Friday morning saw us revived, perked up and, for once, not suffering the effects of the night before. Today would see us leave behind continental Europe and return to England's green and pleasant land though, as anyone who has spent much time in London will know, there is very little which is either green or pleasant about our capital city... more gridlocked, grimy, stifling and smelly. By the time we arrived at our hotel we all resembled Dick van Dyke whistling 'Chim-chiminy...' so dirty is the air.
One of the most perplexing aspects of the tour has surrounded the use of satellite navigation to find our way around (or tw*t nav as we affectionately like to call it). We have been armed with more electronic devices than the American military and yet have contrived to get lost or blindly follow the little pink line over the edge of a cliff so many times as to be embarrassing. So when we left the channel tunnel and headed for Tottenham Court Road how unsurprising was it that by the time we'd gone twenty miles our useless sat navs had sent us all in different directions. I particularly enjoyed the sights and smells of Peckham and Nelson Mandela House, the high rise abode of Del Boy Trotter, really should be on the London 'must see' list. How difficult can it be? There are hundreds of signs for Central London but the geniuses at Garmin appear to have not noticed them. But cometh the hour, cometh the man... Digger has had the luxury of not being armed with any kind of navigational aid on this trip and, with the exception of finding his hotel in Carcassonne at 4am, has managed as well as anyone. While all others were heading for oblivion in parts of London it's not safe to be seen in even during daylight, Digger used his 'knowledge' (as the cabbies call it) and before long we were riding along the Embankment, taking in Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square before leisurely arriving at the St Giles. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is but imagine our joy and delight when we were shortly thereafter joined by Neil, whom having spent the first thirteen nights of the trip at home revising for a paper doily colouring exam, had trained it down to 'the smoke' so that we could spend our last night away as a team reunited.
I do have to report though that Neil has not spent all his time away from the tour engaged in honest pursuits. It is with some caution that I urge you to take a look at the following link and make up your own mind (anyone with a nervous disposition and young children should look away)...
Neil's shame
Eventually we all managed to navigate our way to a bar around the corner at which point Sir Pete went to visit his tailor in Jermyn St.
That evening we were entertained at the Dominion Theatre. Tony, as many of you know, is a former mentor and confidant to the late, great Freddy Mercury so he managed to get us tickets to 'We Will Rock You' which is a fab show and we were all air-guitaring it to Bohemian Rhapsody before the night was out.
We head home tomorrow to clean clothes, the comfort of our own beds, major diets, a decent pint of pedigree... oh, and to see our beloveds :)
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