About a week after booking the show, hotel and train tickets, I realised it was FA cup day on the Saturday we were going to be there and I got worried that this might be a problem especially on the train. As it happens the only football fans we saw were a few Chelsea supporters being a bit vocal on the underground late on Saturday night. As they had won, it was all very happy and good natured.
I had booked the train tickets in the quiet carriage in first class as I am turning into a grumpy old woman and don't like being disturbed by other peoples' noisy conversations on public transport. Unfortunately, travelling in the same carriage was a family with young children who played games, talked loudly and laughed all the way to London. Now I understand that children need to learn how to behave in public, but why would you book seats in the quiet carriage when you were with children who would need entertaining which would inevitably result in noise? There were at least two other first class carriages that were more than half empty where you weren't required to be as considerate noise wise. Even the adults made no attempt to speak a little more quietly.
Anyway, we made it to London without me being violent towards anyone which was a plus.
We had caught a train that arrived quite late in the afternoon, and by the time we got to the hotel it was almost time to go out to the theatre. We decided to save a few pennies and walk to Shaftsbury Avenue which really wasn't very far. We passed the London Eye on the way there and Katy kept taking her phone out of her pocket to take photos. At some point this also resulted in her losing the Oyster card we had just topped up with £10 on it. Needless to say I was not best pleased and she was informed that she would have to pay this back with the money she had just got from selling her DSi on ebay.
Singin' in the Rain was a wonderful wonderful show. Katy was watching the tap dancing very closely as it's her favourite type of dance. She kept sitting forward in her seat so that she could get a better look at the dancers' feet. A lot of the dance routines were energetic and I was in awe of the voice control as they sang the numbers too. As the music for the actual Singin' in the Rain number started you could feel the whole atmosphere in the theatre lift as they knew they were going to see the rain. It was an amazing number to watch, and it seemed that the actor was playing "how much of the audience can I get wet" while he was dancing. The first three rows of the stalls got quite a bit of it. The staging was very clever as it was raised around the outside which looked like a pavement and then there was a large inner section that looked like very long floorboards. There were gaps between the boards where the water drained away during the interval and the stage hands (all dressed in the correct period costume) spent the entire time using squeegies and mops to make sure the stage was completely dry ready for the second act. At the end of the show there was a reprise of Singin' in the Rain with the whole cast, and the first three rows got even more wet as there were more feet kicking the water towards them.
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| After the show |
After the show we visited the Cinnabon shop in Picadilly Circus for a late night snack. We caught the tube back to the hotel as it had started raining.
The next day we had decided we would go and visit the British Museum. Firstly because I have been to London several times and had not gone there, and secondly because entry is free. I loved it here and was mostly interested in all the large antiquities in the ancient Greek and Egyptian sections. I wasn't as impressed with the pottery and jewellery quite so much as you tend to see these sorts of things in most museums. It was amazing to see the hieroglyphics in so much detail. I think it was a little morbid that the section with the mummies was the most crowded.
After a couple of hours I started getting artefact fatigue so we didn't make it round all the exhibits. As always I had to visit the gift shop before we left. When we were looking around we came across a whole section of gifts devoted to the Rosetta Stone. We had totally missed this exhibit, but luckily it was right opposite the gift shop so we went to have a look. I had managed to get to the front of the crowd and was taking a closer look with my glasses on. When I turned round to move away I was completely surrounded by quite a large group who all had their cameras pointed at the stone, trying to take photos. I was quite hemmed in and they were very reluctant to let me out. Didn't seem to occur to anyone that if they just let me through then I wouldn't be obstructing their view anymore and they would be able to take better photos (grumpy old woman again).
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| Quote I liked in the British Museum |
The plan for the rest of the day was supposed to include having a nice dinner and then going to the cinema to see a film. However, before we left the hotel in the morning I had been checking my emails and there was one from a ticket website telling me of their latest ticket sale prices. A couple of hours later and Robert had hot footed it down to the TKTS booth in Leicester Square and purchased half price tickets for another show that evening. Rock of Ages, it has to be said, is a very different kind of show from the previous night. Yes it involved singing and dancing but the story is about a bar on the sunset strip that a property developer is trying to demolish, and the people who work there. It's basically one of those shows that takes a whole bunch of unrelated rock songs from the 80s and makes up a story around them. It was very funny and the music made you want to dance in your seat. Lots of hand clapping and some singing along.
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| Current sculpture on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square |
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| Attempted arty shot of the London Eye at night |
Monday was a little more cultural with a walk along the Southbank to the Millenium bridge which I had never walked across (with a brief stop for Robert and Katy to have a go at a laser maze), and then hoofing it across town to Westminster Cathedral. I wanted to go here because I had passed it several times on my way to Westminster City Hall for work meetings and wanted to see inside. Interestingly the usual ornate gold decoration stopped about two thirds of the way up and the whole ceiling is made up entirely of plain black brick as they had run out of money to finish it.
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| Katy inside the laser maze |
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| Westminster Cathedral |
Then the culture stopped as we visited M&M's world in Leicester Square. I really wanted to buy some M&M related gift, but everything was so expensive, so we settled for buying a selection of coloured M&Ms that you don't get in regular packets. There was an absolute rainbow of colours to choose from and Robert got a few of each.
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| Rainbow of M&M colours |
The journey home was much quieter and more relaxing. It really was a great weekend, and we're already planning the next trip.
