For the past few years we've a weekend in London to see Robin Ince's show, Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, but last year he decided it had run its course and would do something new, so we still got our weekend in London. Traveled down on Sunday morning on a very cheap First class Advance ticket, and went for a walk. Ended up at Covent Garden where we had a great lunch of a pint of lager, fish finger sandwiches and chips. Brill! Then we had a walk round the market, which is always decorated for Christmas
and this year had a Santa, sleigh and reindeers made from Lego!
As it was a Sunday , there weren't many shows on, but we managed to get tickets to an early performance of this:
The story of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. The only problem was, I'd bought tickets in the balcony by mistake - I thought I'd got circle tickets. We came in at the back, at the top of a very steeply raked balcony, had to walk down it to out seats at the front, and then have what to me looked like a sheer drop to the stage. I don't like heights!! Stuart went and got me a bucket of wine, which did make me feel a bit better. The show was great, and you don't realise how many hits the Four Seasons had until you hear them all.
After the show we wandered up through the west End, through Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square, and ended up back at the same pun where we'd had lunch for a proper pie for supper. One with pastry all round it. It does annoy me when you get a dish of stew with a circle of puff pastry on top and they have the cheek to call it a pie!!
The following morning we set off early to Bethnal Green, to the V and A Museum of Childhood. I'd never been before, and it is well worth a visit. A huge open space inside
with displays on two levels. It brought back so many memories - I even found Tressy dolls.Before the advent of Barby, most little girls had a Sindy doll, but I had a Tressy, who's hair grew if you pushed a button in her tunny!
We'd gone to see a Dolls House Exhibition which was really interesting. Old and new dolls houses, telling a story from the era in which they'd been built or decorated.
Then we got the tube to Tower Bridge, and walked across it to the South Bank - only at road level. My fear of heights wasn't up to me going up to the top deck, especially as part of the floor is now glass!
The walk down the South Bank is really interesting. You pass the Golden Hind
and some converted warehouses which are now posh shopping centres, and have to wind your way under some tunnels, and past old prisons. We got as far as Millenium Bridge, which gave us a lovely view of St Paul's in the sunset.
After a meal at an small Italian place near the hotel, it was our usual short walk to the Bloomsbury Theatre (one of the only theatres I've ever been in where you can get Eduroam...) to see Robin Ince and many friends in his Christmas Special - we saw The Ghost of Christmas Past which was the usual blend of science, comedy and music.
An interesting act was the rapper Baba Brinkman and his wife, neuroscientist Dr Heather Berlin, who talked about creativity, neuroscience and rapping, and Baba freestyle rapped some neuroscience!
Following morning we went to the National Portrait gallery - one of my favourite galleries in London, and saw an exhibition by Grayson Perry called Who Are You. i knew little of him, apart from he has an alternate persona which is a little girl called Claire, but I was bowled over by his exhibition. A huge tapestry about what was Britain - this is only a small part of it
and ceramic figures and his famous vases. All stunning.
Finally we had a walk round Trafalgar Square where living statues, most either Yoda or father Christmas, abounded, and I was glad the see the big blue cock still on the fourth plinth.
Then we picked up our cases and walked back to St Pancras in time for lunch in the Betjeman Arms.
