I'm doomed, I tell you, doomed.
Categories: ramblings
Date: 26 November 2007 13:24:20
Doomed never to get rid of a single one of my Kew day passes ever. I get 6 per year as part of my Friends membership, and since I've been a Friend in March this year, I've never managed to use any of them.
Rosamummy and I had a cunning plan - she was in London today for a course on corporate manslaughter and why it's a bad idea, so the plan went as follows:
Rosamummy to catch a train to this 'ere London on Friday evening. Dinner chez Rosamundi Towers, up bright'n'early Saturday morning to go to the Golden Age of Couture exhibition at the V&A, then on to the National Gallery to see the Siena exhibition.
Sunday, catch a train to Gospel Oak, Mass with the Dominicans, then on to Kew for the afternoon.
It all went swimmingly, up until coming out of the Siena exhibition. Today's top tip is thus: Whatever you do, not be tempted to go and get a quick cup of coffee in the National Gallery café at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon. Appalling service and dreadful coffee.
Made it to Mass on Sunday. Having told mum, "there's a Willis organ, a competent organist and a reasonably strong choir," alarm bells started ringing when I saw the praise band setting up in the corner. So we dribbled our way through the dribbly choruses (mercifully, I can't remember which ones, but © Kingsway's Thank You Music appeared at the bottom of many of them). Shudder. I'm sure praise choruses done well make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and I'm quite happy to join in if there's a strong tune and a decent lead, and lyrics that consist of a bit more than "Jesus You are really great" repeated ninety five thousand times. Anyway - it's not all about me, and I'm sure someone found it helpful. I have, of course, made a mental note to avoid that Mass in future, since I'm equally sure nobody will find my rapidly semaphoring eyebrows conducive to worship.
Came out of Mass, off to the Tube station, train in 10 minutes, we'll be at Kew in time for lunch. Magic.
"Where are you going?" demands the guard.
[Thinks: "none of your damn business,"] "Kew."
"There's no trains."
"Yes there are, there's a train in ten minutes."
"No there isn't. Points failure, and we have no idea when it will be fixed."
"OK, how do I get to Kew from here, then?"
"I don't know."
[Blink].
After he tried to tell me to get a bus to somewhere, then the Northern line and change to the District Line, and I pointed out that there were no District Line trains due to engineering works, he lost interest.
Anyway, Rosamummy and I made it to the South Bank, were we had lunch and a bit of a meander and got menaced by a large spider and went round the Globe Theatre. It was fun, but not Kew.
