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cestfromage · 8 years

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Tuesday dawned dark and dismal and cold. Yay. Welcome back to London…

Poor Alice had to go in to work and poor me had to sleep in. Which I did. Very effectively. We hadn’t made too many plans for our last week together in London. Dinner on Wednesday with a couple of Alice’s co-workers and that was about it. Somehow we both came up with the idea to go back to the comedy club for the evening. Huzzuh! I went to The Charles Holden and had a bag of potato chips and a beer and worked on blogging for a little bit. I think I posted one of the Vacation to Remember blogs and started work on the next. It was very pleasant to have access to the internet! Yay internet!!

After dropping my computer at Alice’s, I got on the train and met her at our usual meeting spot – the chairs about 1 minute from her work. Alice had figured out the best way to get to the comedy club in Islington – Bus! Surprisingly the bus didn’t take long at all. We got to the pub that houses the Angel Comedy club with lots of time to spare. An Australian Comic who we had seen during our last visit recognized Alice and offered to let us know first when it was time to go up and get seats! Go Alice!

Both of us were peckish – I was peckisher since all I had eaten all day was the bag of chips. We ordered BBQ wings and a chicken and bacon sandwich. And beverages. Humor is sometimes better with beverages. My sandwich was tasty. As was the wing skin from Alice’s food (Alice doesn’t generally enjoy skin – though she loves sauce, dislike’s fried batter, but is ok with tempura…). Yum! And sure enough, the Australian (whose name I have sadly forgotten (not Bruce)) came and got us and we were the first up into the teeny performance space. (Hanford?)(Hanyon?)(Hanson?)

Alice had made it clear that she didn’t want to sit in the front row. A mistake that surely haunted her later in the evening. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I was expecting the same format we had seen on our previous visit – 10 comedians each presenting a couple of minutes of material. And from the website, I had gotten the impression that the MC was going to be the last comic we had seen last time – one that both Alice and I found very amusing. But that wasn’t the case. There were only 4 comedians and the MC (who was also a comedian of course…) And the MC wasn’t Barry (I think that was his name) though Barry was one of the performers. The host was a man named Frances Foster who did some good bits. The first performer was a clean cut looking fellow named Jason who did a serviceable set. Next up was Barry, who got onto a thing about an event called Cockfest (not at all what one would think from the name). Third was the Australian, who, as Alice pointed out, did much of the same material that he had done the previous time, and lastly, a big surprise. Romesh Ranganathan (sp?) came on stage. Alice nearly plotzed. I had seen him once before on an episode of QI (which is a lot of fun for those who like shows that are funny and informational) so at least I recognized him. But Alice really, really, really liked him. If we had been in the front row, she might have been able to get a picture with him. Oh well, life is that way someimes.

Our MC Frances

Jordan

Barry

Australian Guy

Alice tried her best to catch him after the show, but didn’t succeed. We had another drink before making our way home. All in all, a very pleasant Tuesday evening.

Since the weather continued miserable on Wednesday, I didn’t do a whole lot. I did manage to take myself out to lunch at one of the teeny shish and kebab places near Alice’s. This time I went to a place called Sam’s. The woman working there didn’t look very Sam-like to me. Nice though. Despite her correcting the way I said hummus. “Hoomoos” is how she seemed to pronounce it. Anyway, I had a hamburger (with “salad” meaning lettuce and such) and some onion rings and a bit of hoomoos (a lot of humus actually). I bought my food and ate at home.

Wednesday Evening, Alice had arranged a dinner get together with some of her coworkers. The restaurant was a Wine and Cheese focused place – with entrees. Most everyone drank wine, while I stuck with a decent IPA – not great – but better than many IPAs that I have tried in London. Alice’s friends both had hamburgers, I had a steak, and I can’t recall what Alice had. But it all looked and tasted good! Vishnal (sp?) and Kate (sp?) were both very nice people. I think Alice even accepted Kate’s FB friend request, which is a major step for Alice! We had some drinks, a delicious dinner and great chatting. Well, at least I felt I was entertaining (and entertained).

The next few days, Alice worked from home and we didn’t do much in the way of socializing. I think I went to Tesco a couple of times. We ate delicious meals at home, watched some things on the computer, played a bunch of Gin and basically spent as much time together as we could. On Saturday, we went food shopping at Morrison’s – Alice’s go to food shopping place. It was fun wandering around the store picking up stuff. In the beer Aisle, I noticed again that England has “four packs” instead of six packs for some of the beer. Weird.

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Sunday dawned drearily. I had to pack and check in and do all that “getting ready to head back to the US” stuff. And then I noticed that my credit card was missing. Eeeek! No need to panic – I must have left it at Morrison’s. I discovered this at around 4 pm as Alice was bathing. Turns out that Morrison’s closes at 5 on Sunday! Eeeek! And it is in Wimbledon – about half an hour away! Double eeek! While Alice called them to check to see if they had the card (they weren’t sure), I headed down there – walking about halfway before catching a bus. I got to the store, found a security guy who handed me off to another guy. Man, was it jam packed! Maybe they need to rethink their closing time on Sundays. Well, the guy looked and looked and couldn’t find any record of my card having been turned in. Luckily, the same man who had been attending the self serve checkout area Saturday was on duty again. He said he had turned it in, so my guy headed off to talk with his boss. Who, it turned out, had the card, though it hadn’t been entered into the log for some reason. Sigh. One funny thing was when the man who was helping me mentioned Alice, he called her my wife/girlfriend/significant other/friend. Tee hee! Just about covers all the bases. On the way back to the apartment, I planned on taking a bus and found that the stop I had been planning on using was closed. As was the next one. So I ended up walking home. Which actually felt good, despite the yucky weather!

The next day was Monday and I winged my way back to the US. Had nice travel companions – Will and Natalya (sp) and an easy trip. Though it did prompt me to rethink my luggage choice. What I would really love is a robot bag that would follow me and put itself in the overhead compartment. It would be nice if it were a bag of holding or Tardis like – but I guess I will have to wait awhile to get one of those. My car had a teeny bit of snow on it and the drive home wasn’t horrendous.

I made it safely and found the house still intact and not much worse for the wear and tear of a few weeks Augustus’ absence. Mixed blessing to be home. Happy because I was home, sad because Alice and I aren’t in the same place. Again. Still. Though she has bought her tickets to come for a visit in April! Huzzuh!!

London and Home again Tuesday dawned dark and dismal and cold. Yay. Welcome back to London… Poor Alice had to go in to work and poor me had to sleep in.

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