I've said it before and I'll say it again; I am completely perplexed by the fact that a nation that once controlled a third of the planet cannot organise itself on a pavement. Americans are damned good at keeping right; Australians have a reasonable handle on keeping left; but the British, with narrower pavements than either, are like ping pong balls in a bloody clothes dryer - especially when they have an iDildo stuck up against their ear and a cigarette, electronic or otherwise, shoved in their mouth. But it doesn't stop on the pavement. We were very nearly run down by a motor scooter with a pillion passenger just metres from our flat the other day. He cut to the wrong side of the road at a corner we were crossing then tried to go between me and the curb, a space of less than a metre, and did so as speed. The air in Bloomsbury turned quite blue for a short while when I let fly with some very loud F&Cs and I wasn't talking about fish and chips!
We saw The Book of Mormon when we're here last time and couldn't help but go again. It was just as good with a few fun little change thanks to the new slightly cheekier Elder Cunningham. Apart from being a superb and extremely witty parody of Mormonism it simply makes you feel happy. The problem is that just like last time I am walking around singing tunes from the show or sometimes lines pop out of my mouth for no reason as if I have acquired Tourette's Syndrome. People looked at me quite oddly in the Prepared Meals aisle at Waitrose yesterday when I announced that "A clitoris is holy amongst all things!"
When we visited the London Transport Museum at Covent Garden I was expecting a little more for £15 entry but we can go back as many time as we want for the next year. Even if that was practical it would be unlikely given the number of school groups in there, all of them K-2. It was a largely inappropriate venue for kids of that age who were more interested in the play room where they could throw bus-shaped cushions at one another and scream a lot. The Year 1 kiddies from St Lucifer's Church of England School at Sodding Cocksnot were by far the worst.
Lunch with buskers performing Pachelbel Canon and a little shopping attended to I decided we should take the Tube and Docklands Light Rail to Poplar just because we are Call the Midwife tragics but that Poplar isn't there any more. We did a bit of a shuffle through Canary Wharf and Canada Water, where we stayed last time, to get to Wapping because the name makes me laugh.
An English-born high school friend invited me to dinner at his house one night - steak and kidney pie (much to my horror). After dinner we watched Till Death Do Us Part. Alf and Else were had gone to the seaside and were plodging (paddling), Alf with a hanky tied at the corners in knots on his head. Else turned to him and asked "Is this the same water we have in Wapping?" and Alf, exasperated as ever, barked back "Of course it is you silly old moo!" - as he always did.
Both of Robert's parents fell about laughing but eventually recovered sufficiently to tell me that was exactly what it was like. I've wanted to go to Wapping ever since. We had a beer in a pub by the Thames then made out way back with me determined to avoid the crush of our outbound journey. We are mid-way between Russell Square and King's Cross (spelt with an apostrophe here) so I thought I'd be smart and took us on a different line due east of where I imagined our flat to be then we started hiking.
Well, my feet, back and right hip were fully buggered and English food has firmed my bowels magnificently so I also needed a poo. My west-bound trajectory was also about 500m too far south but we finally got back, although not before very nearly getting run down by the aforementioned dicks on the motor scooter!
Three hours up the Thames by boat was all good but perhaps hats would have been space far better taken up in our bags than the sports jackets and nice trousers I packed for evenings out. The Thames is a fascinating slice of history. We went the other way to the absolutely wondrous Thames Barrier last time so this time chose the leafier route up river to Hampton Court where we spent the best part of three more hours. Henry VIII was a complete and utter self-obsessed, church-starting and destroying, murdering bastard - pretty much the Donald Trump of his day! How much more clearly can a fully-recovered low-church Anglican put this? The Church of England should still be apologising!
Visiting the Chelsea Flower Show has been a dream of mine for decades but the reality was more of a nightmare. It was oversold to buggery - half the crowd would have still been too many people. There's more room aboard a live cattle transport ship than there is at the Chelsea Flower Show and more space to sit down as well. Some of the displays in the main pavilion were lovely but I wasn't in the mood to go into battle to view the garden designs. The rest was just shops, shops and more bloody shops! All up it was the Sydney Royal Easter Show on Pims but the chooks had been turned into hats and the cows were wearing frocks.
Now why not go to London to catch up with an old friend who lives in Sydney? Will and partner Wayne were visiting at the same time as us so we caught up with Will for a light lunch one afternoon and both Will and Wayne for a wander around a Saturday market and a poke about an antique centre another day. Will, Peter and I then went on to explore Little Venice which is a very interesting part of town that's built around the apparent confluence of a billabong, a stream and a canal. Peter and I were also able to acquire a few photographs of us together which is a rarity for lone couples traveling.
Another night at the theatre made up for the farce that is the Chelsea Flower Show. We saw Miriam Margolyes in Madame Rubinstein at the Park Theatre in Finesbury Park, North London which is a great venue - once you find it. The upshot was less than 20 minutes to clear the rather excellent mezzo plate I'd preordered an throw down the accompanying bottle of merlot but we did it!
We saw The Importance of Being Miriam in Sydney two years ago and I was overawed by Miriam's presence and engaging personality. I'd never before hung on every single word of a performance but Miriam Margolyes is a master wordsmith so to miss any of what she has to say would be like wasting fine wine, which the merlot wasn't. The Importance of Being Miriam was a monologue whereas Madam Rubinstein is a play so the two performances don't easily compare beyond the fact that they are both magnificently written texts, superbly delivered.
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