Bumingham / London

Another early start, this one even earlier than the last few, we were awake before the sun had lifted over the horizon today. Breakfast and the magic food bowl set. Not Again! This is getting tedious!! We walked through the city the sun coming up and making everything look wonderful. The Library shone gold, and when we reached St Martin in the Bullring the sky behind the church peachy gold and just emphasised how high up the centre of Birmingham actually is.

We climbed on board a train from Moor Street Station headed for London Marylebone. I had time to carry on knitting the next pair of sockathon socks, I’d made pretty good progress with them in the hire car to and from Scarborough, maybe I’d get this pair finished on this trip to London.

A walk, then the tube, except there was some hold up, so we changed lines and got ourselves to the Mildmay Line to Homerton. At my brothers we dropped off our overnight bags and we had time for a good chin wag, some lunch and an attempt to sort dates for a pre Christmas get together. Have to admit my mind hasn’t been thinking of such things at all recently.

Back into London to meet with my friend Nick and friends at The Albany pub by Great Portland Street tube. It is soon to be Nick’s 60th birthday so he’d arranged a get together with friends and their woofers. Tilly had been invited and she’d accepted. The menu later on didn’t include rodent curry, so in the end I declined the invite!

Around 30 of us met at the pub, had a drink and then headed into Regents Park. The walk would cover quite a distance, so Mick opted to get a bus to the next location. The masses stopped to look at the sculptures in the park. We only saw a few of them before it started to rain and everyone’s attention was distracted from the artworks to a double rainbow. I got chance to chat to various people who’d been at Nick’s 50th in the Yorkshire Dales and I got to meet his in-laws, Kerry’s family. Nick is my oldest friend, by that I mean he met me when I was only a couple of days old, he was a couple of months old.

We wove our way through the park. A slight detour to see the giraffes at the zoo who had just been given some fresh branches to munch on. Then across the Regents Canal to Primrose Hill. Here we met up with Mick again and climbed to the very top. Photo opportunity with storm clouds over the high rise cityscape down below.

I’d looked at a map for where we were headed, it wasn’t that close, there were a few comments of ‘How much further?!’ Was everyone still with us? We now meandered our way through the streets, a pit stop and a half pint each at Camden Brewery, I enjoyed some gluten-free, alcohol-free beer, you’d never have known anything was missing! Chance to chat to Nick’s brother Guy who is now retired and is planning quite a major cycling trip to Istanbul next year, this year he’d achieved Lands End to Gateshead using quite a bit of the canal network.

After dark we arrived at The Pineapple, Kentish Town. An old fashioned boozer with small rooms, but a larger one upstairs. Here we were joined by more people and the rest of Nick’s family, his sister and his Mum, both of whom I’ve not seen since 2019. Plenty to chat about as we all drank, ate Thai curry and on in the back ground on a large TV screen was a coloured version of the World Cup final of 1966. Mick and I tried our best to see if we could spot our friend Frank in the crowd, but the resolution wasn’t good enough. We and more importantly, Frank knows he was there!

A lovely afternoon and evening with friends and their family. I was asked what I’d be doing for my 60th. The second time this had been asked in one day! Well a thought had been to have a do in Scarborough, but timings for that are now a touch wonky for several reasons, so I may have to opt for a get together at a later date. We’ll see.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 train, 5 tubes, 1 overground, 2 buses, 1 Elizabeth line, 23161 steps, 125 brisk minutes walking, 1 Leckenby lunch, 2 pubs, 1 brewery, 1 tyre tree, 4 woofers, 1 absent cat, 2 giraffes, 1 big view, double rainbow, 1966 World Cup final, 60 years old.