Globe thrown into chaos as Andos DON'T drop the ball (Sun 18)

Apparently the term "on the ball" refers to the role of the English seaman sent up the ship's mast on the nearby Thames River to watch for the ball dropping from the top of the Greenwich Observatory at 1pm. This was needed in order to set the onboard Greeenwich chronometer so they could subsequently measure longitude. At the Observatory, we were told that the ball has dropped at this time every day for a couple of hundred years*. Not today ... it went up and with Andos duly videoing it, it went down ... maybe ... just a tiny, tiny bit. We listened to alarms sounding and watched people running over the next 30minutes. Fortunately we are on holidays, but we feel for our family and friends who must have not been woken by bedside alarms or missed appointments over the ensuing 24 hours as the global time check was missed. On our honour - we didn't touch the thing.

At the observatory we also stood on both sides of the zero longitude line, but were shocked to find the iphone GPS was out by 6seconds. Almost threw it away. Nearby we also saw the largest painted room in England and spent some enjoyable time exploring the Cutty Sark, the fastest clipper of her day. She set records for hauling tea from China and wool from Oz.

All Anderson girls like to revisit places they have been - but as Meg acknowledges, none more so than her at the moment. We returned to the mega toy store Hamleys to explore ... and again took a picture of Meg and Michael with Hamley types at the entrance. Hillsong West End; the cool Korean BBQ restaurant near our apartment; and bed. 

Squirrel count in England is sitting uncomfortably at zero, but we did see one with a mohawk in Granada. We see absolutely no reason to panic at this stage. 

* We were subsequently told it happens every couple of years.