Jolly Old London...

So in between The Fat Duck and New York there has also been a very big chunk of time spent in beautiful London and it's surrounds.
Coming off the Eurostar from Paris, the abject relief of realising I could speak normal and full speed English was utter bliss...Ello, ello, ello Driver!

The delightful Grip and I

Night one was a zip to Brighton to enjoy the fabulous food at Jamie Olivers Italian restaurant, after spending a large amount of time in Italy recently, I would have to say it was right up to scratch, Crab and squid ink risotto with fennel, lemon and herby breadcrumbs... yummmmmm!

Post modernism???

 A visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum (or the V&A for those in the know, what a magnificent building) revealed a great afternoon of information... 

Now, who would have thought that Blade Runner, Boy George, Devo, Alessi homewares and Talking Heads would have anything in common, indeed they do... All part of the Post Modernism Movement... 

This also included the Ad Hoc Construction group, hilarious, actually a whole bunch of peep's that just made "thing's" that were basically slung together in a very well...ad hoc manner, so nothing really looked like it could be used in a functional way, but blow me down they lasted long enough to have a "movement" named after them!

The Mario Sisters

A fabulous morning was spent on "Tour" in a circa 1960's Mini...absolutely fantastic, whipping through all the Major sights, Buck Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament and through Mayfair with it's exquisite red toned buildings...

We learnt things such as the reason that London has footpaths is because a really fat rich "squire" had his carriage wedged between two bulidings and he was too porky to get out...

Shortly thereafter a bill was introduced by Parliament (made up of equally fat spoilt squires) that there should be a three foot "path" in front of all houses and buildings...


I'm sure all the small thin begging types were delighted they would no longer run the risk of being run over by fat squires.

Mind the escalator...

It was around about this time that I had a couple of experiences that took me off the well worn "tourist path"...
One was getting to push the "Emergency Stop Button" on the nose bleedingly high Tube escalator as a woman fell down on the other side and became wedged under her suitcase...she was fine...


The other started as a quick trip to the Accident and Emergency section of the rather swanky Chelsea and Westminster Hospital with what I thought was a pulled muscle in my back and culminated in an overnight stay with pneumonia...

I am quite impressed with my own optimism, even lying on a gurney with a nebuliser on I still held high hopes that they would let me out so I could scoot to the pub to meet my lovely mate Sam for dinner... sadly, postponement could not be avoided...


Thanks though, British NHS and Australia's "arrangement", a scanned copy of my passport and I was on my way, had it happened in New York I would have had to have sold my house!

So, after those "interesting events" I actually did finally get to catch up with Sam, also my lovely friend Holly, wonderful Rebecca and Liz and I even zipped to Essex to see Michelle, whom I met in Valencia at Spanish school...


My greatest experience though has been being back in the company of the fabulous Jones family, friends of almost twenty years, whose warmth, hospitality and fantastic "family fridge" always make me feel loved welcome and special... 


Christmas is well and truly in full swing, the lights are up on Oxford street, the Christmas tree's are trimmed and the elves cheeks are as red as berries...from sitting on cold chairs no doubt :0)

 

So, thanks once again London for being the proud, gorgeous, busy and bustling city that is such a pleasure to visit, thanks also for one of my favourite Supermarkets in the world (Waitrose you rock!) and for some really awesome "crap" TV, why don't we have I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here?...


and, as always...

Thank you for sharing xxx