April showers bring May flowers?

Well, so far that old adage has been wrong...or the early April showers have brought late April flowers :).

What I'm trying to say is that the weather in London over the past little while has been absolutely gorgeous. It started last weekend, with sunshine and lovely breezes. In an effort to take advantage of the weather, a friend and I went on a picnic in St James' Park on Sunday. After picking up some food in Victoria, we walked up Buckingham Palace Road, through the gates outside the palace, and I paused to take these pictures:

Then, reaching the park itself, we sat down on a grassy hill overlooking the pond with our backs to Pall Mall and ate, chatting and watching the squirrels, birds, children and tourists roam around :D.

Our afternoon continued with a walk through the Horse Guards' Parade, up Whitehall, to a Starbucks close to Embankment, where we sat and enjoyed some drinks. Then we walked to the river and along its North bank (where we were asked by a tourist if he could take a picture with us O_O), then sat on a bench just East of Cleopatra's Needle. We finally walked back to Covent Garden, did some shopping, then headed for home.

What a lovely day :).

I went back to work this past Monday after 2 weeks off for Easter holidays and was pleasantly surprised that the week was fairly stress-free. Some of the younger kids (Years 3-4) were away on an overnight trip, so their teachers decided there was no point in doing any lessons and designated it a "fun" week instead. I spent half of my week, therefore, doing things like planting seeds, making miniature gardens, painting, making collages, and taking kids out to the park just outside the school to swing and play football. Despite still having to teach in Years 5-6, doing nothing in the Year 3 and 4 classes was pretty great! :D

It's back to normal this week though, so that's the end of that. Still, half-term is looming (last week of May!), so it's not all bad news!

As for fun things that are planned for the near future, I'm going to see the Royal Ballet dance Giselle on Friday and I think Justin and I are going to Oxford the second week of May to be annoying tourists for a change, instead of the ones grumbling about them :).

Yay for spring!