London calling
I very rarely travel to London now. Prior to today, I have been only once since 2017. The occasion was a meet up with three others I started secondary school with in 1981. One of them happens to live in the next village, so I see him regularly, but the others I last saw in 2012, and prior to that in the late eighties.
The afternoon train was cancelled so we took the previous one and arrived mid afternoon around the central London area.
It was busy with tourist traffic, but one thing I didn’t expect was the prices in cafes and bars to be pretty much the same as the Cotswolds.
We met in an oak panelled pub in Whitehall, which oozed a history of political whispering and plotting. Today I suppose that all goes on in WhatsApp groups and it was mostly full of tourists and tired office workers.
After a few drinks we headed toward Soho and stumbled upon a Thai restaurant that looked appealing. The food was indeed very good, apart from a mix up over my vegetarian order.
It’s always interesting meeting people from school. The conversation style mirrored the sixth form common room, but the topics reflected our current age ... health, retirement, money etc.
Plus, as a bonus, I get to hear what I sound like to others. I have a nondescript home counties accent which is impossible to pin geographic origins on. So listening to three people from the same place and time gave me a pretty good idea of how my voice sounds.
We left the restaurant at around 9pm and headed back to Paddington. Smooth journey home and back just before midnight.
