To Musicals and Adopted Aunts

It has been a flurry of activity since the others arrived and little time to report! But there are two big events that deserve telling.

A couple days before they arrived I met up with Aunty Jenny again and she pre-birthday treated me to a show. Unfortunately the show she had planned was sold out until February, or something crazy like that! But, she said we could go to the theatre and see if we could get returned tickets. So we arrived and the very kind ticket lady said she would wait for us to come back from getting cash from down the road (make sure you go the right direction, google maps saved us again) before putting out the returns sign for us to stand behind, so incidentally we were the first in line! A first for a Bell (and a Smith?)! We did get very nice returned tickets to "War Horse" and managed to run across the road for a very quick panini supper making it to our seats in perfect time, 3 minutes before show start. My kind of timing. War Horse was an incredible show based on a book and following the story of a horse and the boy who owned him, set in the second world war. The horses and other animals were puppets but were so realistic that very soon you forgot they were! Amazing.

On my birthday we met up with Jenny again for milkshakes at Harrods - in remembrance of our last meeting all together over Harrods milkshakes six years ago. The ice-cream place has since moved from the first floor and we spent the first 30 mintues going on shaky memories of the place - high stools, bright colours, lots of sweets in the vicinity - searching for it. We did find it, complete with high stools and bright colours, though the candy shop it used to be next to is now a pizza place with a Italian singing chef, or a chef singing Italian, at least. Jed and I split a Baccio, translation: a huge, decadent chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla ice cream dish. Wow. After that a walk to burn off some of our decadence to meet up with Mary and Martin for a quick dinner at Wasabis - a Japanese fast food type place where we eagerly piled sushi and rice dishes on our plates - before heading off to see "Wicked". We were a little worried when it first began having splashed out on these tickets (I was especially worried because the boys had been most uncertain about it and I had chosen the show) not really sure what to expect but the music was fantastic and the story was very clever, and remarkably thought-provoking. The lead actress was amazing and we've been talking about her and her singing and acting ever since. So, no disappointment whatsoever. In fact, if anyone would like to buy us the music... :)

All in all, two wonderful highlights of these last few days: musicals and adopted aunts.