That's because my Dad was over, and seeing as Leicester's not thrilling enough for a week's holiday, he flew west and I took the train south and we spent an almost-week traipsing around London.
It's been years since my Dad was last in London (a truly vintage city map that's now in my possession dates back to 1990, which may not seem like much until you remember that that's 23 years ago), so we did all the touristy stuff while trying a bit too hard not to seem too much of a tourist - " 'tourist (noun): loud with polyester coats and bum bags and tennis shoes" - which was fun.
Many of my photos - I didn't take many though, I'm not really the photograph-clicking kind, plus my Dad took a picture every three steps so I'll just rely on his collection - are basically just of things I find tremendously cool just now and/or that would work nicely as a Facebook profile pic. So here's my stuff.
The first Leaky Cauldron. Because once a Potter fan, always a Potter fan. Also photographed now because I couldn't find it last time I was in Leadenhall Market - turns out, I'd walked right past it. Well. So much for my ability to observe stuff.
The global zero centre coordinate point that I wrote about in the post about Time. Photographed on a massive map in Greenwich.
Me at the Greenwich meridian. Loved being here. Loved seeing this. It's such a weird thing to be real, to think that this is where the Earth supposedly starts and ends. I've been close to another important map-line before, the Tropic of Cancer, back when I was in Abu Simbel, but then I still was a bit away from that particular latitude, so now I've truly stood on an important place for coordinates.
Also I've travelled in time by jumping back and forth on the line.
Of course we visited Madame Tussauds, so here's me with the magnificent Humphrey Bogart.
I do love Casablanca.
So many people walked right past him, not recognizing him. People these days have no regard for classic films. For shame. But at least I didn't have to work my elbows to take a pic with this particular wax statue - I think I had to battle an entire army of middle-aged mums to take a photo with the statue of George Clooney.
Ah, there's a vacancy in the Bates Motel. Yes, let's stay there.
Further epicness (and lack of elbowing - truly people, for shame!) was ensured by the wax statue of Oscar Wilde. I just about kept myself from throwing a teenaged-girly fit over the awesomeness.
But our visit wasn't just limited to stuff for teenage girls on a trip with their middle-aged mums, or slightly weird students - my Dad battled a battalion of greying and grey dads to get a pic with Paul, Ringo, John and George. I think he was also the one holding back a teenaged-girly fit over awesomeness when I took him to see Abbey Road and the studios on Thursday morning.
On Wednesday we went to Oxford, because I wanted to show my Dad the Bodleian and some other pretty buildings, plus I needed to pick up some things - also I was slightly desperate to visit Blackwell's, and it's now almost been a year since I had a chat in Oxford with two academics, one from Utrecht and one from Glasgow, over a very fancy dinner, where one of them told me that you don't need to be clever to do a PhD, just be really passionate about something, and where I most or less made the definitive decision to give Academia a serious shot.
As I sat in front of the Criminology section in Blackwell's, I held three books in my hands. I wanted all three, but I reasoned with myself that buying all three would be senseless. I most desperately wanted the one that - of course - also happened to be the most expensive one.
I still bought it, of course.
Crime and Economics. C'mon. I'm a Law and Economics (well, Social Sciences but those were my main tracks) BA. I've been contemplating going back to RA/UCR in, say, a decade and forcing them to expand Crime and Law Enforcement into a full track, and because of my background I've considered a course that draws on both criminology and economics.
I couldn't just walk away and leave it there. It would be a betrayal of all my interests.
So, Thursday was Abbey Road. It was also our day of walking around, from the London Eye to Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus. Of course that was also the day we were hit by snow and bitter cold, so I quickly turned quite cranky - sorry about that, Dad.
We had an absolutely lovely afternoon tea at Fenwick's, which was quite fun because we were sat next to two very posh ladies, who were absolutely delightful.
Friday we met up with Danou and indulged in a day of amateur Egyptology - wandering 'round the British and Petrie Museums, pointing out deities to one another and, while in the Petrie Museum, finding stuff that has been featured on the Joann Fletcher documentary-set that's been on the BBC.
I said goodbye to my Dad on Friday night, as he had to catch a very early flight out again, while I stayed another night to travel back to Leicester on Saturday.
As I transferred from the Central to the Hammersmith & City Line, I suddenly walked past something that I hadn't expected to see at all this week. Surely I'd been looking at maps of Central London to figure out where it could possibly located, as I'd been watching a documentary on it the other day, but I never intended to go and see it for real. But I did.
You see, as you transfer lines there, you have to walk from White City station to Wood Lane station, and as you do so, you walk right past the BBC Television Centre. Quite extraordinary.
But now I'm safely back home in Leicester, and I'll probably unpack in a bit, then eat something and then watch the newest Who.
Thanks again, Dad, for the trip.
PS Okay, so the new Who is quite cool. Bit deus ex screwdriver, as is to be expected, and I felt slightly worried about that system because after the parasite collapsed, what was that system's main point of gravity? Other than that, nice ep. Looking forward to next week - submarines!
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