On Friday we just had a quiet evening in, enjoying random Friday night tele and playing a board game about London that someone has left in the house. We had a slap-up meal of tuna & mayo pasta and finished up my fantastic bottle of local Kentish cider (note to self, I need another bottle). We then had a fairly early night as we had an adventure planned for Saturday.
Saturday was brilliant. I genuinely had the best day that I'd had in a while with The Boyf. We went to the Big City! This is not something I do very often and so the protocols of standing on the right on the escalators and not smiling at people confuses me. We had the most wonderful day, catching the train from a tiny, local village station and then getting off at Stratford, so that I could gaze across at the Olympics Park. We also decided to do this because the sun was shining and it was glorious so we decided it was a good opportunity to go on the Thames Clipper river taxi up from North Greenwich to the centre.
It didn't disappoint, we saw all the sites from the river and went under all the famous bridges including Tower Bridge with the Olympic Rings on it. We got off at the London Eye and went and got tickets to go on there later that evening. The morning was almost up and I was ushered back onto the tube to be taken for lunch at a pub in Black Friars. It was a grand little pub with Aspell's cider on tap and some of the most fantastic decor I'd ever seen. We had some fab sandwiches and chips and then it was time for the 'big surprise'.
We walked down through Temple, past Somerset House and then turned up off Embankment, by this point I had no idea where we were (my geography of cities is always horrendous, especially London) and as we walked up the road I suddenly spotted something that made me grin like I hadn't done for a very long time. He had taken me to see The Lion King. This was special for two reasons, 1) I love the West End and musicals and 2) I had never seen The Lion King (the film, yes I know it's criminal) before which is something that has bothered the Boyf since, well forever, so I knew he'd picked that specifically instead of just taking me to see something in London.
After a quick pitstop at one of the coffee house chains for an ice cold milkshake (it was hot, bloody hot) we went into the theatre. He treated me to a drink before we went in, bought me a little pot of pick and mix and the programme before we went and found our seats. They were fantastic. Right in the centre of the theatre, second row in the Grand Circle. Conveniently two tiny (but very well-behaved) children were sitting in the seats directly in front.
The show was...well, I don't even know how to describe how good it was. I laughed, I cried, I sung, I fell in love and I nearly exploded with joy, all in one show. I will definitely never forget it. All of the animals are represented with puppets/ head-dresses/ elaborate costumes that aren't just a standard costume of said animal and are very very cleverly done. There wasn't a single point that you just thought 'oh that's just someone dressed as a hyena' or something, you were totally immersed in the performance.
After the wonderful show we pottered up to Covent Garden, which I love and bought some dinner from the fantastic food market and sat listening to a man performing with his guitar before pottering around a few of the up-market shops. One goal I have in life is to at some point leave said up-market shops with a purchase (materialistic, yes, a bit). With the weather as it was, it couldn't get much better. Yet it did.
After yet another tube ride, we got back to the London Eye and had the most fantastic time. The sun was setting and it was all rather soppy and romantic. We were the only people that stood for the photo that gets taken of each pod so we decided to buy a keyring of said photo, one each, as we were both rather pleased that we still looked presentable by that time in the evening after our early start and the scorching temperatures.
After this we pottered round Marble Arch and Oxford Street before heading to St. Pancras for our train home. We were hot, exhausted and in need of a good sit down, but we were definitely happy, it had been a bloody good day.
Sunday was a far more relaxed affair and involved pottering around the local town of Rye, just over the border in East Sussex. It's a lovely little town with lots of cute little shops and we found a fantastic tea rooms before heading to the harbour for their 'Maritime Festival'. I have to say it sounded grander than it was, it was a bit more like a village fete than anything but the bands playing were good and we went over to the fish and chip restaurant for an unconventional but damn tasty Sunday lunch before heading home for a relaxed afternoon and evening. I did go and ride Venus in the afternoon and the Boyf did take some lovely photos, such as this one. She's a big mare but she's beautiful :)
I took the Boyf back to the station this morning so he can head back to London to work at the Paralympics and I pottered around being a fairly productive domestic goddess before a relaxing evening of catching up with X-Factor.
Not much planned for this week, odd jobs to do for work and the daughter of the Rochester Gang is hopefully coming to stay for a couple of nights before a big battle coming up at the weekend which I am really looking forward to.
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