Today I basically lay around all day, packed a little bit, but mostly just slept. Then at 10 to 5 in the evening I went out.
Jamie's Italian
Beth, Michael, Teresa and I went to
Jamie's Italian in Covent Garden for dinner. Yes, Jamie as in Jamie Oliver!
The prices are very very reasonable, especially for what you get: good food, a nice not-too-small table, dimmed lighting, and polite service, even if it was a little bit slow because they were so busy.
I got there at about 5.45, and there was a HUGE queue. Thank goodness Beth and Michael had got there at 5.30 and lined up for us. They asked for a table of 4, and were told that it would be an hour's wait :| So they asked for 2 tables of 2 instead, and they said it was a 20-30 minute wait. By the time I'd got there, Beth and Michael were already seated, and they had been given a little buzzer to let them know when the other table was ready. I got there just as Teresa got there, Beth came out to give us our buzzer, walked back to her table, and it pretty much went off straight away! Yay!
I had Wild Ragu Pasta Pipes, which was...well, pasta pipes, with a red wine sauce and game. I had an entree size, which was just nice, and it meant that I could still have dessert.
Dessert was Tiramisu, with a hint of orange. I'd never though about combining the two before. It was nice!
Yeah sorry it's not a picturesque dessert. I actually didn't even have a lot of time to appreciate the aesthetics, cos they took a long time to come take our dessert orders and we had the ballet at 7.30. Well it wasn't too long, we were just keeping a close eye on the time, and everytime some walked past we'd be hoping they would come to take our orders.
The Nutcracker
We hurried down St Martin's lane to the London Coliseum, pushing past the slow annoying people. Well not actually pushing. More like weaving. We went to see the English National Ballet perform
The Nutcracker!
The London Coliseum was SO SO SO pretty! I want a theatre like that!
And the dresses were really really pretty. And of course the dancers were really graceful. They were really good, but I can't tell you how good because I know nothing about ballet, and even if they weren't that good I would probably not notice. Like that time at Phantom when Maddy was wondering why one of the ballerinas was really bad, and turns out that one was Christine, and obviously they'd auditioned her for her voice and not her ballet. I totally hadn't even noticed there was a bad ballerina. But yeah back to the Nutcracker... I can tell you, that the orchestra was really really really good. Nice clean classical music :)
Although... was there a story to the Nutcracker? From what I remember of Barbie Nutcracker (which I watched a LONG time ago), there was girl called Clara, a nutcracker, a mouse and a bonfire. And a sugarplum fairy. I remember nothing of the story and I'm not sure the ballet told a story. Or if it did then I completely missed it. Apart from the first bit where the children got presents and all that. After that, and especially after the interval there were just a series of dances by people in different costumes. It felt more like a string of items than a story. Well, at least they were good dances and good costumes, and I had an enjoyable time.
I returned home to my beloved
Wikipedia to read the synopsis.
