Surprise trip to London to see Freddie!

 Hello my loyal cult followers, i mean blog readers, sorry, slip of the tongue there.

This is a little surprise update for you all of a little surprise trip i planned for Sian so she could see the last of Freddie Mercury's personal items. I booked our tickets on the Wednesday to travel up on the Sunday.

We've visited Queen's recording studio, Freddie's Penthouse suite and his home The Duck House, we've also sat on Freddie's boat launch on lake Geneva all in Montreux. We've visited his home Garden Lodge and we've visited the cemetery where his funeral service was held with his supposed resting place in a remembrance garden all in London, then this year we visited his coffee shop he used every morning and the club where he had his famous 39th birthday party both in Munich . So we really didn't have anything left to see or do with regards to Freddie Mercury apart from his personal collection that only became available this month due to Mary Austin (His first and only true love) deciding to auction off almost all of Freddie's personal possessions from Garden Lodge with all proceeds to go to charities. In hearing this i booked us tickets for a day trip to London just to go to Sotheby's to view all his worldly goods that were on show as a surprise for Sian as Sian is a huge, huge fan.

We set off from Cardiff at 4.50am (We were so tired) with reserved front row seats so lots of space, the journey up was stress free and peaceful which is what we like.

Arrived in London at 8.20am. Out come our Oyster transport cards and off we go to New Bond Street to find out where Sotheby's exactly was ready for opening time at midday, we got there at 9am and never seen London underground or it's streets so deathly quiet, it was like when we arrived back in to London from Canada in March 2020 and Covid lockdown was just about to start, it was so weird.

We find Sotheby's, how could you miss it with a huge Freddie moustache above the entrance.

We were the first people on the street and a builder told us we should get there early as the queue every day gets to be around 2 miles long around the block, that's crazy, how long must the wait be? So we pop around the corner to a coffee shop and have a latte and go back at 10am. When we got there 8 people were already in the queue and one gent who was 6th in line had been there the day before but arrived at opening time and didn't get to go in as the queue was that long and opening time is only 5 hours, we were 9th and 10th in line 2 hours before doors open. 2 ladies in front of us, 7th & 8th in line wanted to go for a coffee and to use the toilet about 10.30am so the gent in front of them, 6th in line, told them he would keep their place, very kind of him.

At 11am i took a pic of the queue that was already the length of Bond Street and had turned the corner.

15 minutes to go before doors open and i notice the women have not come back yet and the guy who had been the day before and not got in and was 6th in line had gone, i can only assume to use the toilet somewhere BUT Sotheby's opened the doors early and the first 5 at the front of the queue were looking for the guy as they wanted him to get in but unfortunately he nor the women appeared and the door staff would not let the people hold up the line so all 3 missed their place, that must have been gutting losing your place after 2 hours of queueing.

Anyway, due to people needing to use the toilets at the entrance and having bags checked and put in cloak room Sian and i were the first in so had the whole exhibition to ourselves which was in numerous rooms and over 2 floors. I have to say it was quite overwhelming as there was just so much to see, it was the entire contents of his house and his outfits apart from his bed that he actually died in, his live aid outfit and his iconic yellow leather with white tracksuit bottoms with red and gold stripes, those were the only 3 things not in the auction. We pretty much glossed over quite a bit as we're not really in to cats, fine art, antiques and Japanese culture items but we took pictures of so many things, so now i'll show you just a few that we were interested in:-

Freddie's grand piano that he wrote most of Queen's hits on including Bohemian Rhapsody expected to fetch £3 million.

The first rough drawings for Queens iconic logo.

Freddie's outfit from the Bohemian Rhapsody music video.

Freddie's end of concert crown and gown.

The Brit award from Freddie's final public appearance.

And Freddie's final video outfit for "These are the days of our lives"

And there's more......

Freddie's Barcelona outfit

Freddie's adidas boxing trainers from live aid

Freddie's monogrammed shower door

The original door from Garden Lodge after his death

The iconic mic stand

And finally Freddie's personal direct internal phone to Mary Austin's apartment within Garden Lodge

There was just so much pages upon pages of lyrics and notes, rows and rows of clothes and furniture everywhere due to Garden Lodge having so many rooms. I would take me so long to post all the pics and then descriptions that i would just get bored doing it, there were literally thousands of items from very small cat figurines to 2 grand pianos, whatever wasn't nailed down in that lodge went from there to Sotheby's.

If it wasn't for Mary Austin no one would have ever got to see these amazing items all in one place. Just as a little side note, we're looking at a few items ourselves to place bids on as there are a few things we'd like that at the moment are within our bidding range but i'm sure once they go live in Sotheby's from 5th Sept they'll sell well out of our reach but fingers crossed also as another little surprise to finish it all off for Sian at the end of the exhibition there is a book shop with a large hardback copy of the auction catalogue which i bought for Sian as a keep sake.

So it's now 1pm, yes it took us at least an hour to view the items we saw and we didn't even look in detail at allot of it.

Sunny hot day, we thinks its time for drinks. First to a place we liked when we stayed at St. James Park , The Old Star, a relaxed pint here then Sian suggested our downfall place Hard Rock.

This would have got messy if it wasn't for the fact we were traveling back the same night so only the 2 today and no shots, BOOoooooooooo!

And finally we make our way to the pub by the coach station for some food at The Traveller Tavern.

It's 6.15pm, it's been a very long day and it's time to make our way to our coach that leaves at 6.30pm. No rush to queue as our front seats are reserved.........someone is in our seats.........we show the coach driver our ticket and he states "National Express are always doing this they double book the reserved seats" Agggghhhhhhh! That doesn't help me does it, i paid extra for these. I keep my usual calm head and then a supervisor comes over "it's first come first served if double booked, what do you want me to do, kick them out of their seats for you. It's either get on this coach or wait for next one" Anger building, clothes tighten, blood coursing through veins, pupils dilate, muscles on neck pop......calm Kev calm, you don't need this, you can get a refund and complain later. We get on bus and the only 2 seats left are opposite the toilet...Anger building, clothes tighten, blood coursing through veins, pupils dilate, muscles on neck pop......calm Kev calm, you don't need this, you can get a refund and complain later. We sit down then a manager gets on the bus to talk to me and tells me to contact for a refund, no apology or explanation what so ever.......Anger building, clothes tighten, blood coursing through veins, pupils dilate, muscles on neck pop......calm Kev calm, you don't need this, you can get a refund and complain later.

We're tired, we've had a great day so lets just get home and forget about the journey home.....if only it was as easy as that........

The journey would take in total 3 hours 15 mins. The reason for us now taking coaches instead of trains is we don't trust the trains with the strikes. We can get refund for the trains but we wouldn't get refunds for hotels, restaurant bookings, tours, concerts etc so we've had to use coaches.

One hour in to the journey a child of about 4 sitting 3 rows down on the opposite side with it's mother starts to sing and sing and sing for 2 whole hours. "la la la, do, do, do", "The wheels on the bus goes round and round", "Lets all go to sleep, sleep, sleep, ha, ha, ha, ho, ho ,ho" "we, wa, we, wa, we, wa" and it went on and on and without a break, just utter nonsense and in that horrible childish tone, i swear. To add to that it's mother, yes it, gave it an empty bottle to bash about like a crocodile in a death role with a body and it's mother said nothing, 2 whole hours, i kid you not and this was what was going on in my head........"You dopey disrespectful idiot of a parent, get that f**king child to give it a rest, take that sodding bottle of it, tell it that they are disturbing others and to pipe the f**k down, sit nicely or the man with the popping neck veins will put them in the over head baggage storage", unfortunately my telepathic powers were of no use but it's not just children that are the problem......sitting one row down from us on the opposite side of the coach was a guy from the eastern bloke who was constantly on the phone, he was talking loud for almost the whole duration of the journey in his home dialect. This is a pet hate of mine anywhere, people talking on phones around me......if i had had a plastic costas spoon with me at that point i would either have stabbed myself in the ears so i wouldn't have to listen to him anymore or stab the guys phone until it was in a million little pieces and added "Now talk on it you disrespectful t**t" and not only that there was a guy unrelated to him sat in the seat next to him that had to put up with it constantly......also there was someone sat behind us listening to songs without headphones sang in a 1930's style but present day songs which the songs themselves are shit, what the hell is wrong with these people .....and the topping on the shit stuffed cake because i was sat opposite the toilet people thought i was the toilet monitor "Is there someone in there?", "Is it locked?", "Is it out of order?" , "I can't open the door, how do you open it?" HAVE I GOT "TOILETS R US" TATTOOED ON MY FOREHEAD? NO! USE THAT GREY MATTER BETWEEN THAT THICK SKULL OF YOURS AND JUST SLIDE THE DOOR OPEN, AGGGGHHHHHHH, THE WORLD IS FULL OF BRAINLESS IDIOTS THESE DAYS!

Anywhooooo we had an amazing day up until the journey home, would i do a day trip to London again.....for a special reason yes, just for a visit definitely not.

So there you go, an unexpected updated but an update none the less.......

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!