We went to London! It may turn out to be ill advised, but there seems to be little sheltering from this latest strain of coronavirus. People seem to be dropping with it everywhere, whether they've been anywhere or not. So, we kept at least the pre-holiday stay in London night of our planned trip, even though the rest of it all got cancelled.
We parked on the free side of Folkestone West station and got a ten o'clock-ish train up to Stratford. Reasonably busy but not too busy to get a table, and nearly everyone was masked up. Too early to check into our hotel but we dropped the bags and got the tube into Covent Garden. We looked at the christmassy stalls and headed to the big christmas tree just in time for the hourly snow machine to start up, and it was very nice. Then we treated ourselves to a massiverly overpriced sit down in Covent Garden, with disgusting looking hot dogs for the boys, a cocktail for me and a beer for the lady. Then more mulled wine, and no actual shopping. I really intended to buy everyone things from my share money but no-one was interested. Clare did try a little to look at coats but her heart wasn't in it.
We wondered round more looking at christmas decorations and mostly avoiding the crowds. We stopped in Zedel which is now a new tradition for us - well we have done it twice now - for champagne cocktails. Then more wandering including Regents Street and Carnaby Street and Oxford Street and back to Stratford. None more shopping, a quick sit down in the hotel then Pizza Express for tea. I went to The Cow and drank beer and watched the darts on TV while Clare tried to shush the boys in to bed.
Next morning we went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. The boys like it very much as they had a big budget to spend on rides and more hot dogs. They went on roller coasters and walters and a catapault type thing that fired them right up in the air. None of it seemed very safe. At one point they distracted Clare which getting some pick and mix and managed to spend TWENTY-FIVE QUID! That's more than at the cinema! Winter Wonderland is very expensive all round, and not my sort of thing at all, but they liked it. I did enjoy "Thor's Tipi", an enclosed bar with open fires inside, but even in there the beer choice was dismal. I do not recommend Winter Wonderland at all.
After we went back to Stratford again. We like Stratford and might well stay here no matter where in London we're going next time. We looked at coffee machines in John Lewis, and indeed I ordered one to collect from Waitrose tomorrow. Then the boys played some indoor baseball, where they were batting against a pitching machine, they liked that and got the hang of it too. Then one more dinner, in TGI Fridays, and a fairly late train home. We originally planned to stay another day in London but I think we'd done all were going to and we have to keep one eye on the biosecurity.
I have the rest of this week off, I will be using some of it packaging up more of my Lightwaverf switches and things which sold on [(/wiki/#ebay). So not only did I not spend the sort of money I planned this week, I have come back to more income from these things selling. The ebay]Lightwaverf three way relay sold for more than I paid for it I'm sure, what a great investment.
Twenty-five years ago tonight and indeed last night I was at David Devant And His Spirit Wife, once in New Cross and once in Tunbridge Wells.
| Country | cases | deaths |
|---|---|---|
| USA | 51916137 | 828213 |
| Brazil | 22213762 | 617838 |
| India | 34746838 | 477554 |
| Mexico | 3932545 | 297835 |
| Russia | 10214790 | 297203 |
| Peru | 2265320 | 202225 |
| UK | 11361378 | 147217 |
| Indonesia | 4260544 | 144002 |
| Italy | 5389147 | 135641 |
| Iran | 6170979 | 131083 |
Coronavirus weekly death graph for USA + Brazil + India + Mexico + Russia
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe in Kent. Wed + dad to 2, I'm a full stack web engineer, + I do js / Node, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubs, running, eating, home automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, family tree stuff, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.