Day 11 - London - Stood Up

I have to admit to enjoying my walk to work in a morning.  The journey takes around 20 minutes door to door and as I walk through the small side streets with local shops and flats all around, it really feels like you are walking in a working city and not a tourist attraction as it can feel as you walk around the centre.  All other people around you are going around their business either walking to work or school.  It just gives so much to see.

Work gave me the chance for one lap of the stations today at lunch time, as normal I always want more but we all were just too busy.  As the day closed in I made arrangements to meet my Liverpool colleague in the Morpeth Arms near Millbank.  This was the pub that has the ghost cam and the one that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago in the blog. 

Last time I went there it took nearly 45 minutes to get across London to Pimlico so I made sure I left early enough and this time made it much quicker so I was already there at 7.15 p.m. a good 15 minutes early.  As my colleague wasn’t there I decided to get a drink and sit outside as it was reasonable mild.  I sent a couple of texts, wondering where he was and while I waited I sat listening to people around me, which was quite interesting.  Finally with no sign of my colleague, no response to my texts and the time past 8.00 p.m. I gave one final sweep of the pub and then headed back to the hotel.

Once back in the hotel I decided to do something not done before here and that was go for dinner in the hotel dining room.  There were only a small amount of people dining so naturally being sat on my own I spent my time watching what others were doing.  The first couple that struck me was a man I would say in his early seventies and lady probably a little younger maybe late sixties, and they were really enjoying each other’s company, you could tell how they talked and laughed.  What was a shame was that whenever a member of staff came to ask about the meal or bring the next course he was so stern and almost barking at them, he complained about everything from the bread with his soup, to the time it took for the meal to arrive which I didn’t see a problem as it was much quicker to arrive than my chilli.  But I am happy to say I was the picture of calmness and politeness to the staff.  It actually gave me someone to talk to whilst I sat there all alone like Billy no mates.

Diner seemed to take ages but probably not in reality but I did think, I will not be doing this again as it is such a boring time, I would rather be in my room at least you have some distractions whilst you eat.

I did eventually get back to my room and decided a bit of Spooks binge watching was in order so got myself all stressed up watching tense drama before I then turned out the light at just after midnight to try and sleep.  I think I was so engrossed in the program that it was the reason I spent most of the night dreaming I was being watched and chased.  I was shattered by morning.