4 February 2017 (Saturday) - The British Museum

I slept reasonably well; I was conscious of the fact the puppy was sleeping on the bed, and that did keep me from being as relaxed as I might have been. She isn’t so much a puppy as a furry shark or crocodile and I was expecting a fang-attack at any minute. But I dozed until the alarm eventually woke me.
Over brekkie I had the obligatory look-see on-line. Very little had changed overnight.

Jimbo and Stevey arrived, we settled the dogs ("Daddy’s Little Angel TM" was coming to play later) and we made our way to the railway station where we met the rest of our number, and soon we were on the train to the wicked city.
We arrived at Charing Cross without incident. Jim’s sciatica was giving him grief, so half of our team took the tube to the museum; and half of us walked. We had a rather good walk through London, we found the obligatory geocache, and after fifteen minutes we were at the British Museum. Fifteen minutes later those who’d taken the tube caught up. I don’t know London very well, but I’ve always had this theory that it is quicker to get round the central bits on foot than by public transport.

We found a rather good restaurant over the road from the museum where we had a spot of brekkie. A very good spot of brekkie. And suitably fuelled we crossed the road.
The obligatory security check only took five minutes, and soon we were in the British Museum. It’s a rather interesting place but now having been there twice at weekends I think I’d like to go back mid-week when it is not heaving with tourists. We were in there for about three hours; we probably only saw about half of what was there. If we weren’t having to fight our way through hoards of utterly bemused foreigners I might have had a tad more patience.
Whilst there I saw something which made me think. There has been a lot of controversy recently about whether or not the burka should be banned in the UK. Should it? I don’t know. But I watched one burka-clad woman go arse-over-tit down the staircase because she couldn’t see where she was going.

We adjourned to the Museum pub over the road where a pint of “Old Peculiar” slipped down nicely, then we all wandered slowly back to Charing Cross. We went via an old haunt of mine: “Forbidden Planet”. Twenty years ago “Forbidden Planet” was *the* place to buy anything sci-fi-ish or geeky. Before the Internet the place was the best comic and book shop anywhere. Nowadays the comic and book section is non-existent, and the place is full of window-shoppers who were openly looking at the goods on the shelves then calling up the items on the phones to buy them cheaper on-line.

As we carried on I was stopped by an American tourist at Leicester Square. Would I take a photo of him using his phone? Of course I would, but I did tell him off for trusting a random stranger. I wouldn’t trust my phone to any random passer-by in London.
Once at the station I bought a hog-roast baguette, and then slept most of the way home. Compared to some of our trips to London today was rather short, but I did find it rather tiring.

We got back to civilisation, said our goodbyes, then we came home to chaos. I can always tell when my grandson "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" has been round to visit. We cleared the mess, then took the dogs for a walk. I’d had a message that the dogs’ worming treatments were ready to collect, and I’d confirmed with the vets that the dogs’ worming treatments were ready to collect. We got to the vets to find they had sold out of the stuff. I gently suggested that when they confirmed they were ready and I said I would be along to collect them, they might have put the stuff to one side. After all the tablets are a named prescription. The nice receptionists blamed the system. Personally I would sort out a better system…

"er indoors TM" boiled up some pancakes and set off to the film night. I devoured the pancakes and set about ironing shirts. Something of an anti-climax after such a good day in London, but shirts don’t iron themselves…

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