Now, however, Roger has stepped down from the group. And now I am the chair ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? And the third meeting of the group was on Tuesday. I have to say that it felt extremely odd to be going to a meeting of this group without Roger. But his influence lingers on - I took a much earlier train than I really needed to Just In Case!
And it is true that the train I was on was ten minutes late in. But ten minutes is neither here nor there when you are going all the way to London. What was slightly more disconcerting was the announcement as the train was pulling into St Pancras that "The King's Cross Underground station is being evacuated because of overcrowding". I regret to say that this provoked much mirth amongst the passengers in my carriage!! It seems that a train had broken down in one of the tunnels on the Northern Line and the platforms were getting very crowded. It was complicated a bit more by the fact that someone was doing practice runs elsewhere on the Underground network for the Olympics. However, it didn't entirely inconvenience me. It's true I had intended to use the King's Cross station but if it wasn't available it was hardly a huge problem. I simply ambled off in the sunshine down Gray's Inn Road, past the place where Freyja is doing work experience this week (hello Freyja!) and on to another Underground station which handily was on the line I needed to be on. And off I trundled to my meeting, arrive a bit early but not too early.
The meeting went quite well, I think. The lunch they provided was only sandwiches, crisps, fruit and cake - but what sandwiches they were. And the fruit was cut into pieces and put on kebab sticks. And the cakes were delicious. It was all good :-)
We finished a bit early so I took myself off to the British Museum for a bit of a potter around. I was quite surprised by how busy it was, to say that it was 4:00 on a Tuesday afternoon. And I was extremely surprised not so much by the groups of school children from France or Spain or Italy, but by the number of groups of school children from places like China and other Far Eastern countries. Seems quite a long way to come to visit a museum! There was a group of schoolgirls from, I think, China in one of the galleries doing a dance that seemed to be based on Tai Chi moves. They were chanting the music as they did their movements. It was extremely beautiful. And then I came out of the museum - to find it raining with considerable determination. I acquired a startlingly expensive umbrella from the museum shop and wandered through the rain back to St Pancras where Freyja met me after she had finished work . We had dinner at the station and then I came back to Chesterfield and Freyja went off back to East London.
It was a good day.
Well - it was for me. Not quite such an exciting day for the poor Builder. Although - I suppose it was a bit exciting. He was pottering about, minding his own business, not doing anyone any harm when there was a Big Bang. Lightning hit the road outside. There was an intense rain shower. There was a mighty clap of thunder. And the wifi modem died ;-( Nothing else. Just the wifi modem. No internet for The Builder then! Fortunately the TV and the SKY box were fine so he had things to amuse himself with. But no internet. According to the very helpful lady in the electrical store, they had had many people in yesterday saying that their modems had been taken out by lightning. Nothing else in the house. Just the wifi modem. Weird. Anyway, I griddled my lions and rang our internet provider to see how much it would cost to get a new modem through them rather than through the electrical store. And it seems they are willing to give me a new modem for no money at all. That suits me just fine. A new modem is on its way. I have charged my dongle so we do have internet at home in the meantime. But it was a tiny tad disconcerting to find that my mobile phone provider had major problems with *its* network yesterday so not only were we on reduced internet at home (only one laptop at a time!) but i was without my mobile phone as well :-S Fortunately that seems to be better today too.
Oh - and the sun is shining in a bright blue sky. It's not expected to last very long - but it's nice to see, once in a while :-D
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| The Great Court in the British Museum |
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| This was obviously once a very beautiful wheel. I think it should be mended!! |
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| A Chinese camel for Lindsey |
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| Some more Chinese camels for Lindsey |
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| Not at the British Museum. Olympic rings viewed from behind at St Pancras Station |
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