Stephen made contact with our exchanges from Knebworth to see if they would like to catch up whilst we are here. Jan arranged tickets and meal in central London. The drawcard was David Suchet playing Lady Bracknell, but I have to say that I didn’t feel he was brilliant in the role, the young men and one of the young women carried the show more. Still, it was very interesting to go to one of the many small theatres in the Strand. It is narrow and has very steep seat racking, with lovely mouldings around the ceiling and little places to have drinks. Quite challenging for people with walking sticks.

Afterwards, as part of the package, we had a meal at an upmarket hamburger place – really a large restaurant. We had a nice bottle of red wine for about $12, that doesn’t happen in Australian restaurants where the wine is usually very expensive. We enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion about politics and music and social issues. John is a lot quieter than Jan, plus he had the bad experience of train delays and almost not getting to the theatre on time. Jan had come in earlier. The food was good and also moderately priced, and we paid roughly half our way, we think.

There was also the buzz of being in the busy part of the city after dark. With sunset at 4.30 p.m. it wasn’t very late, even when we finished our meal.

We had a delay on our train, the Brighton train which stops at Clapham Junction and East Croydon, but it all seemed worth it as this is usually quite a comfortable ride, as is needed by people going all the way to Brighton.

Stephen is a bit under the weather this morning. He drank a bit more than usual and thinks it may have interacted with his meds. He said he enjoyed the feeling at the time, which is something!

I was thinking that the day did not involve much walking, but still when I checked I had done over 10,000 steps, about 7 kms. I was particularly tired on the way home, even though I sensibly did not drink more than about half a glass of wine.

Jan and John are doing another exchange in spring next year to a place in Fremantle, a more sensible choice in terms of weather and location near their children than our house. We felt a bit disappointed, but then we have other options for exchange as well and probably wouldn’t have wanted to go to their place again at this stage. There may be an opportunity to come back here to Croydon, for example, although Stephen wants to come here in summer next time. That’s when everyone else would want to come as well, of course.

Photos from iPhone.