I did it from a 5day guest pass that someone at work offered me. I could make some use of the exercise bikes for rehab of my, so why not? While getting the walk-through, their physio came over for a chat. A benefit of membership is physiotherapy - what better way to get some fully supervised rehab to put my leg back together for only the monthly cost of membership. Oh, and that cost won’t begin for at least a month and a half. Win win.
Unfortunately, this has made the past few weeks rather quiet as I still recover from getting hit by the car. I have managed to get out n about to do some things...
There’ve been some enjoyable evenings out with folks at either dinners like the one with Karyn, Marty, Row n Mark where we learnt of Mark n Row’s engagement. Should be a good engagement do in a few weeks time!
A night out in Richmond on the banks of the Thames with Daniel, who was over from Adelaide for the week.
An evening with Belinda at Gordon’s Wine Bar in the outdoor area as some semblance of summer, A Sunday arvo in Covent Garden with Shar and Okanya...
I also joined nearly all of the above at the Great British Beer Festival,
but this was over two nights as I had two separate invites to go. It’s not quite like a “festival” though, more like an exhibition where they fill up the Earl’s Court exhibition centre with dozens of stalls for brewers from all over the British Isles to “exhibit” their wares. Effectively, it’s a massive beer tasting for everyone there. Pay your £3 for your pint glass and go try 1/3rds, halves or full pints of the 450+ ales and beers to try. It made for two quite entertaining nights as well as discovering some of what the British brewers have to offer. With some sizable queues at nearly all stalls, it really was more of a tasting event than a “lets-get-drunk” event...I’ve also managed to go see some shows while I’m at it -
Chun Yi: The Legend of Kung Fu
This is a Chinese production company performing China’s longest running theatrical event. Staging, visual and lighting effects, dance, aerial acrobatics and kung-fu combine to tell what is essentially a simple story. It is an excellent show, that is visually engaging, and the feats performed by the cast are very impressive. In the foyer afterwards, you even get to handle the remains of some of the items that were broken during the show. These are the metal bars, wooden staves and remnants of a certain concrete block. If you wish, you can keep them as a souvenir (which I didn’t). The four boys were very impressive too. They play the young version of Chun Yi and some of what they do is pretty amazing. Well worth seeing.
U2
Wembley Stadium was the place last night, and along with 88,000 others, Karyn, Marty, myself and Ernie saw what I would say is the
most visually entertaining band I’ve ever witnessed. Much has been made of the 360° “Claw” staging, but it certainly delivered - so did the band for that matter.You can see it clearly during the support act, and yes, that is a giant 360° video screen hanging under it. That screen actually extended towards the floor of the stage at several times throughout the night to display a range of effects.
Now, I’ll admit that my liking of this band waned several years ago and I effectively switched off after their album Rattle & Hum. I also can’t stand the song ‘Beautiful Day’ having spent copious amounts of times hearing it used over and over again for skydive videos. This did come in handy as it made for an excellent toilet break during the show. I must admit that I quite liked a lot of the new music that they played,
and I guess it must seem odd to go to a show like this and hear several songs that you’ve never heard before...They did crank out several songs from the time I used to really enjoy them, so that was good to see (and hear) them played live. All up, a great night, and one that will probably see me back in a cd store to investigate some of their newer albums...
While the pics look further away than they are, unfortunately, the camera battery was pretty much dead so I didn’t take many - I did try to catch a few seconds of video (which I'm still trying to load up here) despite the darkness and its struggle to focus...
The weekend continued with an evening in a pub with Karyn, Marty and Ernie again, but this time joined by my housemate Paul. The evening weather making for a nice night on the edges of Parson's Green.
Sunday afternoon and the Premier League has kicked off a new season, so in the sunny weather it was down to the beer gardens in Tottenham to catch up with the Usual Suspects before (and after) watching Spurs beat Liverpool 2-1. Finally a good start to a season! (and I don't just mean the after match festivities in the pub where Petter and I led a good round of "There were five Swedish Gooners in the Air" (amongst other things).
Monday saw a trip to the London Dungeons with the folks from work for what turned out to be a decent bit of fun, before we had dinner across the river from the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Sunset turned this into a pretty cool view from the restaurant. As for the Dungeons themselves, well, they weren't particularly scary, but were still a bit of fun and the whole set up and show was very entertaining. A bit of education regarding London's goulish past thrown in by the actors who did their best and definately got some good job satisfaction from people's reactions.
And this brings me to tonight... 29C today in London - "bewdy!". Parson's Green again, but this time on the actual park itself with Shar, Charlotte, Juliana, Martin, Jess, Stella and Tobias for a fun evening in the balmy evening with a few drinks.
