London Walkabout

Our first day in London and after a week of perfect, warm weather today they were forecasting heavy showers.

So we thought we'd make the most of the dryness while we could and work our way, on foot, down to Covent Garden to meet some lovely friends of mine.

The map I had was naturally cut off at the street we needed to be on and having no internet access made me rely on my great sense of direction and my wits.  Both of which took us a little off track.... in fact we ended up nearly working our way back to the hotel.  But once a reliable map was consulted, and we reached somewhere that was recognisable, we were back on track.

I do so love a magical mystery tour.

This is our hotel in London, right near St Pancras Station, and this was one of lovely little streets we wandered down on our adventure.

We also passed some beautiful parks along the way.

Then we reached Covent Garden and met up with the lovely ladies I used to live with in London.  Birthday girl - Angela, Esther, their little boy, Josiah and Miss Danielle.  We had a fabulously extravagant homemade picnic in the garden's of the church.

No, Josiah's not a puppet, but he is dancing the Can Can to some classic musicians in the Covent Garden Market.

After lots more walking around, Jenny and I stopped off for a well earned Pimms  and a bit of people watching.

We dined at Jamie's Italian.... now I have a story about our dinner experience.  It involves loud diners.

So we were seated at a small table in the middle of two other small tables and from the  moment we sat down we were drawn into the conversation of the people to our left.  After much discussion we decided that they weren't dating because there were lots of questions about "Do you like that?" and "I usually do this." which lead us to believe that they either work together or were perhaps friends of mutual friend because they seemed to know some of the same people.  At first we thought that they were both Americans, although Jenny was sure the chap was Canadian.  We could tell he was from that part of the world because of the accent but also because he kept say "back in the States......" Every time he would say certain words - we'd lift our eyebrows and go back to the discussion of Canadian vs American.  She wasn't as loud as him so we had to really concentrate when she spoke.  It turns out that she was French.

Now, we learned that the chap was a physician of some sort because he talked - at length - about patients that come in with rashes..... yep, not your best diner conversation!

From the moment we sat down until the moment we left he did not stop talking (so loudly that it occasionally hurt my ears) about himself!

When people are that loud, I can't concentrate on my own conversation.  I just don't understand how people can't know that they are that loud.

When in London you must catch a show in the West End and our choice was 'Relative Virtues' which was showing at the Harold Pinter Theatre, but when we went to get tickets, the ticket selling chap told us that there was only limited viewing available.  When he showed us the seating plan, the restricted viewing was most of the theatre!  He said, "Yes, it's the worst theatre for restricted viewing."  Now, why, when the whole point of theatre is to see it, would you a) build a theatre & b) put on a play at said theatre where the majority of the audience can't see?

So, instead we went to the Savoy Theatre and saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was hilarious.