Party time in London

Lets blame it on work that this blog has not seen any updates for many weeks. About a month ago, one of my cousin called me to say that his daughter's birthday party was planned for the second weekend in november . Although London is only about 200 miles from Sheffield, we hardly go out to London, unless our presence is mandatory. We had not met them for over a year and so decided to make this trip and enjoy the party. This post is about an interesting day spent at London partying and lots of eating and generally having fun.
Me and Aditi left on Friday night for the capital city(Why Prashanth did not join us is another story).I was expecting Aditi to sleep after a long day, but I was terribly wrong for she was extremely excited. She was manageable for most part of the journey and spent the first 2 hours, chatting away to other passengers. We walked a bit and a trip to the cafe on the train was the best as she walked abt 4 compartments, stopped to talk to babies/children and others on the way. We landed in the newly built international rail station arnd 10:15pm. My cousin A, accompained by their family friend had come to pick us up. Aditi slept during the 45 minute ride on the BMW, where my cousin's wife B and her friends were waiting for us. It was past midnight when we all finally slept, tired after a long day and the journey to London.
Early next morning, around 5:30 am, I was woken up by giggles from the next room. Turned out that my cousin's child V was excited about the party and was giggling away with her friend, who had quietly slipped into bed beside her the previous night. I tried to help B in the kitchen the next morning, but Aditi kept me busy. B is a great cook, wonderful and yummy are her dishes always - one of the prime reasons why I decided to take the trip. We had rava idlis for breakfast, followed by spring rolls, aloo tikkis, rotis, palak panner, aloo matar sabzi, vegetable rice and peanut salad. I can sense mouths watering, but hold on - I had enough of them even on behalf of you.
Prashanth joined us just in time for lunch. He was not supposed to be working the previous night, but had swapped with a colleague many weeks earlier and had forgotten about it, until Monday. Hence he came over arnd noon on Saturday to London just in time for lunch. There were about 20 of us in all. Aditi enjoyed for a little while with the children, but was stuck to me like glue most of the time.
V was lovely as usual dressed in a cute Ballerina costume and playing and entertaining the others. After lunch ,there were lots of games, for children and the parents, and we had an enjoyable day. V cut the blackforest birthday cake and Aditi enjoyed the cake, eating every little piece that was on her plate. Some families left after the cake cutting and we enjoyed another round of games and had fun. This was followed by a round of tea and feeding Aditi her dinner and we left home arnd 7pm. Again A and his friend dropped us at the St.Pancreas international station, which was a good one hour drive from their home and we had a comfortable journey to Sheffield. The trip was a good change and all of us had a wonderful time at my cousin's place. Here are some pics to prove that.