Cricket and a Show

Plan for the day is to do Lord’s. We have looked at the map and found it is a relatively easy walk down the Edgewater Road to St John’s Wood so off we go. Amazing how it is further than the map looks, but still we made good time. The tours went on the hour so of course we arrive at ten past and have to spend the next 50 minutes hanging about. Eventually we get on a tour with another 30 or so bods. Unfortunately the Morgan Media Centre had closed for a three month refurbishment two days earlier so that was out of the tour. Despite this we spent an amazing 2 hours seeing the rest of the ground, including the Long Room, the Committee Room and both sets of players changing rooms. John has seen a few international cricket changing rooms in his time but Lord’s takes the cake. The change rooms are just basic and barren; no shower no loo, no individual seats. Grounds in deepest darkest Bangladesh were better equipped!!!! But this is Lord’s and tradition rules.

It was a great tour as it is possibly the only way we will ever get to Lords with the way the cricket doctoring is going. So be it.

The "Visitor's" Dressing room

We decide to take the tube back into town; you can’t go to London and not see some of the sights even though we have seen them all before. Emerging from the Tube to see the Houses of Parliament across the road is still pretty special. We cross the Thames and are looking at our bearings on a large display map and working out a plan when there is a huge “BANG” and a cry from the other side of the map sign. Being good Kiwis we duck around the corner to see a distraught young man lying on the ground semi-conscious and moaning. Now we are well equipped for such a situation and resolve by asking if he is all right. To make matters worse he is French and so we start to check him out in strangled Franglais. We find out he doesn’t have any friends and that somehow he ran into the map board.  The mechanism of injury is a little hard to fathom and he seems to get better pretty quickly so a high five and we are away. Then we see the cameras!!!!! It was a stunt by a French group filming around the Rugby World Cup!! Now it made sense. We get chased by the producer to get us to sign release forms so somewhere that night on French TV/ Internet were two Kiwi docs doing the good Samaritan thing. True kiwis!

Our next stop is to pick up the theatre tickets for the show we are going to that night. John has had a long relationship with The Commitments and it just so happened that a musical based on the movie was playing on the West End. So we had booked tickets on the interweb but decided to save time by picking them up during the day. This also allowed us to get our bearings so we wouldn’t be running around like headless chooks trying to find the theatre come show time. Thank heavens for Google maps and 3G. We followed the dotted blue line of Kris’ phone, once we worked out which way was up, and eventually found our theatre with tickets at the ready.

After a stop to rehydrate with a pint and to watch a bit of the Scotland-Japan game it was back to the Hotel to freshen up.

Then back on the Tube to Shaftsbury Ave with a plan for dinner before the show. By this time we are getting a little time pressured so we settle for a steak from a large chain restaurant and blow 80 odd pound on some average steaks. Still, they fed us quickly. At the theatre we are told we are in luck as they are not opening the Gods (where our seats were to be) and that we will have better seats in the Circle. The seats were good and the music was great but the actual show was a little disappointing. But at the end we were all on our feet clapping and singing just like a gig.

After a quick walk through China town it was time to rest Kris’ very sore feet so back to the hotel and sleep.