The weather has turned back to its normal self raining, just when we wanted to go cycling for the day to save our legs from all the walking we did yesterday. Gave up on the idea of cycling round London after Richard checked online the London Santander Cycle Hire, which we thought was £2.00 for 24hours but it wasn’t. You had to dock the bike every hour at one of their sites in London and where we wanted to go they were too far away.

The decision was made for a leisurely walk round St James Park not far from the Hotel after we had another naughty buffet breakfast, which we shouldn’t get used too. Not many tourists around seeing it was forecasted for rain, we were prepared with our weatherproof jackets on as we strolled by Trafalgar Square across The Mall to St James Park which includes The Mall, Horse Guards Parade and is surrounded by landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Whitehall.

To think in the middle of London you can find a beautiful impressive peaceful park, a real pleasure to stroll through soaking up all the surroundings. The manicured coloured gardens, a variety of birds, ducks and swans wandering freely round the St James Lake and through the park, not to mention the pigeons and squirrels.

The Blue Bridge crossing over in the middle of the lake offers spectacular views across St James's Park Lake to Buckingham Palace to the west and Horse Guards Parade, Big Ben and the London Eye towards the east. You can see Duck Island a nature reserve for St James's Park bird collection located next to Duck Island Cottage and the much-loved current residents Louis, Vaclav and Gargi basking on their favourite rocks near Horse Guards Parade end of the park. The pelicans were first introduced to the park in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador, over 40 pelicans have since made the park home.

We could hear a band playing from the direction of the palace and we quickly raced up there to watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace a ceremony where the Old Guard hands over responsibility for protecting Buckingham Palace and St. James's Palace to the New Guard. The ceremony begins on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace at 11:00 sharp following a march by a detachment of the Old Guard, with musical support, from St James's Palace and the New Guard led by a Regimental Band from Wellington Barracks. A really fantastic spectacle to watch, but we were too late for the ceremony of the Horse Guards Parade and the Horse Guards riding up The Mall to Buckingham Palace.

Time for a coffee break at our favourite Pret A Manger before walking along Regent Street window shopping, lots of expensive stores like New Bond Street, then round the street near Piccadilly Circus, through Soho and Chinatown back to the hotel for a late lunch at Pret A Manger down the corner and then Richard needed a rest for his back.

Checked out sites on the internet for shipping excess baggage overseas and will phone tomorrow at Margo’s for quotes to pickup and ship. Relaxed and watched a young soppy Sherlock Holmes movie before against better judgement in having a Macdonald’s meal, don’t feel like Chinese seeing we will be spending three days in Singapore.

Early night in preparation of a big day at Margo’s tomorrow before leaving the UK on Wednesday.