London - A Grand Day Out

Today was a grand day out in that there London town.

I was up early to catch the train at Neath, despite the weather last night the snow hadn’t stuck but the frost was quite severe.

I arrived early and decided to go for a wander down Regent Street.  Had a browse in the Apple store, drooling at all the wonderful fruit based toys.  Talking about toys I then went to Hamleys, where there was a full-blown Rey and BB8 from Star Wars in Lego (see additional photo).  A job at Hamleys must be one of the coolest jobs going, you get to be a kid again playing with all of the toys and just having a great time.  Next up was the giant Waterstones store, so many books I was in heaven!  Whilst I was making my way through the store I caught the Michelin starred chef and Masterchef presenter, Marcus Wareing, browsing a few books.

And then I met up with my friend Julie, after my recent diagnosis I wanted to do some happy things leading up to Christmas and Jules agreed to come and see the London Palladium Pantomime with me.  First up was lunch at Fortnum and Mason, Jules had never been there before, and we were quite lucky to get a table.  Smoked salmon as a starter and then my first proper Christmas lunch this year, turkey with all the trimmings and an exceedingly boozy cranberry sauce.  Very nice!

And then on to the London Palladium, to see a star-studded case present Dick Whittington.  As you can imagine the productions values were right up there, no expense was spared and we had a riot, proper belly ache laughing.  Nigel Havers was brilliant as the poor put down actor, it was a running joke that he was after a bigger part than last year.  Paul Zerdin, the ventriloquist, did a terrific skit with two members of the audience.  I loved it!  I wanted plenty of laughs and we got it in buckets full.

We tried to have a nice cuppa after the matinee but as you can imagine around that part of London it was rammed in the evening, so we made our way back to the tube and said our goodbyes.  We’ve both agreed that we’ll do something again in the New Year.

What a day!  Thank you Jules!