COUPLE OF WEEKS

Hi, at last I feel a bit better & can post about our trip to London last weekend.  I coughed so much that the crowds nearly jumped out of the way.  Not a clever thing to do in the mist of Flu, but it was my husbands 60th birthday pressie & I was not dying, so I went. cough cough

We travelled first class with British Rail - that was an experience to have a whole carriage almost to ourselves & free drinks, only 3 seats across the carriage instead of 4 & the seats also adjust (does this sound boring?)

Here I am with the huge bunnies in Bishopsgate, they are heavy but can be moved about & the kids just love them

Even the lights in Bishopsgate are fabulous,

But the reason for being in this area......

Yes our very own street.  My Grandad was a Peeler, a copper, a Policeman in this area (his surname was Franklin) This is Jack the Ripper area & he was involved in the hunt.  Now I am married to a man who has a London street with his name.  The reason is that this is very near to Spitalfields Hospital.  Hospitals used to use Lavender, there is a Lavender grown in Norfolk called Folgate Blue.....we even have a colour.  Exciting isn't it, I should do a piece of work based on the colour, but of course its my married name....  My children were with us & I refused to have my photo taken by the sign, they were cross when I said but I am not a Folgate, that had not occurred to them.  I guess if these days were the days when I got married I would have retained my maiden name.  I said this in class last week & some of the lovely ladies were really surprised, one said she had not ever thought about it, I said we didn't really have an option in the 1960's & 1970's did we ladies, in the UK it was the 'done' thing to take your husbands name.  How times change

Here is a map of London, lovely patterns, I found this very inspiring, everyone wondered off tutting that I cant stop thinking about design & stitch even on a day out (well why should I change!)

I was being dragged around here as I felt terrible, I shall have to revisit with my DSLR camera to get some better photos as these are from my phone.

Here is the Gherkin, I sat on a cafe seat to watch the world go by, oh I love London, I had forgotten just how exciting the buzzing atmosphere is

We then went via the tube to The Tower of London, look at the incredible weather, the fabulous colour of the sky & the clouds.  Lots of the tube lines were closed because of work for the Olympics, so the tube was crammed.
We were first got off the train at St Pancreas International station we went shopping, I went to Paperchase, which is my number one shop to buy yet more design books, I have a few A5 with magnetic clips that I use for inspiration & Paperchase do such fabulous patterned good quality tissue paper.  Which will probably make an appearance in FOLLOW MY HEART as it is covered with flowers.

We decided to go on a river trip as I could walk no more & here is a Red London bus going over Tower bridge

THEN....

The bridge opened & a Schooner came through, What a privilege, I tried to take a video but forgot which buttons to press, what a view

We sailed up the river to the Houses of Parliament

Passing the London Eye on the way, my son has been on this twice, but I don't fancy it at all but it makes a wonderful design for my new NOUGHTS & CROSSES series of workshops to come soon

Then onto Big Ben, whose dial is bright gold, the sun shine right on it & it chimed for us right on cue!!
I felt much better after the river trip & we turned into Whitehall & went into a London Pub for Sunday lunch right by the Cenotaph.  We needed to explain to my daughters boyfriend who is Swedish just what the Cenotaph is!!!!
Then it was the main reason of the day, as we all said our farewells, DH & I went to the Royal Albert Hall for the first public performance of DIRE STRAITS who are now called THE STRAITS as Mark Knoffler is no longer with them
It was truly fantastic - a charity concert in aid of the Lords Taveners,

This is the ceiling, NOUGHTS & CROSSES again - hee hee cant stop, love this picture

Here is the crowd, we are all SULTANS OF SWING lol

If you go to Youtube there are lots of videos of THE STRAITS, my video (yep had worked it out by now) is all shaky & the lad (yep there were some youngsters there) next to me was dancing & shouting, very funny he was, he was there with his 2 sisters in honour of his Dad who had died in January.

We had to leave before the encore to make it back to the station to get the last train

Another adventure that was

1.  South Kensington station exits closed at 10pm

2.  We arrived at 10.02pm

3.  Accosted a really cool dude sauntering along

4.  Followed dude to station

5. Cough

6. Crammed like a sardine into the tube, remember the lines are closed, worse than rush hour, great for me as I am a tad claustrophobic. 

7.  Got a seat as was guess what - coughing - lol

8.  Made the train

WHOO HOO

 No-one on the train in first class so uneventful ride to our station

THEN

We could not get off the train- the doors would not open

My husband ran off down the carriage to the guard whilst I was shouting into the intercom & pushing buttons like mad

I thought that he had got off the train & he though the same

It was like a slow motion trashy movie when we spied each other across the carriage

If we had been 30 years younger we would have done a '10' moment running into each others arms.

What happened was that the guard was really rude to my husband and I could not stop laughing (& coughing) I was nearly hysterical as I thought we would end up in Derby!! about 60 miles away & it was gone midnight

As it was we ended up at the next station, with no return trains

We managed to get the only taxi at the station (very rude barging people we were)

Cost us 25 quid to get to our station, only to find it locked & we had our car in the barrier car park

I refused to get out of the Taxi, we eventually found an outside payment point, I watched my husband banging & swearing at the machine from the comfort of the taxi, screaming with laughter, bet the taxi driver thought I was a mad woman

The whole adventure was summed up by my daughter in a text message

YOU TWO ARE MAD!!!

Think we should stay at home forever now - last night we went to a good friends birthday party & managed to get lost on the way there & home!!! what a pair of wallies

This weekend I am supposed to be making BROOME-IN-DALE, in honour of Dales trip to Broome in Australia.  She has sent me such lovely lovely stuff & I am sitting looking at it & the muse has stowed away in Dales luggage....oh rats!!!

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