Escape to the city

Many city-dwellers look forward to a weekend's escape from the hustle & bustle, tourists & traffic for the rolling fields & cowpats of the countryside. Not me.

I'm spending all bloomin' week in a delightful little village called Sedlescombe. Delightful in the sense of a nice place to visit, to buy a postcard, have a pint... and then get the hell out of. This place is renowned for its wine (essential to get drunk on while you're there), golf (the most exciting thing to do other than the wine) and for once making the best gunpowder in Europe (well, fill in the caustic comment for yourself as to what they should do with it).

Don't get me wrong... it's picturesque, peaceful and pretty. But I'm there 4 nights a week, without a car, without my social trapezoid and without escape. Until Friday nights. After two hours on a train, lost in playlists and oblivious to the obscure little villages skimming past I arrive at Waterloo East.

Between Waterloo East and Waterloo there's a downwards escalator and the sight while standing on the right was uplifting: a packed, hectic, purposeful station and society. Ah, heaven. Home.

A new angle

There's nothing to renew interest in London more than having a visitor especially one visiting for the first time as Angela did, all the way from Dallas, for a few days before Christmas.

A few days which would otherwise have probably been fairly mundane and domestic were replaced by trips to the London Eye (yes, again, but a new angle or revelation on the skyline every time) and the National & Tate Modern galleries (guiltily more in two days than in the previous two months).

Her visit also provided the opportunity for a fresh look at British cuisine: Cornish pasties and fish & chips. I usually try and take advantage of London's multiculturalism for my socialising sustinence so this was a bit of a change. High Tea and the S&M Cafe (a joke I'm sure I should have teased my visitor with a little longer) will have to wait until next time.

And no, I haven't forgotten about the Ice Bar... to be continued...