Hobbling Holiday Day 0
For me the holiday began as I came out of the English end of the channel tunnel. Within a minute, my phone rang. It was Kate. We quickly arranged for her to meet me at St Pancras (“London International”) and there she was, as I exited through the arrivals door, in all her Kate-like glory.
Which isn’t to say that she was nekkid. I just mean that she was grinning and happy and bouncy. As of course was right for someone who was anticipating moving to the Falklands and enjoying the money she got for the move with a swish hotel and taxis.
Kate rang biped to confirm the arrangements for meeting up as I drooled over the window of a chocolate shop. The conversation was quite amusing as Kate told biped that she was at the station with “Keppet” and then had to explain to biped that she was Board-Kate and not a RL Kate.
Because I had been sitting on a train all day, I asked Kate whether we could walk. It was a longer trek than I anticipated (I had never walked from St Pancras to St Martin’s Lane before though I had done all the bits of the journey- just never together). Kate and I chatted about this, that and the other including the weather which led us to reminisce about the London Meet on the hottest day of the year when people went paddling in Trafalgar Square fountains and Miraba made us try every restaurant in the centre of London.
Our walk brought us, as walks including me in London tend to do, to Forbidden Planet where I found the next USM collection. Then I directed us to the Starbucks in St Martin’s Lane or at least tried to but too the wrong spoke at Seven Dials and we ended up in Covent Garden instead. This area of London never makes sense to me in a delightful way. I don’t think I ever want to work out how it is all connected because that would destroy the mystery: the mystery of how on earth I always stumble upon Covent Garden when I don’t want to and end up missing it when I do.
It didn’t take me long to find my way again but I think I shortened the life expectancy of my wheely suitcase on the pebbled streets. When we found Starbucks, skit was already there but only just. We bought drinks and sat down, within seconds being joined by biped. Skit observed that such a confluence of timeliness had never been seen in Hobblings before (but I think that is because the Atas weren’t included).
We caught up and chatted about this, that and the other (again). The content was most probably both scintillating and titillating but memory fails me for the moment. We popped across the road for dinner at a place I had eaten at before. It’s rather decent in my opinion and well-used to serving theatre goers. When ordering, skit stressed that we were in a hurry and indeed our food didn’t take long to come. Being on holiday, we had some wine at the table (biped and I may have drunk the bulk of the bottle… indeed I found it hard to coordinate my limbs later that evening). It was all rather nice and I hope Kate enjoyed her farewell Hobb Meet.
After dinner, I left skit, biped and Kate at their theatre where they saw Spamalot. I was shattered and found it hard to stay upright but managed the walk to Euston and somehow operated the ticket machine successfully. I arrived in Northampton, got a taxi to skit’s house and fell into bed without any fuss.
Except then I couldn’t sleep until skit and biped got in at 1 in the morning. Still, I was rested and as soon as skit was snug in her bed, I was a resident of the land of nod.
posted by keppet @ 8:11 PM
