The travels of Tim and Megan: Tour de France and paddle boats

Saturday was the first day for a long time that felt like summer -it was sunny for most of the day and must have even broken 20 degrees! After some time at the gym and a spot of shopping, we met up with Anna and Guy to watch the Tour de France prologue. This happened to go down Victoria Street, about 200m from our front door, one of the bonuses of living in the same 'hood as the Queen I guess.

There was a pretty big crowd for the prologue although at least three-quarters of them were police and security guards. In true English style, they were standing around taking up space and issuing nonsensical orders -we got told to hurry up and slow down within 20 seconds by two different officers patrolling the bridges over the course. We watched the start from just outside Buckingham Palace on Constitution Hill (which isn't even a hill (or a constitution)) and then we moved through to St James' Park and watched some more on a big screen right next to the finish line. The cyclists were amazingly fast but all that energy made us a bit sleepy in the end, so we decided it was time for a drink.

Since the smoking laws have now come into force (woohoo!) we finally made it over the threshold of another local, the Barley Mow, which had previously scared us away with its overpowering stench. However, the pollutants are now forced outside and it turned out to be pretty cool, other than the useless service from the vacant barmaid. Back at the flat, we had a glass of bubbles for Margaret and Tony who were married in NZ on Saturday - sorry we couldn't be there! Then we had dinner in yet another pub, the Bag o' Nails, which got an A+. Very nice.

Sunday was even better, more sun and warm temperatures. Londoners are astounded by this good fortune - it is all they are talking about today (Monday) at work. Anyway, we headed for Hyde Park to try out the paddle boats in the Serpentine. Having spent half an hour in a Hyde Park paddle boat, we now consider ourselves experts on the subject, so some tips for any fans who might want to give a crack in the future. Fast and furious paddling will lose you speed - maximum speed is gained with about three-quarter strength paddling - and you can do much better donuts with little to no paddling. Our first donut attempt with fast paddling took a little over a minute, not very impressive. Important tips because once the novelty wears off after 5 mins you will inevitably turn to attempting to outgun others/run over ducks to use up the next 25mins and you will not want to be left embarrassed by others (read: small children)/ducks.

In the afternoon, we made some chocolate dipped strawberries to accompany the Wimbledon mens' final on TV. In the blue corner we had the 4 times defending champion and world number 1 Roger Federer, supported by Tim, and in the red corner we had the world number 2 and king of clay and biceps, Rafael Nadal, supported by Megan. It turned out to be one of the greatest tennis matches we had ever seen, with Federer eventually beating Nadal to win his 5th consecutive Wimbledon final, Tim attempted to be humble in his victory...

We then met up with Jackie and Simon (Jackie and Megan have been friends since school) for a few drinks and dinner at a good old Wetherspoons pub. They had to dash off to Heathrow to pick up some poor soul who had somehow spent 36 hours getting from NZ to London and we strolled home, reflecting on another great weekend in London, long live the sunshine!