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Two days early, but had my 52nd birthday celebration today, which involved coming into London for a four hour cycling tour of the capital. This was a left field suggestion from my wife, as we had lived in the city for a good few years, but sometimes it’s nice to be a tourist in a place you know and we’d really enjoyed finding obscure historical bits of the city on a walking tour from a book a few years back. So if we were on bikes we’d see even more. Right?
We didn’t get to see too much secret London, but it was quite exhilarating cycling through the city (even if sometimes you didn’t see too much of the sites as you were trying to avoid going under a bus - we went over Tower Bridge, but I kept my eyes on the road. We went with a company called
Fat Tire and our guide was Daniel and he did a good job of keeping us safe and alive, whilst managing to chuck in a few stories that even someone who had lived in London for 30 years hadn’t heard about. He also spotted five pounds stuck in a grating outside Lloyds of London and managed to tease it out, which seemed somehow symbolic, or the start of some long con (that hasn’t yet played out). It was a tough gig for him, I think, as not only were we familiar with the city, but both worked in comedy which must have made us a tough crowd, but he did well.
I didn’t partake of the three thirds of booze in the Leadenhall Market and I am not sure that it would have been a good idea to quaff my first pint of the year as I was about to cycle from the City to Westminster anyway, but I really enjoyed discovering the cycle super highway that crosses the capital and makes getting around very easy and safe. We could have just done this on Boris Bikes of course and it certainly made me realise what a practical and speedy way those are to get around in town, but it was more fun on a tour. And a nice light work out to justify having dinner out.
We had to rush back to Hertfordshire to see our daughter in her drama group’s end of term performance. I have to say it was one of the weakest pieces of entertainment I have ever seen and most of the cast delivered their lines in quavering and inaudible whispers. But it was fun to see Phoebe dressed up as a pirate and being encumbered by too many props, fiddling with her big hat and hook and lifting up her eye patch when she couldn’t see what was going on. The best bit was when she hung her hook from her ear. I don’t think it was in the script. It just felt right in the moment.
