October

October had been particularly busy month at Totteridge Manor with several visitors to our countryside estate, errr... I mean, top floor apartment. First in the lineup was my sister who came over for a 2 week tour of London and Rome. We found a little corner for her in the West wing of the apartment, with a northerly facing window and sweeping views of the main road below. As a well travelled visitor to London, we pretty much left her to her own during the day and met up in the evenings for dinner and tales of the day's events. On her last night in London, we all went out to the local Restaurant and Grill (La Rotisserie) which served up one of the best meals that I've had in London in a long time.

Next up was SL's uncle who was over for a series of meetings associated with his work - held in a small tour just outside of London. He came over a few days earlier and stayed with us. As it was only his second time in London, we had the pleasure of touring him around to all touristy sites in London, including Tower Bridge, Greenwich, London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street, Chinatown, Soho (to mention a few) and a trip to the local outlet mall and a day trip to Oxford. He's quite the photographer so really enjoyed all the historic sites and all the varied photo opportunities.

The last group was SL's sisters who came down for PL's birthday celebrations. There were three in total, including SL's two sisters and her sister's fiancee. They all slept in the West Wing which was a bit of a tight squeeze, but in very cozy. For part of the clebrations, SL organized a trip out to play outdoor Lasertag. SL had invited one of her old housemates along, MW. MW had one of those HTC phones (they're amazing!) with built in GPS navigation with voice direction. Despite this, SL managed to get her self lost and we had to make several U-turns to get back on track!! Despite the bad weather on the day, everyone had a great time and was exhausted after 4 hours of running around shooting at each other. We invited everyone back to the Manor for dinner and some cocktails and watched Top Gear until the wee hours of the evening.