Great day in London

We had a wonderful day in London. It had all the best ingredients - great food, a little bit of culture, and not too much hassle at all getting from A to B. Well, the latter seems to become increasingly important the more 'mature', shall I say, one gets.

We ambled down from The Lancers Bed and Breakfast to the Tunbridge Wells railway station, which only takes about five minutes, then onto the train for Charing Cross (50 mins). That takes you straight into the centre of London, no need for tubes or taxis. We made our way to Chinatown which is a few minutes' walk via the National Portrait Gallery (could have popped in, maybe next time) and had a wonderful fried crispy noodles with seafood at the New World Chinese Restaurant in Gerrard Place, which is just off Gerrard Street in the centre of Chinatown. This restaurant is one of our favourites but there are so many great restaurants if you like Chinese food in Gerrard Street and around. At lunchtime you can have dim sum if you wish, when lots of little trollies bring their delights for you to view and choose what you fancy. The cost of these dishes is only about £5.

There was about an hour to spare before our matinee began at the Comedy Theatre, so we strolled over to Old Compton Street and ordered a coffee on the pavement to watch the world go by. Well it certainly did! A film group from St. Martin's School of Art were doing shots of a model (see below) at the next table, and in return for letting us watch them for about half an hour we safeguarded their beer while they posed their model against various different backgrounds.

The theatre itself is lovely, the Comedy Theatre is a truely old fashioned, tiny, beautifully formed and bijou theatre. We watched The Children's Hour which was originally written by Lillian Hellman. The theatre was almost sold out. I really recommend matinees - it's so much nicer taking the train back in daylight hours!