London Calling

Since Thursday night I have been staying with my Great Aunt Alison, and have been having a fantastic time. On Friday, I just got up late, tidied up some emails and what not, decorated Alison’s minimalist Christmas tree with her, went for a stroll down the street, and did a lot of chatting with Alison. Yesterday I went into London city to purchase some tickets for Andrea, Adam and myself for our trip to Glasgow and I had a nice wander past Buckingham palace to Trafalgar square where I passed a protest about the atrocities in Darfor as well as a march for the annual Santa convention by about 850 people dressed up as Father Christmas. I checked out the massive pine in Trafalgar square which is an annual gift from the city of Oslo to the people of London as a token of their appreciation for their help in WW2, and then I went down into the underground to eat some fruit for lunch as it was too bitingly cold outside. I took my gloves off to eat and layed them on my lap, but as we all know our lap disappears when we stand up, and I did just that to catch the train to Embankment, once I realised this I was already at another station, so it took me five or so minutes to get back to where I had dropped them, but by this time, one of them had vanished – so now my left hand gets a little chilly… But thankfully inside the National history museum was quite warm as that was where I went next, and I had a ball looking at different animals and dinosaurs for a couple of hours. That evening Alison and I went to see the St. Peters singers at the local church, which was quite pleasant, and we then had dinner and sat around chatting until 12:30. So today had another slow start, but after a late breakfast Alison and I started to fix up some lattice in her garden. We then sat about for an hour or so chatting with coffee and biscuits and are now just about to have dinner. I’m really having a super time here, it’s nice and laid back, and I’m learning a great deal about this side of my family, and English culture and history, and celebrities (almost). The man that lives next door composes music for films for a living and he was responsible for the soundtrack to St. Trinians which has just been released here. He is married to a BBC journalist who is often travelling all over the world. Also it seems a little odd when we are talking about celebs in the magazines, and Alison drops in ‘Yes well Perou (her son in law) said that she was actually quite a nice person’ – ha! Also the lady that won the first ‘Strictly come dancing’ (which is just like ‘Dancing with the Stars’ although taken a lot more seriously here) lived just down the street, next to some other guy who gets picked up occasionally by a chauffeur driven Mercedes. It’s all a bit surreal!