17th January 2008

Off to Covent Garden.  The markets are just setting up when we arrive so we wander around the shops, although I am reluctant to look too closely for fear of Gordy getting mildly hysterical with too many more purchases.  A string quartet is playing in the courtyard as is usual in Covent Garden.  We find our way to the Lyceum Theatre to buy tickets for tonight’s performance of The Lion King.  Back at the markets we purchase two more suitcases ……how have we ended up with so much luggage?

We lunch at a little French Restaurant then head back on the “tube” to the B & B to drop off the luggage. We take the opportunity for a little R & R and relax with a bottle of French bubbles before heading out again intending to stay out until it’s time to go to the show.  With plenty of time we decide to walk passing Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square and all the wonderful streets with magical names such as Charing Cross Road.

We call in for “Italian” at a restaurant just around the corner from the theatre.  There are restaurants everywhere you look, so absolutely no fear of going hungry and expect that they all add a 12 ½ to 15% “service” fee to the total!

Lion King is well worth seeing, the music is great with a couple of stand-out singers.  The costumes, puppetry and special effects are amazing and often the actors are using the aisles or the boxes so it adds to the overall effect.

When we leave the auditorium we are greeted by a mass of young men on bicycles with two seater cabs behind ringing their bells madly and offering rides.  On a whim I decide it would be something novel so engage the first one for a trip back the Belgravia.  What an experience...albeit not quite what I was expecting!  He quoted us fifteen pound however it was soon evident that the small motor that normally kicks in to power the vehicle was most definitely “kaput” and the poor bugger had to use man-power alone!  He really didn’t know which way to go and ended up taking us the long way around Green Park, passed Buckingham Palace!  By the time we were close to Victoria Station he looked like he was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion and, although we’d tried to stop him a couple of times, he pushed on.  When we arrived near the station we insisted he stop, gave him 20 pound and walked the rest of the way home!  It was not quite the experience I’d imagined made even less appealing by the cars that scream by seemingly missing you by inches in your little metal seat!