Out in London - Climbing the Shard, A Museum Skate & Diner at Circus

For Ashley's birthday this year I decided to surprise him with a trip to London.

Now we don't live that far from London so I needed to make a real day of it. I wanted it to be a surprise as I like surprises, but Ashley likes to see if he can guess everything which was very annoying.

I got to work planning, we had a "100 things to do after lockdown" poster bought for my birthday by my lovely friend Jo and so wanted to knock a few off the list in the process.

Somehow I managed to keep it a secret only telling Ashley's daughter. I had it all planned and written down, from the train there to which tube stations we had to go to between locations. I had to work out what to wear for the day as we had some activities planned and also a very posh dinner.

After a very lovely breakfast at a new local café we were all set for the days events.

First stop - The Shard at sunset

Neither of us had been to the shard before and I thought it would be nice to go at Sunset.

We got on the train direct to London Bridge station, by this time Ashley had worked out where we were going.

We had pre booked tickets for The Shard and a cocktail each.

It was a cold day so didn't stay outside on the upper deck for long, we managed to position ourselves by a window where we could look out over London and watch the sunset and all the lights of the city gradually light up the skyline.

Next - Ice Skating at the Natural History Museum

Next we hot-footed it across London on the tube to the Natural History Museum for Ashley's next surprise. This was a bit of a risky one for me as I wasn't entirely sure if Ashley would like ice-skating or not.

I love ice skating and this was the last year the Natural History Museum were going to have their ice skating rink.

Luckily Ashley was up for it.

Though after getting on the ice it was apparent that he was, let's say, not that confident on the ice.

It was a lovely evening skating under the big Christmas tree to the music.

I managed to hold him up for the full 45 minutes and neither of us fell on our bums.

Last stop - Circus

For our next and final stop we headed to Covent Garden to Circus. Now I first went Circus a few years ago for a work even and have been dying to come back ever since. Circus is a Japanese fusion fine dining restaurant which literally has the entertainment on your table.

I will do a full review of the restaurant separately as the food and entertainment are worthy of their own blog

CIRCUS| Restaurant and Cocktail bar in Covent Garden London (circus-london.co.uk) It is an amazing experience and I am so glad I got to go back again I was concerned how Covid may have change the way the acts were able to perform but it was just as spectacular as I remembered and the food was also just as on point. Definitely one to put on the special evenings out list.

All in all a lovely time out in London, Hopefully a good time had by all