I have just returned from London where my friend Rosemary and I went to Covent Garden to see La Fille du Regiment at Covent Garden. I have just posted a review over on Random Music so please do nip over and have a read and you will see what a simply glorious, wonderful, enchanting evening we had from start to finish. Here is a link to my post.
We had decided to stay overnight this visit as it is always a mad dash afterwards to get a taxi to Liverpool Street and get on the late train, named the Vomit Comet for reasons I am sure I have no need to explain, and this can rather take the edge off the evening. Rosemary has very bad arthritis so we decided this time we would splurge on a hotel and this was booked. All this was arranged some time ago and as it got closer to the date, it became clear that Rosemary was going to find using public transport rather difficult so I had a think. I am now used to going up and down to London to see my gorgeous granddaughter and getting quite blase about it all compared to my panics when I first started these trips and so I decided I would be really bold and brave and we would drive to London. I found a hotel which has a car park and booked us in and got a really good deal - £107 bed and breakfast for the two of us and this slap bang in Russell Square in central London and we were good to go. I mapped out a route and found out that instead of turning off the Mile End Road as I usually do, I could continue straight on and I would find myself in the City of London, and from there I knew my way to Russell Square in Bloomsbury, in which area I spend many teenage years and lived in a flat nearby.
OK in theory until you actually have to drive into central London it can be a bit hairy, off we went and traffic was pretty horrendous, but the benefit of this was that I hardly ever got out of second gear and I had time to see ahead where I was going and to double check which turning I needed to take. Missed on a couple of occasions but as I knew the back doubles of the City I was able to nip up a side street and find my way through. We arrived safely, I parked the car, we checked in and then flopped on the bed feet up drinking tea and chomping on biscuits before time for a meal and then off.
Drive back today was easy peasy except for one tricky moment when I came to a well know spot where Threadneedle Street, Bank, Poultry and Cornhill all meet in front of Mansion House and had to negotiate several sets of traffic lights etc etc. In the end I just thought sod it, put my foot down and went as I was dithering about like a panic stricken virgin and delighted to say that I managed to cut up a taxi, which filled me with delight as they had been doing it to me all morning.
Arrived home safely and keep contemplating with wonder the fact that I, Elaine Simpson-Long, she of the panics and the jitters when contemplating road trips, has actually managed to do this. I am flown with pride and so pleased with myself that I can barely get through the door my head has swollen to such monumental proportions.
In fact, so confident am I now that we have decided that next time we go to the theatre or the opera I will drive us in again.
Can't believe I just said that...........
