A wheel has come off...

After successfully completing, not one night but three continous nights in a pup tent (I amaze myself sometimes by my adaptability and ability to cope in the face of adversity) I departed soggy Cornwall and headed off to the big smoke!

I arrived here in London after a 7 hour journey across the country, which could
have been quicker but I needed a couple of pitstops for refreshment and the release of waste products!

I am staying at the Highbury Centre, which is strangely found in Highbury and is the home of the Foreign Missions Club. This is a club available to missionaries on furlough and rents out rooms when they have space to non missionaries. The accommodation is clean and tidy and relatively cheap compared with London prices.

On Wednesday night I met up with James, who has just finished his history degree and is working out what to do next. Until he does he is working in a bar and a spice shop in Notting Hill and sleeping on a friend's floor! The joys of youth.

Thursday saw me setting out to claim two more 'wheels'. I planned to ride the wheel in Hyde park and then the one at Greenwich. After wandering around the edge of Hyde Park for nearly an hour and being unable to find the 200 foot high wheel, I phoned Belfast and asked David to locate it for me on the website. He read out to me 'We NOW have three wheels in London' and then following a link was told that the Hyde Park Wheel would return in December 2008!! Now, I don't know about you but I take NOW to mean Now, not 5 months time!!!

Anyway, I benefitted from the stroll around the park and then headed off up Oxford Street to buy lunch at M&S Food. Suitably supplied I made my way via the tube to Westminister to pick up a boat to take me down the river to Greenwich. Apparently so rumour has it, the first time the Guthries visited Westminister tube, the Sci-Fi appearance prompted Philip to say 'you find the Millenium Falcon, and I'll disable the Tractor Beam'!

The boat from Westminister to Greenwich took an hour and we were provided with an unofficial guided tour by one of the crew, which was highly entertaining.
My favourite comments were thus:-

On passing Cleopatra's needle -"this is oldest thing in London and was brought back by Nelson after his defeat of Napolean at the Battle of the Nile, there is another one in Paris which they were apparently awarded for coming second"!

On passing the Globe Theatre -"In Shakespere's day the theatre was full of taverns, restaurants, brothels and other places of interest, today there's a Pizza Express'!

On reaching Greenwich I took the option of going on up the river to see the Thames Barrier and sail passed the Millenium Dome, and then back to Greenwich. Here I managed to ride the Greenwich Wheel which is actually there NOW and then I had time for a hot chocolate before sailing back up to Westminister and making my way to Leicester Square to meet Kirsten for dinner in China Town and then tickets to Chicago. We really enjoyed the show and I have been humming and singing various tunes from it all day.

This morning I headed off to Waterloo and boarded the train to Windsor to collect my second wheel, which I duly did. I do have photographic proof of all this wheels as soon as I work out how download them from my new phone!

After a pub lunch and train ride back to Waterloo I made my way to Leicester Square once more, where I was taken advantage of(and not in a good way!). I decided that as I have never seen a film in Leicester Square I would remedy that oversight!! I can safely say that today was first and last time, at £13.50 a ticket I can't afford the experience again!!

I saw Mamma Mia and it was hilarious, not to spoil it for anyone but the sight of Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and a host of Greek women singing Dancing Queen and dancing on a wooden jetty sticking into the beautiful blue Aegean was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time!

I am currently in an internet cafe just of Oxford Street whiling away a little time before I go to meet Philip from work at Waterloo Ambulance Station. We are then heading off for something to eat.

I return to Hyde tomorrow and will be there for a few days before moving on to Darlington where Meg, Dot and I will plan their forthcoming trip to Karachi in October and then off to The Great Adventure.

Time has really started to speed up and three weeks today it will be my 38th birthday and I will be once more in Karachi and my summer holidays will be over. What the next year holds who knows...