Sophies art competition piece

 

To Craft is to Hoard (it's the law) 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all having a nice relaxed weekend.  I don't think you can 100% relax in London but we are having a lovely time together.

It is incredibly busy though, I thought that as it was past Christmas/ New Year it would be quieter but No.  I would definitely say that tourism is back up to full capacity, the last time we came there were nowhere near the same number of Asian Tourists. Trying to navigate the paths in wheelchair is absolute chaos, people don't see you,  Paul said its so frustrating that people mostly have their heads down looking at phones, so we have to move out of the way.  The other huge thing is that people don't look behind them when going through a door anymore, they just push through and let door go behind them, it has happened so many times this weekend, there are a few that will see wheelchair and rush to hold door but its rare.  

The Harry Potter and The Cursed Child show was amazing, the special effects were incredible, the 'Dementors' were just genius. The story line was great too, characters were very believable.  It was a very long time to sit in the very uncomfortable seats, I'm short and my knees were against seat in front and the man infront of me was huge and was clearly very uncomfortable in his seat, he was constantly shifting about which meant (a) his seat kept pressing into my knee and (b) I had to keep moving to look around him, which made me feel awful for the lady behind.  But I guess that will always be a problem,  the other niggle was that there were a lot of children in the show with parents that didn't encourage them to be quiet. At one point a parent & child were having a full on conversation which I think is disrespectful to the actors on stage, 5 hours of sitting in a dark theatre at a show with a few scary scenes is not really the place for 5/6 year olds in my opinion.  Especially when you have filled them with sugary sweets all day in an attempt to keep them quiet 🤫 

Today we have another long day, we started the day with Quaker porridge pots (the lack of breakfast at hotel is so frustrating).  I thought about the porridge to go things while we were hunting for good breakfast venue yesterday,  there were a lot of 'trendy breakfast/brunch'  places with "Instagrammable" colourful food but the queues were ridiculous.  Yesterday we ended up at an Irish pub in Chinatown that did a hearty breakfast for just under £10, it was delicious but their tea/coffee machine had broken, now a cooked breakfast without a cup of tea is like bread with no butter or scone without cream, I did ask if the could just use a kettle but apparently they don't have such a thing.  So thankfully Greggs had now opened a branch in Leicester square so we went straight there after breakfast to get a cup of tea.  

We have to navigate the tube for the first time, not sure how barriers will work with wheelchair,  we popped down to Bond street station to ask but there wasn't a staff member in sight.  So we are going to start making our way over to Greenwich North early afternoon.  Matt called us last night to say that he had had a couple of issues with 02, he bought our "Accessible " tickets over a year ago when they were first released,  the 02 messaged him yesterday to say that they needed evidence of my disability,  so Mat explained that I have a Blue Badge etc, but that isn't sufficient,  they need written evidence like a letter of entitlement from Benefit Agency, I will say that we have never been challenged about this before.  He went on to explain that we were already in London so we wouldn't have anything like that with us, Matt asked why they left it until the day before the show to ask for proof of entitlement,  she said that they were short staffed!  Hopefully there won't be any drama when we get there, it is playing on my mind a little though.  The other frustration is that Matt was under the impression that he had bought a wheelchair Accessible seat, however he was told on phone yesterday that the seat is up 8 steps and about 10 seats in from the Aisle,  now I will struggle with steps to as they are generally very steep but with my crutches and Paul it should be ok but the side stepping along so many seats may be a problem.  Poor Matt got a bit upset at the thought of me struggling but I tried to reassure him, I have to go to Customer services as soon as we arrive to see if they have any better options!  So keep your fingers crossed for us please ladies. 

Today I am sharing the drawing that Sophie started before Christmas, it is for a Derwent art Competition, the idea is that it is a black & white piece with a wide 'Brushstroke ' of colour down the centre. Please zoom in if you can, it depicts the effect of waste in the sea.  She put a lot of hours into it which you can see, she used my Detwent Coloursoft pencils to add the colour.  Good Luck Sophie. 🤞🥰

That's all for today Ladies,

Have a fantastic weekend, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx