Patriotism, the feelings of love and devotion people have for their own country, is not usually seen as a very English character trait. I quite like that about being English. We're surrounded by nations that are completely different; Scotland, Wales, Ireland - they all have an enormous sense of national pride. Not to mention our "friends" across the pond. Meanwhile, we show our love for our country by laughing at Boris Johnson, betting against our sports teams and a huge amount of eye-rolling.
Despite these things, I defy any English person to not feel a little bit patriotic when they see these buildings:
I love our capital city. London is amazing. A fellow-Lichfieldian, Samuel Johnson who compiled the first English Dictionary, said "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."
The most fantastic thing about London is that my best friend currently lives there - giving me the best reason (and perfect excuse) to visit frequently. This time, Ben was working so he couldn't come along. It's fun to visit together but it was really nice to have some girly time. I totally made the most of it.
Firstly, a visit to London wouldn't be complete with a trip to the West End. I'm a big fan. This time I went to see Once the Musical. I'd heard lots about the show before seeing it myself and I knew the song "Falling Slowly". That is, admittedly, a beautiful song and it was the highlight of the show for me. Otherwise it didn't reach me much. I mean, everyone wants a sexy Irish guy to sing love songs to them and all, but that was about the level on which it affected me.
After the matinee, I met Monique after work and was kidnapped. Seriously. I was directed to a bus stop and we started travelling to an unknown location. Apart from being altogether freaked out due to my control issues, it was a pretty exciting way to begin the trip! Especially as we ended up looking out at this view.
The bar in The Shard is 31 floors up and is an amazing place to have a mock-tail and look at the sparkling London lights. Plus, it was less expensive to get two drinks and sit relaxing and chatting than to go to the 51st floor and look for a few minutes at the London skyline. It was fantastic.
On our way to breakfast the next morning we stopped by the White Cube art gallery. I saw the "shhh" all over the wall and had to take a picture because on one occasion talking in my sleep I had told Ben, "There's a whole load of shhh with your name on it!"
Basically, most of the things we did were dictated by food and where we could find it. The Breakfast Club usually has a ridiculous queue on the weekends so we decided to use our free Friday morning to our advantage. And oh my goodness.... we rolled out of there!
After that, we walked around ten miles around London. I'm not even kidding. I don't know quite what fueled us but I think mainly it was the feeling of guilt from our glutenous breakfast. It was lovely to just be able to wander along the banks of the Thames.
Next on the list was the Saatchi Gallery. Along with flags made from hair and a basement oil lake there were these delightful things. I'll leave you to have your own thoughts about them:
The first picture of the gallery with the message against consumerism must have really deeply affected us because our next stop was Harrods. In Laduree we were joined by Hollie, another of my London-based friends, for hot chocolate and a macaroon. We spent two and a half hours talking and laughing.
Later that evening we went to The Vaults to see a young performer called Yve Blake: Lie Collector. Despite a conversation beforehand in which we promised that neither of us was going to cooperate with any audience participation, I turned to Monique as I chanted "WHO... Stole the Milk?" and was amused to see that we were equally as involved. It was a fun night out.
On my final day in London we hung out at Maltby Street Market. I love Street Markets anyway, but this one is seriously awesome mainly because it is actually just one street. It's so compact and cute. Monique got a Brazilian wrap, I got a leek flatbread and we sat at Little Bird Gin and had a (virgin) rhubarb and lime drink. To top it all off, we had salted caramel brownie.
It was the perfect few days of escape, conversation and laughter. We even had the occasional moment of silence, which would have shocked our significant others. And, some things were just shocking.
So, while I know it's practically a crime to feel patriotic in England, I've been caught red-handed. So I better go and roll my eyes at something!
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