Travels

Well here I am, back in sunny (yeah right) Manchester after my adventures in our fair capital. And what fun it was. I went on the London Eye for the first time ever and managed to pick a morning when the weather was lovely and the queues tolerable. The view was absolutely stunning but it felt like standing in a greenhouse for half an hour. Worth it though. I had less success with Temple Church and St Bartholomew the Great Church though. Both were closed. Well, Temple was closed and St Barts had a wedding on so all I could do was have a look round the outside of both. Must go midweek in future. I even managed to fit the Museum of London into my schedule which was interesting but exhausting. I took my time round the Prehistoric exhibition (how many flint axe heads does one need to look at?) and had to speed up round the Roman bits until I saw a ladder on display that I just had to gawp at for five minutes. I don't know why this impressed me as much as it did - maybe because most of the other items were things I'd been used to seeing on Time Team (pottery, coins, beads etc). I tried to look at as much as possible in the brief time I had but just as I thought there was nothing more to see I'd turn a corner and there was more.

The lack of time was due to the fact that I had to get back to my hotel room and shower before making my way to a friend's party near Oxford. I'll save the rant about the train for the public transport blog but suffice it to say I was late. Very late. Party was fun - drank lots of wine, chatted to people, became the hunter-gatherer for the lounge tribe and raided the kitchen for crisps and peanuts. Slept on the sofa which was about two feet shorter than me so I slept with my legs draped over the arm for most of the night. How much can one say about a party that one only vaguely remembers and only through a haze of alcohol? I'd intended to head back to London asap the next morning so that I could trawl round the British Museum and Sir John Soane's house but thanks to my hangover the morning was spent trying not to move from the sofa. I'd recovered by lunchtime though so we all went for a pub lunch (roast beef and Yorkshire pud mmmmmmm) round the corner.

And then a contingent of us went to nearby Uffington to see the white horse. I've always wanted to go there since I saw a children's serial called The Moon Stallion when I was little so it didn't take much to persuade me to ditch the London idea and go there instead. The walk up the hill blew away any remains of my hangover (it was quite a blustery day) and worked off the Yorkshire pud then a further walk up to Dragon Hill blew away any hangovers and puds I'd had in the last ten years. Trust Gerard to pick the steepest slope to climb! It very nearly killed me. I was still tired when I eventually got back to Finsbury Park (where I was staying). All I could manage to do was buy myself a pizza and spend the evening eating it and watching telly in my room. The first time I've ever watched Monarch of the Glen and Witless Silence all the way through - and next week I'll probably watch them again. God I'm getting old.