Well Ian and I had a fabulous day in London yesterday and yes I am suffering a bit today, with sore feet and tiredness.
We caught the 9:44 train to London, arrived at 11. We caught the tube to Leicester square and walked to the bead shop. You will be amazed that I didn't buy anything, I wasn't in the mood really, don't know why. We then walked to the theatre to collect our tickets for the matinee of Mamma Mia. We were going to catch a bus to Oxford street, but the traffic was pretty snarled up, so got the tube from Piccadilly circus to Oxford circus. As we walked from the tube to John Lewis, we passed a Monsoon, my favourite shop after Marks and Spencer. I found two tops that I liked, same style, different colours. I now always buy when I see, as in the past have gone back to find the item no longer stocked. From here we hit John Lewis big time. Can you tell we come from the sticks? Firstly I bought myself some L'occitane bath and shower gel. This is because a dear friend gave me a lovely set of 10 travel size bottles of mix and match items and I have just finished the cherry blossom shower gel, so I needed a refil. I am using the peony one right now and in time will buy some of that too! I got some cards too and then Ian decided to treat himself and Jack to some Chanel deodorant! That boy really is spoilt as we had already spent an arm and a leg on a bag of M & M's at the huge store in Leicester square. Next on the agenda was a visit to the bed linen department to look at new linen for our bed. I had seen a set on the web and wanted to look at it. Needless to say we snapped it up along with a new mattress protector for Jacks bed, told he was spoilt! By now I was time for a snack, so up to the top floor for The Place to Eat. We both had a baguette, filled with tomato, mozzarella, proscuito ham and pesto dressing. The bread was a sourdough with mixed olives, it was truly delicious. We then had a cake with coffee. Ok not cheap, but very nice. Now feeling full we made our way to the kitchenware dept, but didn't buy anything, but was tempted. By now it was round 2pm and the show started at 3, so we had to put a wriggle on. Again we had thought we would catch a bus, but it was showing a ten minute wait, but every minute seemed to be at least three, so we walked back to the tube.
We got to the theatre cans into our seats with about 20 minutes to spare. The seats were amazing, we had the walkway in front, so plenty of leg room about 9 rows from the front on the right side. We got chatting with two American guys sat beside us. They were over from Columbus, Ohio. One of them was scattering his mums ashes in Scotland. They were very easy to talk to and we talked theatre, travel, the economy.
Anyway the show started and as usual it did not disappoint. There is one actress that for me makes the show. She is called Joanna Munro. Now I remember her from a tv series way back called Angels, about nursing. Now this may go back to the late 70's or early 80's. I cannot say I have followed her career, but having seen her in the part of Rosie in Mamma Mia, she as far as I am concerned is the best part if the show. So imagine my pleasure at seeing her in the part still. We haven't seen the show of over two years. Anyway the show did not fail to please, it was we think the best show we have seen out of the four! Even I got up at the end to sing and clap, I don't do dancing.
After the show Ian suggested waiting at the stage door, knowing my penchant for being a stage door johnnie from way back. The actor who played Sam, came out and we spoke to him and told him that we were really impressed with the show. We asked if Joanna was around and she was sitting on the steps inside, so he asked her to come out. Well she was wonderful, we told her that we had been so happy to see she was still in the show and explained why the day was important to us. She was amazing and made us promise to go and see the show again next year once this horrid episode was over, and that we were to let her know. I asked her to sign my programme, which she did with a very personal message. I walked away from the theatre with a huge smile on my face and certainly feeling so much better than I had for quite some time.
We had a table booked for dinner at 6:30 and so we found a pub to sit in and have a drink and talk about the day so far. Thankfully it had already surpassed Ian's expectations. We then went to to the restaurant. This is called Sartori, it is in Great Newport Street. We found it because of something called Tastecard, which Ian was told about by work. For the year it has cost £29, for this we can either get 50% off the food or a two for one. Well it has already paid for itself with the savings from last night. The restaurant was nice, very busy, the staff attentive and the food lovely. The owner of the restaurant told us he used to have a restaurant in Petersfield, and we remembered it, not that we had ever been, but it was over ten hrs ago. Well I started with bruschetta, the serving was enormous, there were three slices of ciabatta absolutely covered with tomatoes etc, I would have been more than happy with two, or even one slice. Ian had mussels in a tomato chilli sauce, which to be honest was so big that I thought it could have been a main course. He said they were delicious. For our mains I had veal in a mushroom cream sauce, my one time most favourite meal. I had a bowl of veg and chips, but the waiter also bought me some roast potatoes too, but no idea why as I didn't touch them. The portion was huge, there must have been at least three if not four slices of veal, needless to say I was beaten. Ian had a rib eye steak with a side salad and another portion of roast potatoes. Now we were both stuffed to the gills, but fancied puds too! I had another all time favourite, creme caramel, very easy to slip down. Ian went for a lovely dessert, it was very thin slices of pineapple, folded into a half moon shape, with lemon sorbet inside, and then frozen. They looked like little pancakes. We will be going there again, we saved ourselves £33 with the taste card.
We left the restaurant and managed to get the 8:53 train from London, which got us back to Alton at 10:15. We were both totally knackered but Ian says it is the first time in ages that he has actually seen me smiling properly.
In the end it was nearly 2am before we went to bed as the three of us sat up talking for ages. Thankfully I was already in bed and Jack and I had a talk about things, hopefully clearing the air a bit.
So today I am going to be able to go to the hospital feeling so much better than last week.
Xx
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