Today I unfortunately had to head into work (someone has to pay for the family holidays).  I got up at my usual ‘work time’ 6:30am and no-one stirred until I woke the boys up while trying to get my toiletry bag out of their unpacked suitcase.  Helen was awake when I left the flat at 8am but I don’t think she had actually picked her head up off the cushion yet.  I caught a bus to Waterloo station (it is only about a 25 minute walk but as it was overcast and drizzingly I didn’t want to get wet in my suit) and then I caught a train to Dorking for a meeting with a client.  The train trip took about 45 minutes.  It is an amazing place for an insurance office.  They must have converted the old estate in the area into the office building.  When you enter their grounds you pass ponds with ducks swimming around and the grounds are beautiful.  I would think that it must be very pleasurable environment to work in (assuming the people are nice!).  The meeting was finished by 11:30am and we (I was with 2 of my UK staff), caught a train back to Waterloo, then the underground to Bank station and walked the rest of the way back to the office and I got into the office at 1:15.

Fortunately by that time my lunch had already arrived.  For those of you who don’t know, we get free lunch in London office (see – there is such a thing as a free lunch).  You have a choice of 4 suppliers and you can pretty much get anything you would like – you just have to order before 10am.  I usually order a sandwich and today I had remembered to email my UK PA and asked her to place the order for me so it was waiting when I got into the office.  Smoked Salmon and Cottage Cheese … now I am feeling hungry again.  I sent a text (not an SMS – no one here knows what you are talking about if you say SMS) to find out what the 3 terrorists and my darling, beautiful wife were doing (or had done).  They had been (so far) to the Natural History Museum (which Helen says needs to be renovated into the 21^st century), then to Harrods and they were currently  sitting eating lunch at Wasabi (take out sushi place).

I heard later from the boys about what cars they had seen.  Touring around with them in London has opened my eyes to how many fancy cars there are here.  I just hadn’t noticed before but given they point out each Ferrari; Lambo; Rolls, Bentley And GeeWhiz we see, you just can’t not help noticing anymore.  Even Helen was pointing out cars yesterday on our trip in.  The only problem was that she kept pointing to Volvos, Fords, Toyotas and the like and the boys get disgusted with her.  Then to top it off she keeps asking what kind of car that was when it was one that they had told her about 2-3 cars earlier … chicks never learn …

They seemed to have fun especially at Harrods and were almost tempted into buying ‘make your own snow’ which I was told lasts for 2 weeks.  Hard to believe but they were quite insistent and seemed to have concocted the story very well or they had in fact seen it.  They went from Harrods to Hamley’s (you can probably see a theme here) but amazingly they didn’t buy anything at Hamley’s.  They then caught a taxi back home.

Meanwhile, during their sightseeing and shopping, I was slaving away trying to bring home the bacon.  I had too much to do in too short a time as I wanted to leave the office at 4:30pm so I could get back to the flat to change before we went out to see Oliver at the Theatre this evening.  I made it back to the flat at 5pm which gave me a short time to change out of my suit.  Just at about this time it started to drizzle lightly but we were fortunate to get a taxi from right outside the flat.  We then sat in a traffic jam for the next 30 minutes and a downpour of rain (and hail) that I have never seen before in London.  It pelted and bucketed down (really – both at the same time) and at one stage I looked at the road and it would have been easy to believe that we were driving in the Thames and not next to it.  I was thankful that we hadn’t been walking!

We went to dinner at Sophie’s Steakhouse & Bar.  Stephen and I had been there about 10 days ago when he was with me in London and we really liked it, and as it was just around the corner from the theatre we thought that it would make a good venue for dinner this evening. The service was again prompt and friendly and everyone liked the food so it is a definitely a place we will come back to again.  It is a really nice and open restaurant yet it does have a nice vibe about it too.  We finished dinner at 6:30pm and so we still had another hour to kill before the start of Oliver.  We walked around Covent Garden and Helen went into a few shops but concluding that it was not going to be a shopping holiday (said with a little disdain in her voice).  We got into the theatre and found our seats which were the very back row of the Upper Circle.  London theatre’s were not built for comfort – no aircon; very steep, no leg room.  I sat on the aisle so I could at least stretch my legs out down the stairs (and occasionally trip someone when I wanted to see some action).  Helen had to sit with her legs around her neck for most of the performance except for a brief time when she stood (we were the back row so no one’s view was blocked).

The performance was excellent.  Rowan Atkinson (of Mr Bean fame) played Fagan and he stood out for the rest of the cast.  They definitely have altered the role/character of Fagan slightly to fit Rowan Atkinson and there were some stand out sections which you could see Mr Bean peaking through.  He had the audience in raptures.  There was one point where he was talking to his jewels and to himself and he says “Pearl, I want to introduce you to Ruby” and then he says, “Ruby I want to introduce you to Crystal” and he did a Mr Bean mutter under his breath and it brought the house down.  Some of the rest of the cast were also very good including Dodger (who I thought was 2^nd best after Rowan).  We caught a taxi home (we were fortunate and found one right outside the theatre) and the fare was half of what we paid there (to illustrate how long we were stuck in traffic on the way there).

We got home at 10:20pm and the kids went to bed pretty much straight away and after I had done some CBD work (I have to do that otherwise I start getting emails from Janet, Nick, Michael, Gio, Lily/Lynne & Willem complaining about me slacking off), I typed this and now I am heading for bed as well because I need to be up again at 6:30am tomorrow as someone needs to pay for the family holidays (I get a feeling of déjà vu).

Good night, sleep tight.

From the Musical Ts

Today wasn’t a particularly eventful day.  We got up relatively late and we started breakfast at about 9am and only finished after 10am (egg & bacon take awhile to cook at my parents home – must be the altitude above sea level).  After breakfast it was time to pack up and start preparing to leave for London.  The plan was to leave after an early lunch at around 1pm so that we missed the evening traffic and we had to drop the car off before 6pm anyway as the car rental agency closes at 6pm.  When lunch time rolled around we were all still full from breakfast so we decided to skip lunch and just get something on the drive into London from one of the ‘Services’.

The drive from my parent’s home into London takes about 2 hours if there is no traffic but that is always a big IF. We fortunately didn’t encounter any significant delays despite passing what seemed to be an accident (2 cars and about 5 police cars) and another incidence where a truck had it’s load smouldering (2 fire engines were standing by for that one – feel at home Marcus?).  We did stop on route at the last Services on the motorway before we hit Greater London.  I thought I would fill up first and then we could get something to drink/eat and so I duly followed the signs to ‘Fuel’ which happened also to be the same direction as Exit.  We filled up and then looked for a route back to the eating area and realised there was no such route.  However, the road coming from that area was 2 lanes and I was persuaded that it must be a two-way road so I headed back down it only to meet a few cars coming up it and looking amazed to see us driving down it.  No danger as they duly pulled to their side and we smiled nicely as we past them until we got to the point which clearly indicated we were driving down a one-way road and so we decided that we better stop before we meet a truck coming up the road.  So we pulled into the Bus and Truck parking and parked the car there instead and went to buy something to eat & drink.

Helen feeling that she hadn’t yet had sufficient breakfast went for the ‘Builder’s Breakfast’ flavoured potato crisps (tasted like bacon & egg).  On the way out we passed some scary (Helen’s word) looking people sitting at the picnic tables.  They came from a coach tour and it certainly wasn’t a slimmers convention they were returning from.  Our only hope was that the shock absorbers were reinforced prior to the journey commencing.

After using the road exiting the Services in the correct direction, we hit greater London at 3pm and made our way relatively easily to the flat in central London.  The GPS is an amazing invention which takes all the stress out of having a wife who can’t read a map or navigate (not that I am saying Helen can’t do these things – just speaking in a general sense).  I did ignore it on two occasions as I knew better (and I was right as usual).  We got to the flat at 3:30pm and as there is no real off-road parking we had to block the sidewalk while we quickly unpacked the car and then Stephen and I left Helen, Michael and Chloe to get the 44 pieces of luggage into the flat while we returned the car to Hertz in Marble Arch.  That again was a relatively easy journey given the use of the GPS and this time I didn’t have to correct it at all.  Just when we handed back the car, the heavens opened and so while our plan was to grab a taxi back to the flat, everyone else had decided on the same route and there wasn’t a single cab for hire.  So we started to walk back and Stephen worriedly asked if we were going to walk the whole way back.  I said we may as well walk until we find a cab but we never did and finally we walked past a tube station so we decided to jump on the tube instead.  After one change we were at Victoria Tube station and from there we walked back up Victoria St to the flat (the flat is on Victoria St).

Helen and I went out to buy some food from Sainsbury’s and then we spent the rest of the afternoon & evening just loafing in the flat and watching TV.  You might be thinking how could they waste an afternoon/evening like that in London.  Quite easily when it was pelting down with rain and the wind was howling.  Not really weather for walking around London.

Unfortunately tomorrow through to Thursday I am going to work (for those of you who didn’t yet know I have an office in London and a job here now) but Helen and the kids are doing the tourist things.  In the car coming up Helen asked what they each wanted to do and Michael replied ‘Hamleys’, Stephen said ‘Natural History Museum’ and Chloe ‘Hampton Court Palace’.  So that pretty much covers the next 3 days for them.  We will have to figure out who is going to write the blog for their day tomorrow or whether I will have to do the ghost writing for them.

Until tomorrow.

Peter & Helen and the Three Amigos

I slept well last night and so did everyone it seems.  Mom had a good night and even though she had decided yesterday not to come to church, she changed her mind and came.  As everything starts later in the UK (Michael said it is because there are so many old people here), we only had breakfast at around 9am and then headed for church just after 10am (church starts at 11am only but it is about a 30 minute drive to get there).  It was a family service at Moordown (where my parents attend) and the singing was excellent and while it was an unconventional sermon, it was good nevertheless.  All in all, the summary would be “It was good to be in the house of the Lord”.

Hi Everyone

As per usual I will a blog of our UK trip. I can’t call it a “holiday” because I will be working for some of the days. Quite a strange feeling actually when we were leaving because I usually start relaxing knowing that I have 3 weeks holiday ahead but in this case I have holiday interspersed with working.

Well we left last night on the BA flight to London. Chloe was SO excited the whole day she kept on checking on the time and trying to find things to pass the time. The day seemed to drag on for her – I can remember those days just before we left on holiday when I was growing up! We left at 5:30pm and after driving about 100 meters down the road I realised I forgot my sunglasses and given the amount of driving we will be doing that would have been a disaster. We still got to the airport in plenty of time, checked-in, through security and passport control with no problems. In between checking-in and going through security I realised I had left my camera behind … fortunately I can borrow my Dad’s (he has the same one as mine).

The flight didn’t start well in that when they showed the safety briefing my TV screen didn’t show anything. I didn’t notice (too busy reading my book) but Chloe told me. I wasn’t too concerned about missing the safety briefing but I was concerned about what movie I wouldn’t be able to watch and so I pointed out the issue to the crew who promptly started to give me a manual (personalised) safety briefing! Just what I needed when I was only really worried about getting the movies working. My challenge was how to cut her off and get her focussed on fixing my movies! I fortunately managed to succeed when I told I had flown last Saturday and could still remember the briefing from last time.

Unfortunately the movie problem continued and not only did my movies not work but Michael & Chloe also had problems. It eventually resulted in a system reset being done of the whole plane and that got everyone’s working except mine which decided to freeze about 1 hour into the movie. “Freeze” being the correct word because the hand held remote display read “-5” and when I woke it the morning it had warmed up to “-4” but the screen was still frozen. The chief ‘kahuna’ cabin man even came to see what he could do, looked suitably surprised said he would reset it, came back 5 minutes later and said he had reset it and it should be working but it was still frozen. He gave up and as my loving children wouldn’t give up their seats I got to read until I went to sleep. Everyone slept well and we woke at 5am (UK time – 6am SA time) with breakfast being served.

We had a great view of London as we made our way into Heathrow. It was a beautifully clear morning and you could see the trademark London spots such as the Thames, London Eye and of course Lord’s Cricket Ground (the holy, sacred turf of the greatest sport in the world). We landed slightly early, cleared passport control without too much hassle (though the guy was totally confused as to why I was returning to the UK where I worked to have a holiday) and by the time we got to the carousel our bags were already circulating. We headed out to the car rental agency and picked up our car (they kindly upgraded us to car I feel quite familiar with – an E-class Merc!). It was 8am and we already on the road down to my parent’s home and after making a brief stop at a ‘services’ for something to drink (and breakfast for Michael who hadn’t eaten on the plane), we got to my parents at 9:30am.

Unfortunately my Mom was not going so well as she had a medium to large dose of Chemo on Friday as part of the preparation for the Stem Cell transplant. She was feeling very nauseous, cold then hot and generally weak. She definitely improved seeing the family and talking to the kids and stayed up and downstairs the whole afternoon and evening and even managed a little food this evening. We pray that she will have a good night’s rest and that tomorrow she will be feeling stronger again. Stephen has been here for a week and has (seemingly) thoroughly enjoyed himself. He has earned a lot of pocket money working as a ‘handlanger’ for my Dad and he even has developed his own routine while here. When I told him to get ready for bed earlier this evening he asked ‘What about watching the 10pm News?’ I don’t think I have ever seen him watch the News in my life but he now has to watch the 10pm News in the UK!

We depressingly watched the Boks being comprehensively beaten by the Lions and then Helen and I went out to the shops for a brief outing. We visited the local supermarket (Waitrose) which is an amazing shop. You can register to self-scan your groceries which just about has to be one of the best things I have ever seen. Of course it would never work in SA – just imagine it, scan one item and put 10 other items into the bag. The challenge in SA would be to see how little you could scan and still go uncaught. Not sure how they let my Dad register for it, knowing him he probably forgets to scan 1 out of every 2 items!

Played cricket with boys and then had the mandatory Saturday pm braai. Once we had finished supper and cleared up it was 8pm and the sun was still high in the sky so we decided to take a walk into the local village (Burley). It is about a 30 minute walk there (and obviously 30 minutes back as well!) and it was quite a pleasant walk even though we had to do a lot of ‘pooh’ evading (from the horses which roam free in the New Forest). Only Helen, Michael, my Dad and I went – Stephen stayed to watch over granny and Chloe didn’t fancy the walk.

A nice relaxing day and now I am feeling very tired so the bed is looking quite attractive …. Will write again tomorrow!

Peter, Helen and the 3 ugly ducklings

(Thanks to my grandpa for this image)