Catch Up.

Haven't posted for ages, been a little blue and unfocused.

Anyway here goes...

A while ago my Mother was perusing the paper and noticed that there was a young company of Opera singers performing excerpts as a matinée in the Covent Garden Opera House, and that the most expensive tickets were only £35! So she booked two tickets and a while later up we went.

I was very tired from working, and we managed to get a little lost on the way there, and I was a little hacked off that I hadn't had Dim-Sum for lunch, still we arrived about three hours before we had to go in and ambled round Covent Garden, have to agree with Kim that it isn't great although some of the street theatre was very enjoyable.

The opera itself was very good, although I have to admit I almost fell asleep a couple of times, don't think I will make a habit of going though. The strangest thing was that the person in the seat in front of me was my Godmothers husband, as they live in Brighton this was very surprising.

Then more life for a while.

And then a fortnight off, first week I spent pretty much in bed recovering, now midway through the second week and am starting to do things, Monday I went to Wisley gardens and have a lovely walk including going through the maize maze. Tuesday popped to the tip with six bags of assorted recyclables. Today flat tidying, tomorrow Dim-sum and the RA summer exhibition, Friday tidying or maybe a visit to Dilek, Saturday popping over to France for a meal and a shop, and Sunday probably more tidying and preparation for a return to work.

Still a little grey though.

We now have an oriental supermarket in town, their dim-sum is a cheapo brand that I had tried before and was unimpressed by, tried it again and sadly it is still unimpressive although the won-ton were very nice, they do the brand of noodles that I usually buy (about 15p more expensive, but then I am not driving to London for them), their squid is very expensive, and the Thai pouches are OK, not as good as the ones I usually get, however not too bad.

Talking of squid I am a little hacked off at Waitrose at the moment, I purchased half a pound of squid from the fresh fish counter, there was a warning that it had been previously frozen, however when they put the squid in a bag for me it was still frozen, so I ended up getting just over a quarter of squid and a quarter of defrosted liquid.

Anyway I must tidy my hall now.

Misc

Should write more, but just headlines:

1/ The grim north is grim

2/ The Chinese in Cove(ish) is very pleasing. Reminded me of the one on the Caledonian road when I was at college. :-)

3/ Justin is still a really nice chap

4/ Kim is unwell, but still great company. Sad that the wedding has been postponed.

5/ Was seriously flattered and unable to think of what to say when Kim said she would have asked me to walk her down the aisle if I had been in Toronto for the wedding.

6/ I am so bad at driving games

7/ But I am quite good at Wii Sports.

8/ Bill and Ted are still Excellent.

9/ Why were there so many pissed youngsters in Cove/Hawley on Saturday?

10/ Why were the police blocking roads? I saw no trouble at all.

11/ That said after I had turned round I managed to find the M3 via Farnborough.

12/ Why did Mater say she knew the way to Covent Garden from Trafalgar Square when she doesn't?

13/ Opera is quite good.

14/ What are the odds of sitting behind my Godmothers husband on my first visit to the opera?

Work :-(

So as a part of my role I have to travel up to the grim north where my
unit is based, it used to be cosmopolitan Rotterdam, now it is the
grubby end of the Wirral :-(



So we have a simple facility for booking flights, but a stupidly
complicated method of getting authorisation for them so I gave up on
that idea, the local care hire companies only had manual cars, which I
am not really allowed to drive, my own car is starting to feel its age
and driving 500 miles in two days at 70mph didn't really sound like fun,
so the only option I was left with was the train.



Now even in economy it costs three times the cost of a flight, but that
isn't relevant as far as cost control goes... Company policy says I can
travel first class, keeping my head down in case of layoffs means that I
travel economy (so I miss out on a free meal <<>>)



So at six am I am at my local station to catch a train halfway to
London. All in all I caught six trains to get up here, well I should
have caught five but I went a stop too far on one of them, so I caught
another train one stop back and got on the correct train, imagine my
surprise when the first stop on that train was the one that I had turned
around from! They all connected well, the main train actually leaned
into corners which was quite cool.



And five hours later I stumble into the office, have a slightly
successful day, and 7.5 hours later stumble out - I've never been sure
why but there seems to be a rule in the office that visitors are not
allowed lunch, mind you there always seems to be at least one meeting
which covers the lunch period anyway.



To my hotel! A nice mile walk, which is good for me, and the hotel has
been redecorated since I last stayed there! Now it only looks like crap!
Check in, praise the Lord I will get refunded for these exorbitant
charge (mind you a fiver would be too much to pay if I were paying for
it myself), ask for a paper in the morning, and nip outside for a fag.



Up for a bath (actually I suppose the hotel could be worse, I have
stayed at a couple where the room didn't have a bath. I know most people
are different, however personally I never feel clean after a shower only
after a scrub in the bath. And down for supper, now I don't want to
knock the place, but it has two "restaurants" and the speciality of the
posher one is burgers, now a good burger is a thing of beauty, however
they will not cook a burger rare or medium rare, and the recipe appears
to be meat, not even a defined animal. So imagine the meal I had in the
cheaper place, a "club" sandwich, bread that had been toasted, but had
been so stale before toasting that it exploded into crumbs when one put
a fork anywhere near it, Chicken that had been unhappy all its short
life, chips that were incredibly hot and yet undercooked. The bacon was
OK but being in the north there was no salad. And to bed.