Dinner with Ally

I got comfortably settled in my reserved seat on the 10.38 Tain from Glasgow Central to London Euston this morning. However the train did not set off. Instead there was an announcement that very sadly someone got hit by a train this morning at Preston, which meant that all of the Avanti trains on the west line were delayed indefinitely. We were advised to take a train to Edinburgh and then a LNER train to London Kings Cross. So that’s what I did, and caught the 1 p.m. train at Waverley. One of the other passengers had told me that the LNER trains are nicer than Avanti trains, and this did seem to be the case. It helped that the train wasn’t too busy, and soon I was being treated to sea views as we journeyed down the east coast past Berwick upon Tweed. However there was a further delay; the train stopped because of an unspecified fault just north of Darlington. Luckily it was fixed fairly quickly and we arrived in London just after 6 p.m. 

I no longer had time to go to my Premier Inn in Hammersmith to drop off my rucksack, so I decided put it on my back to walk the forty minutes to St Paul’s to stretch my legs after the long train journey. I arrived in good time at the Ivy Asia and met Ally at the bar. It was very busy considering it’s a Tuesday, I saw several people being turned away. Our meal was absolutely delicious and we had the best table in the restaurant, a wee curved booth at the window with a view of St Paul’s Cathedral. I had a lovely mocktail to start with called Rose of the Orient, made with lychee, rose, raspberry and orange blossom soda. It was bliss. Ally’s cocktail was called the Ohara, made with Ketel One vodka, strawberry, hibiscus, yuzu, elderflower, soda and Prosecco. I think it’s named after the town in Japan rather than the Irish surname! We also had a great chat about anything and everything and it was a splendid evening. In the way to the underground station, Ally showed me a pond which had a perfect reflection of St Paul’s Cathedral in it.