This was the day that G had been looking forward to – our visit to the Harry Potter Studios.

We started with a Continental breakfast in the hotel club lounge, before grabbing a taxi to Euston station.  We easily caught the train to Watford Junction, which took around 15 minutes from memory.  It was then a few minutes wait for the shuttle bus to the studios, which were beautifully decorated for Christmas.

I am not such a Harry Potter fan as G and our children, but I did still enjoy the stories.  I wasn’t particularly looking forward to wasting a precious London day on this, but I really did enjoy it.  It was very well done and a fun day all around.

We grabbed a very basic lunch in the cafeteria at the Studios, and G tried a butterbeer.  I had a white wine instead.  We caught the shuttle back to the station and the train back to Euston.

Seeing as we were so close, we popped into The British Library.  We both really, really enjoyed this, especially seeing the Magna Carta as well as other treasures such as originally written Beatles lyrics and much more.

I was still suffering from a scratchy throat, but we decided to head for Oxford Street as I was looking for a more attractive warm coat in the sales.  Oxford Street was a total madhouse.  We went straight to Primark, where they had the exact type of coat that I wanted, but sadly not in my size.  We wandered through a few other stores, but couldn’t find anything that fitted that I liked in my price range.  We decided to concentrate on the amazing Christmas lights of Oxford and Regent Street before heading back to the hotel to meet S and L.

Catching the tube at Oxford Street station on a Friday evening after work was an experience – I have never seen such crowds.  We stopped for a quick drink in a nice pub near Trafalgar Square before getting the bus back to Apex Temple Court.

By the time we met S and L in the club lounge, I was starting to lose my voice.  We had a couple of glasses of wine and wandered down Fleet Street to Cote Brasserie where I ate Beef Bourgignon followed by Crème Brulee.  It was really very good, and had ample vegetarian options for L, all at a reasonable price.