One stint in the UK was not quite enough for us, so we had another two weeks back at Charlotte’s Mum’s house in London to recover from our euro-camping extravaganza. In fact, we got back just in time for Charlotte and her Mum to spend their birthday together. To me, a parent and child having the same birthday feels quite a unique event. Although with both Charlotte’s parents being statisticians, she was quick to point out that with a 1 in 365 chance, there are about 16 million other people in the world in the same situation. Luckily they did not all decide to descend on the Waldorf hotel for high tea in London that day, and it did put me in the unique situation of being the only person at the birthday party who was NOT celebrating their birthday. Neither Charlotte or I had been to an afternoon tea (beyond the ‘tea and bikkies’ kind) before. What we learned that day was that High Tea is a very 
civilised affair, which is not merely afternoon tea but a full meal, as it turns out. We made the rookie error of having a second helping of sandwiches. This was only the first course. By the time tower of scones and cakes appeared, we had drunk bucket loads of tea and were beginning to realise our mistake, but we persevered, inspired by my first experience of clotted cream and my first experience of hearing a solo harpist pumping out hits from Eric Clapton, The Eagles and Dire Straits. The tea menu itself was extensive. I chose to try the Mighty Assam, described as ‘Mighty by name, mighty by nature. Smooth, rich & full bodied with an unmistakeable malty punch.’ It was good, but not as mighty as I had been led to believe, so we all rolled ourselves down the road to see the Commitments musical, letting our food digest to the upbeat sounds of Irish people singing soul music. About 30 minutes in, I discovered exactly how mighty Mighty Assam really was, when he decided it was time to evacuate my bladder. I tried to harden up and last until intermission, but Assam was more mighty than my constitution, and I had to shuffle my way out of our row and make for the restrooms. Another two minutes was all I needed, as it turned out, but I didn’t know that at the time.
Another rookie error was organising most of our catch-ups with friends and family for the end of our stay in the UK, meaning that most of the rest of our time was spent devouring more lunches, dinners, drinks, and morning and afternoon teas. The things you do for the people you love.
After one of these lunches with our friend Carl, we decided to follow him along to watch the filming of an episode of the TV show ‘QI’. It’s shot in a TV studio, located by the Thames that seats about 600 people. To make sure they fill it, they seem to issue tickets to about 2,000 people, all with a disclaimer of no guarantee of entry. We arrived at the studio about 3 hours beforehand and joined the queue with a multitude of others, including a surprising number of Santas and elves. It turns out we were there to watch the Christmas special (being filmed in June), and missed the memo to dress up. Fortunately, we managed to get a seat, in spite of our lack of Christmas garb and the length of the queue. Personally, I think they actually have no problem filling the studio, but in typical English fashion, they just love the art of creating a queue. Queueing is an English tradition, and something they excel at proudly. We would soon get to experience more of this tradition during our visit to Alton Towers.
Alton Towers is a theme park that we popped into on our way back from Manchester, where we had gone to see, Charlotte, another one of Charlotte’s university friends, and not confusing at all. Rides at theme parks are designed to be frightening, but the fear experienced on these white-knuckle rides was increased by the fact that there had been a serious accident at the park a week before we were due to visit, closing it down for about five days. One roller-coaster car had crashed into the back of another that, due to a mishap, was stationary on the track. The cost of entry for the park, is not quite an arm and a leg, but it was for one particular punter who was unfortunate enough to be at the front of the trailing cart during the incident. We arrived on the day after it re-opened, and all inappropriate jokes aside, we were certainly carrying some extra tension that added to the adrenaline of the day, and maybe hoping that visitor numbers would be down, reducing the length of the queues.
Of course this wasn’t apparent upon arrival. As we exited our car, we follow the only signs we could from from the car park, which led to the monorail. They transfer people to the main entrance via a monorail. This is partially because the main gate is a decent walk from the car park, but I think it is mostly because it provided another opportunity to create a queue, and no self-respecting Englander can resist the temptation of partaking in a good old fashioned queueing experience. The British understand the queueing etiquette intuitively, but for those who are not local, queue jumping is defined clearly on signs to ensure everyone gets to savour their time in the queue fairly and equitably. These rules outline clearly what is not acceptable and range from basic ‘pushing in’ to ‘saving a place for a friend’. It is also not acceptable to jump the queue by faking a disability, feigning a heart attack, or pretending to have an epileptic seizure. The monorail queue was quite long and our hopes of shorter queues were quickly dashed. We knew better than raise our expectations. We sucked up the disappointment and lined up with everyone else. As we arrives in the actual park, we realised it was huge and queues were not going to be a problem….much to the disappointment of many locals and many tourists, who had come to the park solely for the British queueing experience.
The rides were pretty awesome (the ones that were open. A number were still closed because of the accident), but I think I am getting too old for this. I found the hard out ones a little uncomfortable and found myself wondering whether or not I needed this sort of adrenaline. One ride I did enjoy, however was ‘Rita’. It was a short roller coaster that could do nought to sixty in about 2.5 seconds, which I found exhilarating. The whole ride was done in about 25 seconds, but worth the short queue. Charlotte discovered that in her old age, these high speed wild ride were making her feel just a little sick, so we decided to settle for some of the more relaxed experiences (i.e. the kiddy rides) for a while. This included the 4-D Ice Age Theatre Experience, which was awesome and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was utterly lame, but just what the doctor ordered to settle the stomach, before a white-knuckle stroll through the aquarium. The favourite ride of the day for me, was definitely the Runaway Train. This was fast enough to be a rush and gentle enough to just relax and enjoy, but the best part was the female controller who sat above the track at the start of the ride. She seemed slightly bored as she spoke over the PA system and each time the ride started she would announce in slightly sarcastic husky deep and sultry voice, “Choo…choo!” Hopefully it was lost on the younger riders, but it certainly wasn’t on many of the males who would hoot and holler and pump the fists up and down as the train pulled out, responding in kind with their own version of the very popular saying.
We also hung out at Covent Garden, where we watched talented buskers; we visited Sandhurst Military Academy, where we saw their Polo team getting a pasting from the boys from Harrow; we stopped by Stratford-upon-Avon, where we gazed upon Tudor Shakespearean streets and buildings, surrounding a crappy 1960s style main square that reminded me of where I grew up in Elizabeth Downs; we dropped into Windsor and Eton, where we watched posh school boys walk around town in black tie and tails, looking like they were on their way to a wedding, even though they were only on their way home from school, but none of this could rival the show we got in Southampton.
Visiting Charlotte’s brother’s family in time to see Charlotte’s niece perform in her school play and attend the school fete. It was classic primary school entertainment. We were treated to several acts of kids with varying degrees of talent and focus, and it was great fun. I even saw my first ever maypole dance, which left me thoroughly confused about the purpose of the performance. Regardless, watching the children dance around the maypole as it slowly got more and more tangled and teachers tried to keep the portable pole weighed down by sitting on it, was my idea of a great show. I also helped out with the Bottle Tombola and wondered why I had never heard of one. Such a simple and clever concept, I thought, as Mark and I were overrun with kids and their parents all wanting to purchase raffle tickets in the hope of winning a bottle of drink. I felt that I had helped out with the most high stress crazy activity at the fete, until I heard about the antics at the Lolly Tombola and the bouncy castle. Beware of any activities that involve kids, sweets and bouncing. These are a dangerous combination.
We loved our couple of days in Southhampton, and spent heaps of fun times with the two nieces, reading stories, bouncing on the trampoline, playing shops, riding bikes or pretending to be horses or motorbikes while the kids rode around on us with great delight. It was over too soon and we were soon back in London where it was time to start packing for Iceland.
Big Words from Littlewoods 