We didn’t fly halfway across the world to sleep, so we were up bright and early on New Year’s Day to make the most of our last day in London.

The friends we were staying with live near Hyde Park, so we took a morning stroll amongst all the joggers with their new years resolutions.

The main attraction for the day was the Victoria & Albert Museum, which I’d been really looking forward to. Its focus is mainly on design/applied art (such as furniture, architecture, textiles, ceramics and fashion) so it’s right up my alley.

The one thing I was most eager to see was the collection of the Arts & Crafts Movement.

It was closed.

Devastated, we consoled ourselves with lunch in one of the tea rooms designed by William Morris.

For a change of pace, we headed to Lord’s Cricket Ground. I haven’t the slightest interest in cricket (not very Aussie am I?) nor in any sport to be honest.

But The Man does put up with an awful lot of my gallery-hopping so what’s a good wife to do but take photos while our tour guide is regaling us with two centuries of cricket trivia.

We then made our way to the Camden Markets. Sorry, my arms were too full of shopping bags to take any photos.

London has so many amazing shops I would have loved to explore, but we did more of the touristy stuff so there wasn’t a lot of time left for window shopping.

One must-see that we had to squeeze in though was a visit to Liberty of London. They had these simple-yet-effective festive garlands and fairy lights in the multi-storey central atrium. Pretty huh?

Goodnight London!