721 Steps

There are 528 steps up to the Golden Gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral and I climbed all of them today with James, Christine and Cat. And we were rewarded with fantastic views of London. The people crossing the Millenium Bridge looked like an army of ants, and over on Blackfriars Bridge we could see a crowd of teeny tiny protestors with tiny colourful placards. The cluster of the most recent and (in my opinion) ill-matched City buildings were lit up brightly by the sunshine and looked almost attractive. It was all simply stunning. A convivial lunch in Paternoster Square with the Reids followed. How lovely to be sitting in the City of London with good food and excellent company on a sunny autumn afternoon.
Our evening entertainment was the musical “Bat out of Hell” at the Dominion Theatre (chosen by James). We were cutting it rather fine for our pre-theatre meal at The Ivy (chosen, of course, by me!) and when we arrived at Covent Garden Tube Station we headed for the stairs to avoid the huge queues at the lifts. As we started pounding up the stairs I heard an ominous tannoy announcement “There are 193 steps at this station” Whaaaat? It was too late to change our minds and anyway fleet-footed James had already sprinted upwards out of sight. To make matters worse, I had boldly overtaken a few people at the start of the winding staircase and then had the humiliation of them all passing me as I slowly slogged upwards towards street level. I was very out of breath when we arrived at the restaurant but I was soon soothed by the delightful ambience of The Ivy. This was our second visit so we are practically regulars. I just love it so much and the food was fantastic.
Bat out of Hell has the most ridiculous plot; a post-apocalyptic combination of West Side Story and Peter Pan, with gratuitously revealing outfits straight from the Rocky Horror Show, and a little bit of the aging dilemma of Highlander thrown in. However the music was great, the cast were enthusiastic and very talented, and it was all great fun.