A few days ago I was expecting a nice lazy day.
It was the last day of school for junior, and SWMBO, (she
who must be obeyed), was planning to spend the day shopping in London. It was
also arranged that junior would meet up with SWMBO later in the afternoon once
school finished for the Christmas break, to attend a theatrical production. As
it happens it was A Christmas Carol by Mr Dickens, with Simon Callow doing it
as a one man show. For various reason I declined the offer of going when the tickets
were booked, and when the morning dawned I was looking forward, apart from the
several trips to the railway station to drop all the parties off at the
appropriate times, to a day and an evening of relative peace, i.e. I could
watch the football. However, when junior got up and eventually staggered
downstairs he greeted the morning with a sniff, a cough, and a moan. He wasn’t
feeling very well. He had a cold. Ah bless him. A cold!
‘Man flu?’ asked SWMBO.
Junior nodded, and then turned around and crawled back to
bed, indicating that perhaps he wouldn’t be joining his mother for a trip to
the theatre after all.
‘You want to come?’ she asked me. ‘I’ll go on my own if you
don’t.’
I thought a moment and realised that what she actually said
was not what she said....give me a point for realising that! ‘Yes dear,’ says I
with barely a hesitation, and then waved goodbye to my football and my lazy day.
The train was actually clean and on time, and I stared out
the window while SWMBO first read the paper and then played with her phone. She
looked at me and then said. ‘Shall we go to the Dickens museum? It will be
cheaper than going to Oxford Street.’
I was quick to agree.
It was raining as we hastened through the streets towards
Bloomsbury, though she had an umbrella, I didn’t. It was blue with spots on,
and small....a one person umbrella. She tried to hold it up so that both of us
could share, but what happened was that both of us got wet on one side. I
gave in and got wholly soaked. So sodden wet we turned up at Mr Dickens’ former
abode. I hope he didn’t mind me dripping on his carpet.
It’s an interesting place, and done out as he would have
seen it and well worth the visit. I did a little mental calculation and
realised that I could probably afford about a square inch of the floorspace, so
would have quite a problem fitting my furniture into that. Nice house though.
Thankfully by the time we came out the rain had stopped, so
we walked, eventually coming to Holborn. We passed a restaurant that we went to
some twenty years previous when we picked up our wedding rings from the
jewellers. We looked at each other, and yes, we did, we went in....and it hadn’t
changed a bit!
A quick trip afterwards to Liberty's and then a couple of
pints in an old pub before turning up to watch Mr Callow do his thing.
The theatre was warm, and I’d had a couple of pints. I felt
my eyes droop. I received an elbow in the ribs. I just hope Mr Callow didn’t
notice! Actually the performance was brilliant, how the hell he could remember
all those lines I just don’t know, well I think he remembered all the lines, as
I just said, I may have missed a couple!
After the applause he richly deserved we started to make our
way to the train station and home. We paused on the bridge over the Thames and
looked towards St Paul's. Everything was lit up for Christmas, and the lights
played on the ripples of the river, it was really quite beautiful. I took a
picture and sent it to junior before we caught the train home.
A lovely day, and made all the better when we got back and I
asked if he had got the picture I sent.
‘Yes!’ he snarled. ‘Thanks for rubbing it in!’
I grinned back at him before opening the wine and pouring
two glasses, one for me and one for she....actually I rather liked my lazy day!
