London & Beyond

Woke up to Snow!!!! – Pam actually got Alan to stand out in the snow for a photo – this is a first!!!!!!!!

St Pauls Cathedral – lovely to hear the church bells as you have breakfast. We had a look in St Paul’s on Good Friday at about 10.00pm when it was open for a service but not for tourist purposes (ie sit quietly and listen, no photos). It was very restful listening to the service and just admiring the building. There was a service on the steps of the cathedral Saturday evening as Pam came home from shopping to change for the Theatre. Also there was a religious procession on Saturday morning on the Millenium Bridge. Of course we were going the wrong way! But it was interesting to have this swarm of people carrying crosses and singing passing by you.

The London Eye – highly recommended – great view and interesting engineering. Avoided a thunder and hail storm by a matter of seconds – just got under cover in time.

The Globe Theatre – Did a tour – excellent guide – very interesting – lots of time for photos. Unfortunately they only do a summer season because it is partially outdoors, so we could not get to a performance there.

Gielgud Theatre – went to the West end - saw a play by Yasmin Riva (a celebrated playwright who wrote Art) starring Ken Stott (who plays Rebus on TV) and Ralph Fiennes. It was an interesting play about manners and values and hypocrisy, but the ending was weird and it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. It had some excellent one liners in it and the audience really liked it, but I think Alan & I were too tired because we didn’t empathise with the characters and although we didn’t hate it we wouldn’t rave about it either. The acting was good and it was great to see Ralph Fiennes in such a different character.

Public Transport was very crowded at times, over the Easter weekend.

Checked out of our hotel to start our quick loop of relatives and friends, starting with Henry & Lillian (& Lucille ) 3 cats 3 horses and a Chinchilla, at Stowe Maries in Essex.