It Took Some Time

A day or should I say half a day in London. Spent the morning filling out my tax return which is always stressful.

We were booked on the 1.30 pm from Norwich to Liverpool Street but it was cancelled at the last minute whilst we were having an overpriced coffee. So we had to wait another half hour. Was booked into first class - strangely cheaper than second class on the Trainline web site. Even first class had ripped and tatty seats. National Express provide a pretty flimsy service.

Eventually got to our Hotel near Hyde Park - very basic, that's the hotel and not Hyde Park. Had tickets in the evening for War Horse at the New Theatre in Drury Lane. Decide to walk the three miles in order to take in the Christmas lights of Oxford Street before they come down tomorrow. Thousands of others seemed to have the same idea. It was tough avoiding all those on mobile phones who seemed to be quite oblivious of anybody else being around.

One of the delights of London is eating at the small cafes that seem to be on virtually every street corner. They usually sell good food, cheaply and we found one right by the theatre.

As for War Horse. Well the staging was very clever and you really did think the puppets were real horses but ultimately I found it all rather disappointing with much of the second half pretty incomprehensible and much of the dialogue being muttered with too much German and French which just made it all confusing. The guy who played Albert had a squeaky voice when he got excited, which was quite often and midway through the second half I wanted them to shoot the damn horse so we could all go home.

The British characters were supposed to come from Devon but many of them seemed to have more of a Norfolk accent which was an achievement because on TV actors trying to put on a Norfolk accent sound more like Devonians.

Had another walk to get to our hotel as there was a signal problem on the underground so we got off a stop early at Lancaster Gate