. We enjoyed watching it get dark and all the
lights of London coming on.
At 7.15pm we made our way to The Hakkasan Chinese
restaurant. It was very dark inside. We both ordered soup but mine took ages to
come. We then shared lemon chicken and chicken satay with fried rice – very
nice. I then had a Bailey’s ice-cream dessert and a coffee liqueur. We had a
bottle of wine with our meal and 2 bottles of water (£4.50 each!). We then
finished off the night with a bottle of wine between us up at the bar watching
all the waiters mixing cocktails. We spent £142 of our £150 allowance. We then
headed back to our hotel and discovered that the bed had been turned down, our
slippers placed on a little white mat at either side of the bed and classical
music playing.
Tuesday 22 March
Struggled
out of bed and made our way down to the breakfast room. We were seated side by side
and felt like the king and queen in the grandeur of the room. We had fruit
juice – skipped the cereals and had the full English breakfast with tea, toast
and jam. We then set off to meet our tour guide at Borough Market. His name was
Tony and he showed us round not only the market but Southwark Cathedral, The
Clink Prison, the replica of the Golden Hind and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
We then met up with Steve (who had organised the itinerary for us) in a
Starbucks coffee house, where he handed over our £200 gift voucher for Fortnum
& Mason. We then went to Vinopolis (wine tasting) at 12 noon and had 5 wine
tastings plus a Bombay Sapphire Dry Gin cocktail.
Then it was off to the Ritz
for afternoon tea at 1.30pm. The Ritz was absolutely beautiful and if we hadn’t
eaten a breakfast and tasted so much wine we would have polished off all the
sandwiches, scones and cakes – they were delicious.
We then met up with Jim’s
old boss who works in London and Kathy from my competition website. We had a
good old blether in a pub for a couple of hours
and then it was time to go to
the Savoy for our dinner. We felt a bit out of place there as we couldn’t even
find soup on the menu. It was called compote!! I skipped the first course but
Jim ordered soup which had 2 quails eggs in it – he felt like he was on I’m A
Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here doing a Bushtucker Trial!! In between each course
the waitress kept bringing us extras from the chef to taste or to refresh our
palates! We both had Aberdeen Angus fillet of beef, which was delicious and
then I had some kind of ice-cream for dessert. We finished off with half a
bottle of wine and a coffee in the lounge and used up all of our £150
allowance.
Wednesday 23 March
Had
another full English breakfast (could hardly eat it as we were still full from
the night before).
We then dashed along to Fortnum & Mason to spend our
gift voucher. Had a great time choosing everything and managed to spend exactly
£193 (£7 delivery charge). We then hurried back to The Dorchester to check out
before 12 noon. We then made our way to the tube station to go to Heathrow.
Caught the 2.50pm plane back to Edinburgh totally EXHAUSTED!!!!