Day Out

I went to London for the day with my friend Pauline. She lives in Andover so we arranged to catch the same time. I got on the train at Axminster at 8.57a.m. Pauline got on at about 10.30 a.m. and we got to Waterloo by about 11.25.

We headed to St Pauls Cathedral and called in to a small old fashioned pub for a snack lunch. We sat outside in a small courtyard where the pub's tame squirrels begged for peanuts. We dont see each other very often these days so we had lots of catching up to do.

At about 2 p.m. as planned we headed for the Old Bayley. Pauline had visited before but it was a new and fascinating experience for me. We sat in on a trial of three Turkish men charged with the "Honour killing" of the daughter of one of them and the daughter's boyfriend. The witness was being questioned through an interpreter so was a little difficult to follow, but nevertheless it was riveting. The case was adjourned at about 4.15p.m. and after a quick coffee we walked over the Millenium Bridge and took a look round the Tate Modern.

Pauline ventured the opinion that it would all be rubbish, although she used a different word, but I thought that there would be some rubbish but also some inspired work. In the event I had to come round to her point of view and we both agreed when observing the intense "art" fans that they had a severe case of the Emperor's new clothes!!

We had an early evening meal in a Brasserie next door to the Globe theatre. The view of St Paul's and the Thames, especially when lit up after dark, was spectacular. We had a loveley meal and cuaght the 8.20 train home. Unfortunately after Pauline got off at Andover I had another 2 hours to go because the train stopped at every station. We were also delayed a further 20 minutes because of a road accident with a railway bridge. Still I was home by midnight (Mike collected me from the station) after a really brilliant day.

Back to reality today.