A Rather Cursed Weekend
or
At Waterloo (station) Lies and Rikki did surrender...
3 June to 5 June 2006
After having looked forward to this weekend for about two months, Murphy seemed to have decided that he doesn't like us. On 27 May we found out that Celia Imrie - the only reason why we went to London in the first place - wouldn't appear in the gala evening. So after one evening of whining and throwing tantrums... well, we were still looking forward to London and seeing the play.
On 1 June however... Murphy decided to play another trick on us. Hooray... the gala was cancelled completely. Well... it's London, so we were sure that we'd find something else to do.
I arrived in London at around noon on 3 June. The sky was a brilliant blue, it was warm and sunny... the perfect start for a great weekend in an exciting city. However... Murphy played another trick on me. In the evening, I was supposed to see The Exonerated at the Riverside studios. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't have been a problem. But... public transport people had chosen this weekend to work on the underground network. On the line I had to take. And of course there were no signs whatsoever at Picadilly Circus station. Wonderful. So, of course, I missed the play.
On the funny side (yeah, we're still capable of seeing that one... somehow :-P)... I found an Oddbins. Yeah, sorry. I know that it's not particularly funny... but in my wrath and disappointment about having missed the play I was looking for Patsy or something. *g* And that one kind of made me snigger. So yeah, I also took a pic of that one. *shakes head at self*
When I got back to the hotel, I was tired enough to actually go to bed at 9:30pm... don't know when the last time was that I actually did that. *oops*
On Sunday morning, Lies finally arrived at Waterloo station. Surprisingly, we even got a bus back to Picadilly Circus... guess the bus driver must have missed that it was us or something. *g* Was kind of an exception that weekend.
Back at the hotel, we sniggered a bit at the bed... a king size bed (1,40m).... and only one blanket. Hooray... the next night would be fun. :-P But of course we only had a limited time frame in London, so we set off. There were dvd shops to conquer... and a movie to go to. I had found a cinema where they showed Wah-Wah, the new movie with Julie Walters and Celia Imrie (really recommendable, btw). So after buying... more dvds and books (*oops*) we went to buy the tickets and had lunch... pizza, as always in London. :-P For some reason a guy sitting next to us seemed to be scared... can't really see why since the only thing we were doing was quoting basically the whole of the Acorn Antiques musical. :-P Surely that can't be that scary?!
The evening arrived way too quickly, and after walking around a bit we actually discovered Celia Imrie's favourite restaurant. Looks really cute - though we didn't dare to have a look inside. ;-)
Lies had to leave again on Monday morning... which was another small drama as apparently busses had decided to abandon us more or less completely. First there was no bus in sight, at least not the ones we had to take, then they didn't go all the way to Waterloo station. Just great. About half an hour before the train was supposed to leave, we decided to get a taxi - which would have been fine, hadn't there been an accident somewhere on Waterloo bridge. So, of course, Lies missed her train.
Luckily, the Eurostar people booked her on the next train without charge, due to the accident. And that missed train was actually the last 0bstacle that weekend. *g* Was more than enough for one weekend anyway.
But in the end, we did have fun... as always. ;-)