May: LAST WEEK IN LONDON!
Tuesday 28th – Mega organisation day. Paid May bills for North St flat, dropped the airbed back, emailed shipping companies, repacked our bags to have the right weights in the right bags. This evening we visited the Wellcome collection, founded by the man in charge of almost every pharmaceutical product in the UK. It wasn’t huge but had lots of fun exhibits on obesity, how the body works, malaria etc. This is a mummified body!
Ben was tired so headed to Jetlag but I continued up Euston Road to the British Library (even though it was 7pm). I visited the Library’s ‘treasures room’ and this was one of the most spectacular exhibits I’ve ever seen… I saw Shakespeare’s own writing books, hand-written drafts by Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer and Joseph Conrad… I saw Ringo Star’s scribbly writing on the back of his son’s first birthday card when he first came up with Beatles lyrics for Hard Day’s Night!
There were original letters from Napoleon Bonaparte and Queen Elizabeth I. As a law student, the most incredible sight for me was the Magna Carta document itself, preserved from the 17th century with original seals intact. I was reading the inked words of the first English charter, stating there must be one law for all and absolving divine right of kings! I was buzzing about this all evening and at Jetlag I made Ben look through all the photos of what I’d seen!
Wednesday 29th – Back to Colchester! I had to hand in all marked assignments for grading, plus do some printing (flight tickets home etc). It was a miserable day today and I didn’t muck around, back in London by 3pm. Ben met me at Liverpool Street Station to bus back to the apartment, and I spent the afternoon preparing for the final Rook’s Heath class tomorrow!
Thursday 30th – It is a one week school term break this week, so I taught at Harrow from 10.30am – 1pm today. My last class!!! Exam revision and cake and fizzy!! (That is probably completely banned in schools these days with childhood obesity & food allergies but hey whatever, I’m not even a real teacher anyway) Ben came to Harrow and spent the morning in Harrow-on-the-Hill although had seen it all within an hour, so I think it was a very boring trip for him! Claiming back my travel expenses during teaching was a bit of a nightmare, but I eventually got it sorted with the school’s financial director.
This evening we attempted to go to the Globe theatre to watch a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which would have been INCREDIBLE) BUT to my utter disappointment, they had sold out! And so were the next six performances so there’s no way I’ll get a chance to go now before we leave. Instead we walked across the Thames on the Queen’s Millenium Bridge -
and had a Sushi-train dinner beside St. Paul’s Cathedral - pin-pointed in the photo!