The day that forgot time. Plus... some sock monkeys.

Beautiful interiors of St Pauls Cathedral.
Allegedly.

Ah...well, it was inevitable really.  We've been pretty busy since we arrived - and will be getting busier still - so today was deliberately scheduled as a pretty light day in terms of activities and tours.  We had an open ticket to go and visit St. Paul's Cathedral, plus the last remnants of our 48hr bus pass to do the hop-on, drop-off, wake-up, hop-off tour of the city.  

Well... none of that actually happened.

Yep.  Jetlag got us.  All of us.  And - barring a short interlude where I managed to rouse myself sufficiently to cook some English sausages and bacon (huzzah!), basically the entire first half of the day was a complete bust!!  None of our brave and fearless Transatlantic travelers could rouse themselves and as a result it was 2pm before we finally were able to get our collective asses in gear and keep ourselves awake!! Unfortunately, our St Paul's Cathedral tour was a casualty of this lassitude (I explained to ManpanionTM and Squids what we were missing - big church, lots of pointy bits), so oops - sorry, blogwatchers - I failed you.   

Here are a couple of pictures I nicked from the Internet instead....  https://www.stpauls.co.uk/ 

Exterior of St Pauls Cathedral.
Didn't see this either.  Oops.

It turns out I also screwed up on a couple of other things today - one, getting the times wrong for meeting up with the esteemed Ms.Little (I thought we were meeting up tomorrow instead!) and two) afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols (also somehow scheduled for tomorrow in my exhausted brain - oops!).  So it was all going a bit Pete Tong but - in a fortunate twist of fate - our jet-lagged induced inertia meant that we were still all at the apartment at the time that Little arrived!  We were just on the verge of getting our arses into gear, so fortunately Little's visit gave us the perfect excuse to go back to the Bunch of Grapes and get some food instead!  Huzzah!!

Huzzah!  Nothing better than a beer (or two)
with mates down at the local.  I do miss a good
old British pub.

A good natter and a couple of pints and some plates of fish and chips later, we waved Sarah off in a cab (she was heading over Battersea way for a party) and then stopped off briefly in the M&S Simply Food that's just round the corner from the hotel to stock up on supplies.  I took the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with a Millionaire's Shortcake biscuit - O.M. G.  Just as good as I remember them to be.  A few of those will definitely be coming home with me....  I also finally managed to find a crock of Stilton so couldn't resist.  Simple pleasures.

Anyway, we got back to the apartment around 5.30pm, just enough time to unwind for a bit (sitting round gossiping for a couple of hours in the pub is hard work!) and to admire the handiwork of the housekeeper who'd been in to service the apartment in the fraction of a millesecond that we'd managed to leave it.  As you can see from the cushions on the sofa, she'd certainly been hard at work while we were out loafing about.....

Then it was 6.15pm and time to leave to make the One Thing we had arranged today that we actually managed to make - a "Christmas Spectacular" concert at the Royal Albert Hall.  The Royal Albert Hall was as impressive a venue as I remembered it to be, so this was definitely (for me at least) one of the highlights of our trip.  

It didn't disappoint.  

It was a mixture of music (both classical and modern) and opera, with some dancing thrown in too for good measure - the Jingle Belles (dancers who were sturdy of thigh and not all that great) plus a couple of dancers from a well-renowned Russian ballet troop (can't remember the name, but from Siberia).  Here was the program for the evening:

http://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/events/2016/christmas-spectacular/

The Squids are less than impressed with the Sock Monkeys
chair reservations skillz.

The music was amazing and the acoustics simply stunning.  The program was pretty varied including some of the festive classics like Sleigh Ride as well as the theme tune to the first Harry Potter film (which G.Squid was over the moon about) and the Fantasia theme as well.  For some reason, I got a bit teary-eyed when they were playing the theme to ET towards the end - that is, until someone physically cycled across the stage with ET in his basket - which kinda broke the mood!! The ballet dancers were fantastic (they danced the pas de deux from Swan Lake) and I also picked up a few ideas for ManpanionTM's costume for Halloween next year.  The opera singers were good (they sang the last song in Act 1 of La Boheme) but - despite my trying very very hard to enjoy opera and lose myself in the beauty of their INCREDIBLY LOUD AND STRONG VOICES - I still find all opera a crushing bore and ended up playing with the Sock Monkeys instead.  

Sock Monkeys Don't Care.

They are just here to have a Good Time.

There were laser displays too and - right at the very end - a bunch of fireworks lighting up the upper deck in showers of gold sparks!  Very unexpected and cool!  The concert lasted just shy of two hours and afterwards we were able to flag down a cab pretty quickly and head back to the apartment, where late night snacks of eggs, toast, cereal and sandwiches with Brie and pork sausages were just the ticket to finish the evening off in style.

So.  

I think its safe to say I learned two valuable lessons today.

One.

Always travel with Sock Monkeys.  They serve a number of invaluable purposes, from holding your seat at the bar, to distracting you during an interminably long piece of opera, to photobombing your neighbors in the row in front of you who are taking a family reunion selfie.  It was a classic moment - and one that our neighbors had no idea about.  We were literally dying with suppressed laughter and imagining the moment when someone finally says "Hang on a minute..." and spots the Sock Monkey perfectly positioning behind their right shoulder.

Two.

C'est la vie.  You make plans to do a bunch of stuff - but sometimes your body just doesn't want to co-operate with them.  And, at those moments, it probably best just to say "sod it" and go for Plan B (or C or D or ZZZZZ) instead.  After all, we are, indeed, on holiday.

And with that, good night.  Its super-busy tomorrow (promise!) so off to the land of nod I must go!  Tomorrow, its "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" at the Tower....  :-)

Beautifully Christmassy decorations with the stage all lit up.

Me, ManpanionTM and The Squids about to settle in for a cracking
evening's entertainment.  Not pictured: the Sock Monkeys.
They were back in the bar.

A teeny tiny panoramic picture of the Royal Albert Hall.
Note: not to scale.