birthday Adventuring

I have had an extra long, super packed birthday weekend :-)

It started on Thursday, when Freyja came to see me at work at around 4pm and we retired to the Adsetts Coffee Shop for a cup of tea and a natter. Then she went to work, and I went home, accompanied by the Travelling Wilburhippos.

I had Friday off. Just Because. Actually, I mainly had Friday off because we were away on Saturday and Sunday and I figured that if I worked Friday, I would spend all of Monday morning (when I would be home for an evening duty) rushing about and doing Saturday and Sunday things. This didn’t strike me as necessarily being a good thing. Being knackered even before the week starts is seldom desirable!

And in fact, I had a lovely day. I pottered around at home,. Then ambled into town on the bus. I had to collect a package from the sorting office. As I was walking up towards the sorting office, I happened to notice a bridge off to my left. After I had picked up my package, I went to investigate the bridge. Aha. It goes over the main road and leads into Queens Park. I haven’t been into Queens Park for years – and then only briefly. I went for a look see.

I knew there was a cricket field in the park. I have inspected it once, when I was with Richard. I didn’t know about the boating lake, though. Nor about the miniature railway track that runs around the lake. Nor did I know about the tea shop. I had a bit of a poke about, but couldn’t spend too long. There was shopping to do. I did, however, notice the parking area which costs 50p for two hours, instead of the £2.50 for two hours in the town centre car park. It’s not as though it’s a lengthy walk from the 50p car park. Probably not very much further than the town centre one!
I managed to buy nearly everything on my shopping list. Except for soap dishes and knitting needles. And I forgot to go to Primark, because that wasn’t on my shopping list at all. I was going to go this morning. But didn’t!

And then it was Saturday, and my Birthday Eve. We went to London on the train, The Builder, me and the Travelling Wilburhippos. The train was late :-( But that didn’t matter. We weren’t in any hurry. We went past The Sidings – it was difficult to see, though. The sun was shining brightly, but very low in the sky and it was a bit blinding! I saw the greenhouse. The Builder didn’t see anything. He’d gone down to grab a sandwich because there was only the train manager on the train and the buffet was only open occasionally!

We eventually arrived at St Pancras station, greeting Sir John Betjeman as we passed, admired the ceiling and considered hopping aboard one of the Eurostar trains. We thought better of that – we have London-based things planned for Sunday. So we ambled along to our hotel, a pleasant 5 or 6 minute stroll from the station. We checked in and then went out for a bit of an explore. They’ve upgraded the Brunswick Centre since I had last had occasion to poke about in Bloomsbury. I had noticed the last time I was in London that the apartments had been painted on the outside. And this time I noticed that all the pound shops, charity shops and tat shops have been replaced by fooderies, eateries and much more upmarket clothes shops. And the Safeway has, of course, gone and been replaced by a Waitrose. There was also a little food market with lots of fun, foodie things. The local pubs have gone upmarket too. We called into the Marquis of Cornwallis for a pre-dinner drink – and just stayed. We had a squishy couch to sit on, the wine was pleasant. The food was lovely. I even got a free bowl of soup because they’d sent soup instead of a side of buttered cabbage with my burger. Not that I could manage to eat all that, but it was very tasty!

And then it was Sunday, and my birthday, and a big adventure day.
First adventure at the British Museum for the Babylon exhibition. We really enjoyed it. It was much less crowded than the Hadrian exhibition, and was an interesting mix of Babylonian material and later depictions and renditions of various Babylonian themes – so Blake’s Nebuchadnezzar, various 18th and 19th century depictions of Daniel and so on, together with historical assessments and so on. Babylonian astronomy and astrology . And some simply beautiful mosaics. Lions and a bull and an absolutely gorgeous dragon. They had the mosaics at the beginning of the exhibition. Had I been curating it, I’d have had them at the end, because they were absolutely stunning and a reflection on what Saddam Hussein did do and the Allied troops are now doing to the historical site of Babylon, though extremely interesting, hardly counts as stunning.

You may remember that when we came down to the museum with Tabitha and Gaz for the Hadrian exhibition, we found a little pub off Oxford Street which served really nice fish and chips. We managed to find it again, and had a rather nice Sunday Roast.

Then it was time to make our way to the London Eye for our 2:30 flight. We had to be there ready to join the queue by 2. Off we trundled, down Charing Cross Road, pausing to loiter for a bit in Trafalgar Square. We reached the Eye with lots of time to spare. Mind you, the queue was enormous. You wonder why so many people are still so keen to go on it! Mind you – I suppose we were! And in fact the queue moved quite quickly. We were boarding the Eye by around ten past.

We had a wonderful day for it (but the sun – bright – low in the sky - …) although the London suburbs did seem remarkably smoggy. We, in London Central, were untroubled by smog!!!!!

And then we were back on the ground. What to do for the rest of the afternoon? “I know,” said The Builder. “Let’s go on that there boat ride down the Thames”. So we did!

It was, it must be admitted, quite chilly sat outside. But sit we did – even if I did end up putting on my hat and my gloves as the temperatures fell even further as the sun began to set.

And then we made our way back to the station, calling into Waitrose as we passed by. The Waitrose in Bloomsbury keeps very civilised Sunday hours. 12-6, rather than 10-4 in Sheffield.

We decided to wait for the train in the Betjeman Arms at St Pancras Station. We started out in the bar, being entertained by two young men who said they were preparing for a stint in Afghanistan. It was distinctly brisk, sat where we were. People kept coming in and out, leaving the door open. One of the young soldiers (I assume they were soldiers – although I suppose they might just as easily have been air force) kept getting up and closing it. Then they left to catch their train. I discovered, as I went to find the ladies, that there were more rooms, well away from the door. A Dining Room, and a “snug” and nice warm places. We moved! And had dinner. The food there was also very nice. Much nicer than railway pubs usually provide.

And then we caught our train. A slow train. But that was all right. We still weren’t in any hurry. And the slow train was £18 each instead of £58 each for the fast train!

Marlo was extremely pleased to see us come home.

The Builder went back to work this morning. I’m doing an evening duty – which, it must be said, has been extremely busy for an evening shift. But I wasn’t extremely busy this morning. The gas man came to look at why two of our radiators are leaking and why the boiler seems grumpy (we need two new radiator valves and a new wotsit in the boiler. Thank goodness for boiler and radiator insurance!). He’s coming back next week.

Other than entertaining the gas man, I had a pleasantly lazy time at home, drinking tea and eating toast and watching the winter being wintry outside and the central heating being toasty inside.

And I made a cake.