tales of the city…
Home again! A combination of ridiculously long days and a niggly cold (doubtless resulting from spending almost three full days in an air-conditioned room with barely a break) has prevented me from updating from my ever-fabulous and once again, blissfully upgraded, Waterloo digs as intended but all is well and I arrived home late last night with my suitcase full of laundry, hotel milk stick things and lovely presents but my head full of lead weight, immediately retiring to mimic a coma victim much to the dismay of the fishes. After an unforeseen cancellation this afternoon, I will be taking advantage and having a couple of days off to recover and allow my currently Rudolphesque nose to return to its normal state, although given that I did not forget to repack my make up bag there may be room for some more new photos…
I have this week met some charming new companions and welcomed old ones back, seen the Tracy Emin show at the Hayward and caught up with the fabulous Kinky la Rue (now of SW5, keep up) over Yo Sushi, Kindle-comparing and mooning about over the eminently kidnappable Idris Elba in ‘Luther’ following it’s return to the television last Tuesday. We chatted and cackled until gone five, whereupon I made haste to Euston in a very comfortable black cab – the innocuous-looking shower which had started as I left Victoria having become a real downpour by the time I arrived back to collect my luggage. For anyone in any doubt about how bad the rain was, there was only one ice cream van on Westminster Bridge and barely fifty tourists taking pictures of the Big Ben and the London Eye meaning I could cross virtually unhindered for the first time in living memory; there would possibly have been fewer people cluttering up the pavements had the bridge been on fire, but that’s about it.
Even more excitingly, for the fans of painstakingly reproduced embroidered insects among us at least, I have also finally been able to collect my Moth Balls (companion to the Bug Balls which have spent a year patiently waiting on the mantelpiece for their pairing), which longer-standing readers will remember my purchasing last year but being forced into a frustrating wait until they had finished their stint in an exhibition at the Courtauld last week (now I just have to decide where best to hang them – cue another year long wait whilst they potter about the place settling in). Whilst waiting for the lovely lady herself at Euston Station (and over some truly disgusting coffee from the Millie’s Cookies kiosk – it went in the bin, although the cookies did not), by pure chance I observed that the Caledonian Sleeper train (a journey I have long fantasised about) was getting ready to leave at nine fifteen. Maybe next time…
After three very full days of puntertaining (and I should have known I was flagging when I accompanied a gentleman to dinner on Friday evening with my dress on back to front throughout haha) and as good a nights sleep as I could manage with a dry throat and runny nose, I set out yesterday determined not to let my snuffly and glassy-eyed state spoil my traditional Going Home Day Out, and wobbled dizzily around London until late afternoon taking in (amongst other things) the Wellcome Trust’s fascinating and itchy-making ‘Dirt’, the National Portrait Gallery and the RA Summer Exhibition; this last in my opinion decidedly below par this year. The real saving graces (bar Simon Brundret’s Dog In A Bin, which I nostalgically enjoyed as much as any former large dog owner would) were the lovely warm grey wall colours as a change from the usual white. Fortunately for me, these were not for sale.
I also bravely managed to negotiate Zara, Häagen Dazs and the unremittingly grim Pret a Manger before hometime, this last at St Pancras and providing the furnished indoor waiting area that those in charge of the doing-up at Kings Cross have evidently decided is superfluous (as luck would have it I had previously fortified myself with a breakfast pancake stack, ice cream and a tear-prickingly good pub cottage pie earlier in the day, and was thus well armed for avoiding the temptation to spend a tenner on a cup of politically correct tea and a pretentious sandwich). Anybody who actually knows when Kings Cross Station is due to be finished please let us all in on it, and while you’re at it, tell those who are supposed to be making it happen.
This visit has seen me try a dual location for the first time in London (mostly, it has to be said, due to the horrific hotel fees at my usual stomping ground on the Saturday night) but if this has taught me anything, it is certainly that I am unequivocally a South of the river girl and after being snowed under with the email equivalent of raw sewage (or more correctly, ‘rw swg’) from the minute I moved my AW profile North a couple of miles, I will resolutely not be doing so again. The stunning (and I only really saw the restaurant, plus a couple of luxuriously appointed and comprehensively upholstered spare lounges on the ground floor) St Pancras Renaissance hotel need not fear my clumsy presence just yet, although I will certainly be bookmarking it for a treat in the future. As for the aforementioned emails (needless to say all from AW), I can only speculate that there is something in the Camden water supply I don’t know about (I ought to have asked at the Wellcome Centre). I can only imagine what I will find when I eventually retrieve the Adultwork-specific phone from its usual place in the living room drawer and switch it on for it’s weekly-ish dedicated Can’t Read Won’t Read text clearout…
To the coming days – a bit of a rest beckons, but don’t be put off! I will shortly be finalising arrangements for my next few visits, but neglected local folk (along with the rather less local who fancy a trip to the coast) need not worry – whilst I will not be here every waking moment and I admit to my July and August schedule looking somewhat far reaching (to say the least)I will still be here in the intervening time. But for today, I (and Chubby Chops, for those who have enquired) will be having a well earned rest. More in the week!
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