Topic: Stephen Says
Elisabeth sort of did this last minute thing and booked tickets to see Top Girls in Greenwich earlier this week. She figured (correctly, I'd like to add) that if we're going to live in England, it was the one play that we absolutely needed to see with a proper British cast.
The show started at 7PM and Greenwich is pretty out of the way and we were going to try a new route so time was going to be tight when she got back from work.
I did my bit and heated up the curry so we could eat as soon as she walked in the door, she left work at 4:45pm to make sure that we were in good time and, at 5:15 the freak out started:
It came to light that we had no idea when the train from Waterloo East to Greenwich left/arrived or how long it took and it was suddenly revealed to me that E thought it would take about an hour and 20 minutes to get there (plus walking to the station plus finding Waterloo East plus finding the theatre) meant that if we left the flat instantaniously, the earliest that we could possibly arrive is at 7PM, assuming public transport actually functioned properly.
We charged out of the flat, charged down to the station, bought the tickets and got lucky that the direct train to Waterloo was delayed and we could catch it right away. It proceeded to get delayed again and again and we got onto the train pretty much at the same time as the other train direct to Waterloo pulled into the station.
A moment of quiet reflection on the train and we pulled into Waterloo and stormed over the walkway to Waterloo East where the train to Greenwich was just pulling in and we thought Success! We've done it! Mission accomplished!
We got to Greenwich at twenty to seven, left the station, consulted the map and walked briskly to where it said the theatre was only to discover that Elisabeth had, in fact, printed off a map that led to a pub and had no idea where the theatre was or what its name was and, in the rush to leave the flat, we'd both left our mobiles behind and we couldn't call my friend who lives in Greenwich.
So we charged down the street towards a large building with bright lights which Elisabeth decided looked suitably theatre-like. It turned out she was close - it was a cinema but she was able to get directions to the theatre from an usher and we charged off again got to the theatre, got our tickets, got to the lobby and noticed that it was very, very empty with only 4-5 people milling around sipping a glass of wine. We sat and lamented that there weren't many people going to see the show and as our blood pressure returned to normal, I started to wonder why there were no ushers or people handing out programmes...
...and it turned out that the bloody play didn't start 'till 8pm and we had an hour to wait.
So we went to the pub and I had a beer and Elisabeth had a gin and tonic and we realized that next time we see a show we should know certain things like where it is and when it starts.
We're seeing Michael Palin on Tuesday so let's see if we've learned from our mistakes.
And as for the play, it was very, very good.