Five Countries Four Marlboroughs: First Day in London

We arrived into Heathrow and our transfer was waiting so off we headed straight to our apartment. I'd booked an apartment through Airbnb and couldn't wait to get there for a hot shower. We collected the keys from a neighbour, climbed - no, maybe clambered is a better word - up the three long staircases to the top floor apartment, opened the door and....stood there in shock. Surely this wasn't the apartment? The photos on the website showed a much, MUCH bigger apartment with new hot pink lounge. This looked like a teenage retreat - except my teenagers weren't into it one bit. We all agreed it was just terrible. 'I feel sorry for people that have to live like this' was Will's only comment. James agreed, 'it's just so small' The apartment was also hot and stuffy, we all needed air. We finally worked out how to open the windows and we sat down, looked around and contemplated leaving.

We decided we'd head out instead - to somewhere, anywhere - and found ourselves at the Ladbroke Grove tube station. We found out the tube won't be running from this station all weekend - oh man, we just couldn't cut a trick! Deciding to head to Harrods in Knightbridge, we found ourselves in the food hall. Everything looked amazing and we found it hard to choose what to buy.

We then went to our local Tesco and picked up a few groceries. Maybe it was because we were all tired, but the neighbourhood was dirty, there's so much litter and garbage on the streets - everything seemed gloomy and certainly not like the movie Notting Hill!

We all couldn't wait to get into bed - hoping everything would seem much better and brighter in the morning after a good nights sleep!