Bumper People and Eerie Stations

Last weekend we had dinner and a play in town and did the pin balling from local map to local map to find where we needed to go.  This weekend it was much worse and not quite so easy.  We had tickets to see The Full Monty and also to have dinner at the Spaghetti House before the show, one of the pre-theatre dinner packages.

Started out badly.  We arrived at the train station and found a parking place without a problem but when we got to the window to purchase our tickets, the train times had been changed from the usual times we were familiar with and counting on.  dang. when did that happen.  Had I purchased the tickets on line like I usually do, might have discovered that, BUT after last weekend when the trains were delayed and we had to find another way home, we were told to go back to our original station to get our refund - hence we were getting today's tickets at the station so that we could also get our refund.  Nope, didn't happen.  So now we are without our refund from the prior week and we are also going to be quite late for our 6 p.m. dinner reservation.  We called the restaurant and told them we would be there at 6:30.  

Our train should have gotten us to Waterloo at 6:20 but it arrived at 6:30.  Still we figured we could make the restaurant in about 10 minutes.  Just not to be this evening.  Not quite sure if it was rugby or football but the Tube was full of fans going to Leicester Square and a good many of them were already well into stages of inebriation plus wildly enthusiastic about their teams and a good deal of shouting and cheering and singing.  Exiting at Leicester Square proved to be an experience in bumper people rather than bumper cars.  It was so crowded that we were bumping everyone next to us as we struggled towards the exit.   It was the kind of crowd that had anyone fallen down, they would have stayed down as people wouldn't have been able to find them underneath the feet.

Finally we burst into the open and there is a drunken crowd of about 50 people clustered around the map.  It is now 7:40 p.m.  We can't even get close to the map and we can't remember which way to go so we just turn and walk down the street to try and get out of the crowd and find another map.  Nope, not to be.  Hubby pulls out his phone and speaks in the address and it points off in a direction so we walk along its path.  Tonight is the night that the phone GPS plays tricks on us.  twice we walked around the block in a circle trying to find the right street.  And finally I realize we have to give up totally on the restaurant because it is now 7 p.m. and our play starts at 7:30.  I tell hubby to put the theatre into the GPS and it takes us in a total different direction.  huh?  the restuarant and theatre were supposedly close together.  Oh well, we head back towards the tube station and again are bumping our way through the crowds that are still there and surging out of the tube and go a couple of blocks and there is the theatre.  Wow, had we just turned the other direction when we came out, we might have made it to the restuarnt in time to eat!   Across the street from the theatre is an Eat so we dash in there to get a sandwich and drink and couple of cookies.  Into the theatre for our seats and we share a sandwich and our cookies before the play begins and that was our dinner!


Lovely play, enjoyed it immensely and then when it is over, we struggle through the crowds back to Leicester Square Station.  There are even more people in the streets now. We've never seen it this crowded.  There are police stationed at each exit/entrance to Leicester Square Tube Station and they are blocking the entrances and telling people to go around the corner.  We do but the queue to go into the station is so thick that we decide we will just walk until we find another station or a cab, whichever comes first.

Unfortunately, we have to "swim upstream" against a very solid mass of shouting fans and drunken fans and theatre buffs.  A policeman at one of the entrances tells us to walk up the street to find Tottenham Court Tube Station and we can get back to Waterloo from there.  One would think that as we got a block or two away from this tube station that the crowds might lessen but there were too many like minded people heading for Tottenham Court tube station so we strolled up the street as it was impossible to get around the people and stride out.  Finally we get to the Tottenham Court Tube Station and the first entrance is closed.  We're thinking it still might be a taxi then but when we walk around the corner, there are people going into the station so we do also but at the bottom of the stairs just around the corner, the crowd grows into a large lump of humanity that is shuffling towards the entrance gates and now we are stuck as there are too many people behind us to turn around and make an escape.


Amazingly enough, when we finally go through the turnstiles, it opens up and there is still a crowd but not so bad as some people peel off to go on the Bakerloo line and we go towards the Northern line.  We walk down to the platform and it is heaving at the beginning as the fans who are still drunk and cheering are getting to the platform and just standing there waiting for the subway.  We push and shove and bumper our way through this knot of people and walk to the far end of the platform where there are only a few people and WHEW at last we are out of the crowds.


The train comes and there are very few people in our car so we have seats.  An announcement is made that the train will NOT be stopping at Leicester Square due to the station being closed due to overcrowding.  Wow.  have never heard of this happening before.  Glad we left that station.  As we roll through that station though, they have totally cleared it out and not a single person is on the platform at all, not even a tube worker.  rather eerie.  Charing Cross might have taken up some of the slack but it was surprisingly sparse as well.  Embankment is closed for their escalator repair anyway so another eerie station as we pass the empty platform.  

Finally Waterloo and as we are riding the escalator up to the train station, we hear an announcement that says "Victoria Line is currently running slow due to a person under the train, No other lines are experiencing delays".  Say WHAT???  I turned to my hubby and he heard the same thing so I didn't "mis-hear" it.  Wow.  Entirely too many people on the tracks these weeks.  


Unfortunately, we have about 1/2 hour to wait for our train and it isn't a fast train either, stopping numerous times before reaching our destination.  So we stand and watch the board so we can make a dash for the correct platform when it is listed and also we are watching to make sure there aren't any delays like last week that turned into an all night stoppage.  We know from experience that the trains leaving from about 11 p.m. to a bit past midnight are almost always full as people are going home from a night in the city.  And tonight there are all these football or rugby fans who are roaming the station, now very drunk and either maudlin-ly sad or ridiculously happy but either side is still shouting and cheering and singing.  


Finally we get a track number and we rapidly walk to the gates.  We skip the first couple of cars and get on where the first class car is located.  It is next to the toilet but experience has taught us that usually, USUALLY,  these seats are left to the end before they fill, if at all but other cars without the first class section, are usually quite full and people are standing until they get as far out as Farnborough or Fleet.   Well, tonight was an exception to that rule as has been most of the travel evening.  By the time the train left, our coach was quite full with a queue for the toilet.   In the group of people left standing without seats was a group of football fans who were fairly well lit with liquor including one friend who couldn't really stand, being that intoxicated.  Luckily his friends got him into the toilet by requesting to jump the queue and everyone agreed because we all thought he was going to hurl on someone otherwise.  Then his friends took him off to the end and sat him on the floor.  Some nights, my hubby can sleep on the train going home but not tonight.  Rowdy and loud but polite in that the fans stayed within their group and didn't bother anyone else on the train, other than falling over on occasion when the train hit a curve.  

So an interesting evening where nothing went as planned from the very start, a very entertaining play, a missed dinner engagement, bumper people game up and down the street and through the tube stations, and drunken train companions all the way home.  Geez, I just LOVE London!!!!

   

Pin balling through London

We had a lovely weekend planned which involved us heading into London both Friday and Saturday.  On Friday we were going to The Shard for the view and lunch.  Boy did we get lucky with the weather as Friday was a beautiful day with hardly a cloud, certainly no rain, and even very little pollution it seemed.  

 Looking at the maps, it appeared we were only about a mile away from the location so we set my hubby's phone to a GPS mode and started following it out of London Waterloo Station.  As we weren't positive where we had to go, every time we saw a sign that offered a map of the surrounding area, we would stop and look to see where we were and how far we had to go.  Mostly it was rather in a straight line so no worries and we ambled towards the Shard without a problem.  Good navigation.  And nice to walk along on top of the streets rather than riding below the streets for once.  After our lunch and view though, we hit the tubes to go back to Waterloo and head home.  

Saturday
 Hubby and I had a nice Sat in London last weekend.  We had tickets for him to attend the Craft Beer Rising Festival which is a yearly gathering of different brewers, mostly from the U.K., and their brews and a good many of them started as home brewers or still do beers in the home brewing fashion.  As my husband has been a home brewer for the last 40 years, this festival interests him a great deal as he gets to talk to the brewers and exchange ideas and gather tips, yada, yada.  Much better than the beer festivals where there is just a wall of kegs and everyone is drinking as fast as they can.

So to the Craft Beer Rising, had a lovely time, talked to some great brewers who are quite proud of their stuff, only tasted a few that were less than stellar, and then out and on for the rest of our evening.   

We had tickets to see Agatha Christie's Mousetrap and a nice dinner before hand with one of the special Pre-theatre dinner restaurants that offer you a two course meal for a reduced rate in the hopes that you will also buy a bunch of drinks and maybe desserts, etc.    As we didn't want to retrace our steps to the metro tube station where we had arrived for the Craft Beer shindig, we set up my hubby's phone to a GPS mode to follow it to our restaurant.  It had been quite easy on Friday to follow it to get to The Shard.  Of course, it helps being able to see your building over all the other buildings too.

    We wandered around the neighborhood first as there were several markets in action but nothing really worth buying that day.  And then we followed the GPS to the tube station.  Oddly enough, his phone told us to exit at Embankment which was at least a mile from where we wanted to be.  It would have made much more sense to exit at Leicester Square which is smack in the middle of the theatre district but for some reason, the GPS/phone was playing tricks on us.

Fairly easy to get to the Strand from Embankment but then we were sure exactly which way it was telling us to go, so we navigated by the combination of GPS-phone instructions and stopping at every map on the street again to ascertain where we were and where was the restaurant and where we wanted to turn.  Felt like we were pin balling from sign to sign.  Hit one and spin off in another direction until you hit the next one and then spin off some more.  What's wonderful about London and a good many large UK towns and even European cities is that these maps are up and about the town and make it quite easy to find places.

So bouncing around and we found our restaurant quite early actually.  There was a comic book store right next to it and I don't think we've been in a comic book store since my teens but we went in to see as we had the time.  My gosh!  Exactly like The Big Bang Theory.  I looked around for Howard and Leonard and Raj and Sheldon.  They could have been there.


And then to dinner and then the show, both which were quite enjoyable.  Heading back to Waterloo, we managed to snag a cab but the trains were delayed.  First time we've been caught out and had to detour to Staines and get a cab home from there.  geez.  not a cheap night. 

Many, Many Tits

Stop right there and discontinue reading if your mind is in the gutter and thinking - WOW - she's going to write about female anatomy 'cuz it ain't gonna happen!  I'm talking about the lovely little English birds - tits - Greater Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Lesser Tits (not sure they have these but there must be lesser if there are greater) and Crested Tits.    So there.


They are delightful little birds and quite colorful mostly, except for the Coal Tits which are pretty much black and white but still delightful.  We have many in our garden and they come to the bird feeders frequently.  We have them all except the Crested Tits and I haven't even seen one of those but did see in a book that they exist.  The tits are our most frequent visitors although we have a large contingent of Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Wood Pigeons, Robins, Starlings, some Wrens,and Magpies that show up regularly and maybe a few others that are not quite so frequent.  But I think I like the tits the best.  


I have to admit that both my husband and I dissolve into laughter any time either of us go "Hey, there's a couple of TITS in the garden!"  We go all Bevis and Butthead at that saying and then we look to see what kind they are and enjoy the heck out of watching them.  Everybody can enjoy a little sophomoric and idiotic fun.


  Think I read somewhere that the English Starling and even the Wood Pigeon might be in danger but I think if that's the case, the bird society could come to our garden and I'd happily let them have a bunch of mine to take elsewhere and repopulate.


Last year, my gardener told me I shouldn't feed the birds so much when there were babies in nests as they needed to learn to hunt and catch the bugs and worms and slugs and such.  Good advice and it makes sense but my Tits and other small birds just went elsewhere and I didn't have a whole lot of birds around or any birdsong during that period when I wasn't feeding them so this year I expect I'll just keep feeding them except on the days when my gardener comes.  Is that bad?  probably.  Because who knows if the next person to rent/own this house will be as happy taking care of the wild and feral creatures that meander through here.


Last year I put out a bunch of houses in the hopes that I'd get something to nest in them.  Didn't happen but the houses are still out there and maybe some little new mom and dad bird will need a new house and find one.  Also put out a bunch of hangers that have wool and stuff in them that supposedly the birds will take to make their nests.  Can't do much else unless I go build the nest for them and stuff them inside. 


As I've stated before, the birdsong starts around 6 and is quite lovely.  Don't know who sings what as usually I can't see which bird has its mouth open when I can hear songs.  It won't be quite so lovely come June when the birds start singing around 4:30 but right now I enjoy it.  Anyway, having Tits in the garden is great (Ha ha, ha ha) Love it  and those cute little birds. 

Loving the Deliveries

Ever since the prairie days in the U.S.A. and the Wells Fargo stagecoach came rolling across the plains once a month or so, it has been exciting and a big joy to get packages delivered to your door.  Well of course, I'm not that old that I actually experienced the Wells Fargo wagon but I did love the song in "The Music Man" and the image that it provoked.  Now it is just as much fun to get packages delivered even if it is the Royal Mail, Fed Ex, UPS, DPD, or someone in a station wagon or car.  And even when you know what it is, it is still just a bit exciting and fun to open a package and see your new possession nestled snug in it's miles of wadded up brown paper or rolls of puffed up air wrap.  


I have taken to getting things delivered like duck to water.  You can get almost anything delivered to your door and don't always have to be home either to get it.  Most stores will provide a delivery of some sort and their on line shopping is almost as good and sometimes maybe even a little better than wandering the aisles and trying to find your items.  Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, Graze, Hello Fresh, laundry service, B&Q, Longacres, John Lewis, Just Eat, gourmet food delivery, diet craze, fish mongers, dairy products, American Food Stores, newspapers (natch) and the list goes on and on with the different business that will come to your door and bring your heart's desire.  I have embraced it so wholeheartedly that there could be weeks pass before I need to step foot into a mall.  


However, I try not to let that happen because I do still enjoy a good mall and a good stroll around the High Street.  The problem with the home delivery is that  it's really too easy to sit at your computer and check off things to have brought to the house.  I can easily hit over 100 pounds with Tesco in just a few minutes.  So I try to limit my on line shopping to stuff that's harder for me to carry by myself, like stocking up on water (did this when all the flooding started here just in case) or cat litter, or diet drinks.    That kind of thing.  


But it is hard to resist.  Amazon has their "subscribe and save" service where you can sign  up to get certain things delivered every month or other month, etc.  I have done this with several items we use on a regular basis.  I can get our cat food and diet sodas there at a cheaper price than buying them at the store.  But yesterday I might have gone over the tilt meter just a tad.  My deliveries arrived almost at once.  They had to be passing each other in the driveway.  Amazon came with all my drinks and cat food (once a month), then some things I had ordered for Valentine's day, then some wonderful must have items from ebay and then etsy, and finally my Hello Fresh box (provides 3 meals, recipes, and ingredients to cook.  rather clever and fun to try new things).  And Wednesday is my fish monger day as well. My front door should have been on automatic open yesterday.   I can see me getting older and older and never stepping a foot outside the door as the world is brought to me.  The potential is there.  I just love the deliveries.

Mushy Garden

We have been quite fortunate this winter not to be in one of the flooded areas in the south of England.  We almost were as we had looked at several properties in areas that have had problems with flooding but - knock on wood - so far, our rental house has been fine through all the rain.  Not that we haven't had some problems as the conservatory has been pumped up as it was breaking away from the house.  But so far, we're good.  No flooding. 


That said, our back garden is mush.  Walking across it yesterday to retrieve some of the fallen branches and debris from the wind, it was like walking through a plate of mushy peas - I imagine.  Squish, squash, mush, splat, splash.  Our back garden has always been a lot more moss than grass but it is green so who really cares.  But now, it is pretty much turned into a swamp.  If the weather were warmer, I'd be looking for mangrove stumps or cypress knees or lotus blossoms in the middle of the yard.  I am still feeding the birds and squirrels and neighborhood feral cats and foxes and badgers so do need to squish across the garden periodically to fill the freeloaders bowls.  The mush pulls at my shoes and spits water up at me as I gingerly traipse to the feeders.  Rather unique feeling.


 We have a lovely back garden that overlooks the golf course where we can see that the sand traps have turned into small lakes.  Yet still the golfers come almost every day.   And our garden was built up to equal the level of the house and to hold a deck rather than slope down to the golf course.  Underneath the deck, we can see the whole garden buildup straining against the brick wall that has already been braced against the pressure.  My hubby thinks that the broken gap between the dirt and the bricks has grown and the pressure has increased.  We are rather intimidated by it and a bit afraid to measure the gap in case we are right and it is increasing.  While I think we are OK and won't flood, I think it is now a race.  We need enough dry days for the garden to dry and quit being mush.   If that doesn't happen and we get more rain, I fear the brick wall might finally succumb to the pressure and the whole garden might slide down the slope to the golf course.  Gone will be the deck, gone will be my workshop under the deck.   Mush, mush, mush.  Still, not as bad as the Somerset Levels (had to ask my gardener what they were) but never had such a mushy yard.   

Beer Book #2

Last year we started taking the labels off the different beers my husband drinks and putting them into a book.  Very sorry that I didn't think to date it at the start but we probably began somewhere around March or April or maybe later.  There are so many different beers here (England) that I'm really sorry we didn't think to start when we first moved here or we'd be into book 3 by now or maybe even book 4.  

Anyway, we have started book #2 now.  There are 198 labels in book #1 and would have been 200 labels except when I started I put a couple of "front and back" labels for the same beer on separate pages, hence 198, not 200.


Each beer is one that my husband has drank.  It doesn't count if he doesn't drink it and so friends cannot send us labels.  We have some from our holidays too in a couple of different countries but they are so much harder to get as I can't always haul the bottle away from the restaurant to soak off the label.  Still I managed it in the Faroe Islands and in Santorini.  What fun.  I am probably enjoying it more than my husband but at least he is the one who gets to drink all the beer.  And sometimes they have been less than stellar examples of the fine art of brewing.  But he downs them all with grace and humor and a wonderful husband's need to keep his wife happy with her little enterprise.  LOL.  


So on with Beer Book #2.  We will keep it up wherever we go now.  Wow, can you imagine how many labels and books we would have now had we started saving them 40 years ago????  We'd have all kinds of home brews and micro brews and probably a bunch of defunct beers as well in our books.  Everyone must have a hobby and this is one of ours.  He drinks the beer, I soak off the labels and past them in the book.  Partnership in a marriage is a wonderful thing.

Fine Dining at Costco and Tesco

It's been a great boon to have Costco open in Farnborough.  So much easier to go buy things in bulk that we have no place to store in our little English kitchen but still it is so much fun to go and wander around and image that some day again we might have a freezer big enough to actually buy some meat and put it all in the freezer to use before it gets freezer burned.  But not the topic of the day.


We tend to hit Costco a lot more often when my daughter is in town because you can buy certain vegetables in bags that are ready to cook.  No messing around with the cleaning and tossing of the leaves and such that is not edible.  We like to time it so that we hit Costco when most of the samples are out on view and ready for tasting.  Yum.  For awhile, we were missing it each time, just getting a single bite of something, IF we were lucky.  But our last three visits, we have hit the gold mine, so to speak.  There have been tables set up all over the place with something to eat at each one.  Usually, we manage to hit the dessert/pudding samples first.   That established a pattern in that if we liked it, we probably bought it.  Usually we don't buy anything else because they come in containers too big for us.  But we have managed to buy: sticky toffee pudding cake, chocolate croissants, and we almost bought last week's yummy: bakewell cherry tarts (where we both got 1/4 of a tart each to taste!).  Then we go on to the other taste treats and have had things such as:  noddles, lasagna, sushi, soups, fish sticks, cheese, sausage (we bought that), crisps, chips, bread, spreads and dips, salami, and several different kinds of sauces, some of which we bought.  

On occasion, we have had a mouthful of something nasty.  We try to be polite and head for the next trash bin before we spit it out or throw it away.  Once, it was too nasty to do that and the poor lady had to see us take this thing out of our mouth (into the napkin at least) and toss it in her bin.  Wow, her bin was full too.  Maybe they don't get to choose what they are displaying because not many people liked her taste sample.  That day, we also had to immediately head back to the dessert table and get another sample of the sticky toffee pudding cake to get the yucky taste out of our mouths.


Our last three visits, the taste treats have been my lunch.  By the time we get to the checkout, I am full and have no need to go home and fix lunch.  What a bargain!  And a couple of times, we moved on to Tesco!  More dining out.


Tesco, Meadows, store has a taste kitchen.  We were first approached several months ago to stop and do a taste comparison for them.  They take you to the kitchen, you park your shopping trolley outside the door (it's in the back of the store), go in and sit at a computer and they give you two samples to try.  You judge them on appearance, texture, smell, and taste.  Since our first time, we have been approached about 5 times to do the taste comparison.  Each time we have agreed.  In fact, I think you can walk up to the taste kitchen and tell them you'd like to do a taste comparison and if they are working that day, I think they will let you - although we haven't tried that yet.


Anyway, we have tried: rice and beans, cake, biscuits, creamed corn, and I forget the last one.  Usually one is pretty tasty and the other is pretty yuck.  Hopefully you will get the yuck first so you can eat the entire second sample and have a nice taste to leave the store.  Once we got the yuck last and it was hard to get that taste out of our mouths.  We opened something as soon as we got to the car to gobble it down and erase the yuck.  


Anyway, it is fun to dine out at such posh establishments as Costco and Tesco.  Hoping to continue our eating experiences at both places.