Covent Garden Was The Perfect Spot To Meet (4/24)

Apologies for the delay in getting these posts written and published. We've been finding it quite tiring walking around London all day and have been collapsing in bed in the evening. 

Covent Garden

After a quick breakfast in the room we walked to Covent Garden where we met up with our great friends, Mark and Jilly.  We've been friends for twenty years. In fact, one of the first times we met in person was in London in December, 2005 for a special private concert at Pete Townshend's former studio space in Twickenham for "Basement Jam."  Hard to believe it will be 20 years in December. 

This picture was taken before the concert at a pub located around the corner. 

This picture was taken yesterday afternoon:

Mark and Jilly have been enjoying retirement, and by the looks, the lifestyle agrees with them. They seem so content and happy.  We found a spot to drink coffee and catch up. They both still enjoy the music of The Who and artists associated with them, like getting to see live performances of Pete and Rachel's collaboration on "The Seeker" a musical reinvention of Hermann Hesse’s classic novel, Siddhartha, or going to see Roger Daltrey perform. They get way more access to these kinds of shows than we ever could, so it was great to chat about all that. 

Obviously, we talked a lot about what's going on in the U.S that has so many people on edge, including us. From afar it must all sound completely crazy, and it was interesting to get the perspective from people who don't experience the daily deluge of crisis in real-time. 

After coffee, Mark suggested a wonderful Italian restaurant to have lunch, and it was wonderful. 

Enjoying Virgin Voyages

They both described a recent cruise on Virgin Voyages, and how much they enjoyed the experience. I have never considered a cruise for our holidays, but after listening to them describe how top notch the whole thing is, it certainly raised our interest level. 

I told Mark about the time I met Sir. Richard Branson in Los Angeles and he shared about the time he also met him briefly. 

Pandemic 3D Printing and the return of the long lost Interositter

They also shared a creative interest they took up during lockdown.  3D printing, creating models and painting them. The figurines looked quite ornate and delicate.  Years ago Mark told me about an ongoing gag he had with mates at work when people were having technical problems with equipment, and how he and his colleague made up a fictional device called an "Interositter."  For a laugh I suggested we could now actually make a real Interositter.  The gag would usually involve printers that would not print, coaching the victim on troubleshooting, resetting the "Interositter, and listening in on said victim calling tech support mentioning this interositter that might be playing up. Ha Ha! Great fun. 

Farewell for now

After lunch we walked around the Covent Garden area window shopping, taking photos and chatting and getting to the bus stop so they could make it back to Victoria Station for the train ride home.  What a lovely afternoon that was, and how great to spend it with such great friends. 

Here are some more pictures from the day: