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I felt well enough to go for a long-planned date in London with my wife. Because we are cool we were going to the British Museum to see the Thomas Becket exhibition and then on to dinner.
I had forgotten most of what I'd learned about Becket at University. All I recall is the essay question "How did the death of Thomas Becket affect Anglo-Papal relations in the twelfth century?" and only because I have used that several times in a comedy context (as a dull or difficult question in the wrong circumstances - think it's an emergency question too). I knew he got murdered in the Cathedral and could vaguely remember he'd risen to high office from humble beginnings, become Archbishop despite not being religious and then becoming religious and wearing a hair shirt. Actually that's not too bad, but I can't remember how his death affected Anglo-Papal relations. It can't have helped though.
The exhibition is pretty good and includes some stuff that it's surprising to see has survived for nearly a millennia. There's a document that includes a wax circle with the imprint of Becket's ring in it. That's pretty astonishing - one degree of separation to the man himself. There's also a relic that might (but probably doesn't) include part of his skull. But the documents and the book that he might have owned really did feel like his finger coming through time and poking you in the eye.
The biggest surprise to me was the discovery of a brand new (to me) historical figure. That shouldn't happen to me. I ostensibly studied this period at University (though in reality I was just doing comedy and copying essays which might explain it). One of the displays mentioned Henry II's son, Henry the Young King who was crowned during Henry II's reign. I assumed this made him Henry III. But then I saw that Henry III followed King John. Did some weird thing happen where the young Henry was too young to be king, so Richard and John had a go first? Surely not - he'd already been crowned. And Henry III was John's son. Was it possible that Henry II and John had had a child together, despite being father and son and more crucially both men?
It turned out that Henry the Young King never officially was king, despite being crowned and died 6 years before his dad at the age of 28 (28 years old he was). But it seems mean that he doesn't get to be an official king after being crowned. So I decided that I am renaming him Henry III and bumping up all subsequent Henrys by one . It'll be a bit confusing for a while, but once everyone is on board it will be fine.
It was fun to be in London where things are comparatively quiet and thus slightly eerie. But even more surreal to be out and doing stuff. We passed a bowling alley very near to the museum on our way to dinner and spontaneously decided to have a go. Marriage and kids dent your ability to do stuff on the spur of the moment and also to go bowling, so this felt incredibly liberating. I think
the last time we went ten pin bowling was in 2014 and like that time we were today next to a group of loud men (and one woman). I had lost my bowling ability and actually dropped a ball on my toe too, but though my wife was winning initially, I fought back and got four spares and then a strike on my 10th go. So I won with a paltry 118.
As it was a small place you either paid for 20 minutes (and had to get all your bowls in in that time) or an hour. We did the former, but I kinda wish we'd done more.
I was just getting back into it. And my toe didn't hurt too much.
It was so nice to be out in the real world, socialising alongside actual people, that I didn't even mind that the men beside us were a bit loud and boorish. It was a little step back to normality. And I got a strike, so that's all that matters.
We walked back to Kings Cross for dinner and jumped on a train home and were back in our house within an hour of leaving the restaurant, which is pretty impressive (though we were home tragically early!)
Terrific date though. A date isn't a date unless you've seen a fragment of skull that might have belonged to someone from the 12th Century.
