At last I've got some blossom on the blog! This is round the corner from my Dad's house. We stopped and ooo'd and aaah'd at the wondrous, pom-pom-like quality of this luscious stuff. Then we went cross-country a bit to see the lambs...
... like this cheeky pair. And these. The rest of 'em were busy not being keen on being snapped.
And look! On the way back we saw Hayley Cropper's car*!!!
Today we headed back via London. Lots of time to see lots of places. We started with the South Bank for a mooch and an ice cream. They are getting ready for the imminent 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, so lots of painting and general doings were going on, with the smell of sawdust mixed with the smell of deep-fried doughnuts.
There's a seaside theme; lots of words on yellow banners all along the railings, which we forgot to snap, and these:
It made us feel like taking a cool dip, so we did the next best thing and jumped on a riverboat for an hour, down to Tower Bridge and back up to the Houses of Parliament. Best fact from the tour guide? That the founder of Harvard was a butcher's son from Southwark.
We then thought about going to Camden, with a nice cooling whizz around the circle line. Got off instead at Baker Street and went to Regents Park. This took us past a big line of people going to the Sherlock Holmes museum and tacky shops selling £20 t-shirts.
The heat and the 12 year old having blisters made us think There Was No Place Like Home, so mid-afternoon off to the station we went and headed norf. Having to change trains one stop from home, everything was a bit all over the place with a power failure. We got on the train that eventually came and headed up the corridor towards first class as the train was packed.
A small man with 2 hefty briefcases got on too and decided we were all in the way of him getting to his first class seat. Before anyone had a chance to try to move he put his head down and charged through the lot of us with his elbows. One girl got her boobs totally flattened and a few choice comments were hurled in the bloke's direction. By me. Because Brits Don't Make A Fuss and no one else did a thing.
Me and the boys went and sat behind Rude First Class Man's seat and as we got ready to get off I told the boys to take their rucksacks off so we could "get past the people more politely than some people on this train". At this he stood up too (up to my shoulder, as he was vertically challenged, and not unlike Paul Daniels. Only with the aggressive traits of small man syndrome) and decided to apologise. I told him not to bother and that he had been obnoxious and had a lot of people to apologise to. Again no back-up, but I made sure he apologised to the traumatised boob-flattened woman once we were on the platform.
*Coronation Street
7 comments:
Hello:
And well done you for standing up to First Class Rude Man.
What fun you seem to have had on your London trip although we feel that you must have been totally exhausted by the end of it. We love the 'beach huts' alongside the Thames - a reminder of Brighton but there they are not so brightly painted. More Southwold, we think.
We have a vitrine in the drawing room, home to an assortment of oddities including, as it happens, a 1951 Festival of Britain 5/- piece still with its original box. Gratuitous information - sorry!
Well done on pulling obnoxious man up on his behaviour. For some reason I've been falling foul of old ladies recently - some of them in Croydon are vicious. God help you if you don't somehow know by pyschic connection which way they want to go in a shop, curtseying as you back away.
The first part of your day sounds good...as for the train moron! I can imagine you going for him, good on ya girl! :) xx
Hello Jane and Lance. I was cross about That Man all day yesterday, but am over it now. When we were off the train I found out he'd elbowed my 13 yr old in the solar plexus. If I'd known that at the time I'd have been swinging my handbag at him!
I was flummoxed at what a vitrine was (latrine? in the drawing room?) so had to look it up. Could we have a close-up picture - the contents sound fascinating.
Hi Lakota. Blimey - must be fun when you're out shopping. If they saw you were buying vintage they should be patting you on the back ;)
Hi Lizzie. Yes, I am very vocal in that sort of situation. Shame none of the other passengers were...
Would be lovely to go to London when the FoB Anniversary is in full swing - it will be gorgeous. What bits of walkway weren't taken up by being roped off for painting things were clogged up with people walking straight AT us. No wonder we got so tired!
Will look out for pics of it all in full swing on someone's blog.
Haaaa! What a brilliant day and hurrah to standing up to the little man! I love how those two little sheep were so very much posing for you. And the stripes and smell of doughnuts... mmmmmmm... x
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