New resolutions

I've just checked when I last posted and it's two weeks.  How the time has slipped away.

In my defence we are in the middle of a family visit with an active and noisy 8 year old and last week we were in London.

The idea of being in London I love.  The actual experience I often find exhausting.  Over the years I've learned to do things in small chunks. 

A few pictures in a gallery looked at with attention
A concert somewhere with time to spend in the area around the concert venue.
Time to appreciate and savour a good meal in a restaurant suddenly discovered.

So my highlights this time were:

Where we stayed - a couple of hundred yards from the Southbank complex..
A trip to Hampton Court with the pleasure of journey back by boat..
An Out to Lunch concert at the Cadogan with Steve Fishwick, Jeremy Brown and Tom Cawley.
A walk across St James's and Green Park.
A lunch taken with a friend.

And just to prove I'm not too much of a wrinkly, an encounter with screaming girls waiting for an X-Factor boy band coming out of ITV Studios.  Loved their energy and just for the fun of it some of our party screamed too.

Literary wise, we did go to The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre which left us feeling somehow unsatisfied.  Like trying an old favourite of a perfume and it no longer smelling the way you want it too.  Good acting, strange updated language and a set that was neither updated nor completely contemporary to when the play was written.

Enjoyed seeing James Laurenson again, after his recent performance in the Hamlet with Rory Kinnear.