Though the walk had finished, our routine was not to waiver, so we were up at 07:00, breakfast at 08:00 and off at 09:00. Military precision. It was a four hour drive back to London, a little longer when you go via Northallerton to see what all the fuss is about. We still don’t know even though we did a flyby of the place. Basically it’s the closest “biggish” town to a few of the little villages we stayed at. We had heard it mentioned too many times not to be a tad curious about it.
The trek back to London was broken up with a loo stop at a motorway service centre. We were shocked to find that, getting out of the car after just two hours of sitting resulted in us nearly collapsing face first onto the pavement as our legs decided to cease up. We were walking like cowboys for the next 10 minutes. It makes you realise how amazing the human body is to have got up day after day to walk. Now that it had stopped, it was really going to stop. But then, a couple of hours later it was fine again. Quick recovery. Amazing bit of machinery.
Back in London and our turnaround at our Heathrow hotel was quite fast as we had a theatre appointment to keep in town. As the rain poured down, we contemplated the best mode of transport. Public bus to the airport and then tube in didn’t look that inviting in this weather. Luckily we found a lovely German man to share a cab, so the Universe provided once again.
I know parts of London quite well, but I still struggle sometimes with how it all fits together and what is close to which place etc. So it turns out that Westminster Bridge isn’t as close to South Bank as was once thought and that South Bank is actually more than a five minute stroll to London Bridge. I actually designed the 45 minute or so power walk on purpose though. I mean, now that we are elite athletes with finely tuned bodies, you can’t just suddenly stop the exercise. We did reach the theatre in time (phew!) and were treated to a brilliant performance of Aspects of Love. Why this Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical never took off like some of his others is beyond me. It’s truly super. And this production was as intimate and as perfect as you could hope for.
Larging it up getting into London meant that it was back to reality for the home trip. Piccadilly Line all the way.
XXX
