Today in Brief:
- 830-10 Walked around Hyde Park.
- Highlights: The Albert memorial
- 10-2 Science Museum:
- Highlight: Seeing the first ever steam trains.
- Matlida, the Musical, 7pm at the Cambridge theatre.
We’ve developed the habit of getting a coffee (a flat white of all things!) from Costa, a coffee chain, before jumping on the tube, as the coffee available in the hotel is clearly WW1 German ersatz. As nothing opens in London until 10am, we went for a walk around Hyde Park and enjoyed the scenery, the horses, ducks on the pond, and a baby Coot being fed on what was possibly the most ridiculous nest ever made. The Prince Albert memorial was spectacular. Quite possibly the largest monument ever built by a Queen-wife for her cousin-husband. Cusband. Equally impressive was the Prince Albert theatre, directly opposite.
From there it was an easy walk to the Science Museum. Seeing Stephenson’s Rocket, and an authentic Apollo module was impressive.
We finished at the Museum at around 2pm and headed back to the hotel for a nap. At around 530 we headed to Maccas for a quick dinner and jumped back onto the Piccadilly line to get to the theatre for the 7pm performance for Matilda.
Matilda was absolutely amazing, made all the much better by seeing it in London. The sets that rose from the floor were just brilliant. We didn’t buy a program. It seems that every other time we do, we just end up throwing it out later at home. My only complain is about the other patrons: A couple sitting on our left left their rubbish over the floor, which basically makes them as bad as Hitler. The couple of women on our left wouldn’t stop talking throughout, and then at the end tell us “that’s Matilda’s mum over there!” Like we care. The girl in front, part of a larger school group of year sixes, judging from their leavers jumpers wouldn’t stop turning around in her seat. As Bel later pointed out was disrespectful as well as generally annoying, as someone presumably paid quite a lot for her to be there to see the production.
Photos to follow.
Total steps: 14457.