Thoughts on lunch breaks

Well, gosh.  Today was hot.  It probably wasn't all that hot in the rest of the UK, but in London, it was a bloody sauna.  And a school day, in case you were thinking "lucky cow" - I had hands to shake and people to convince to like me.  Technically, I had tube trains to take too, but I figured out (and this is useful to know, guys) that a thirty minute tube ride is often only a thirty five minute walk, and you are NOT getting me on the deep lines in this weather if there is any way I can avoid it. 

It sucks to have to work in this weather - I don't know how permanent Londoners don't melt.  But luckily, I know the importance if lunch breaks.   The sad fact is, that in the UK, summer occurs for a couple of days at a time, two or three times, at some point between April and October, inevitably when you are wearing a suit jacket.  Many people miss it completely.  This is because they have not mastered the art of taking your travels very seriously, even when technically at home, and when you only have a half hour lunch break to travel in.  Before you start saying I've gone mad, then think about the state of mind you have when you travel against when you get to work.  You walk with your head up, you listen into conversations, you talk to strangers, and you notice weird statues and flowers and things, right?  I there any reason you can't see these things in your lunch break?

So at lunch time, I took twenty minutes to wander around the flower garden at the edge of Regents Park.   It is spectacular this time of year.  The daffodils had passed, but the tulips and cherry blossoms were incredible.  It was hot and beautiful, and it would have been great to spend longer, especially as there was a very funny looking magpie having a bath in one of the fountains.  I loved the funny lions with horns, which were probably meant to be Assyrian, carrying tulips in a stone bowl on their heads. 

That evening, after work, the weather was still amazing.  I bought a Bento box from a shop on the Kingsway (it is very probable that I would either starve or have a heart attack if I had to travel on business to a place with fewer Japanese take aways!) and got ready to see the White Guard at the National Theatre. 

The weather was still lovely, and it was almost a shame to go inside for the play.   However, it was incredibly good, very funny and tragic, and my ten pound cheap ticket turned out to be at the Front of the Slips, where it is completely possible to pretend you have a box.  I love the National and plan to spend more time there now that I have to be in London overnight on my own so often.

After the play, it was still a wonderful night, balmy and soft.  The tide had dropped slightly, and the Thames was lapping softly at the strip of beach by the theatre and the Oxo tower.  The trees there are decked with fairy lights, and I had a magical walk along the Thames in the cool.  There was a wonderful busker with a voice like Louis Armstrong, and I listened to him for a while in the calm.

No.  I wasn't missing my boyfriend at all.  Don't be silly.

On the way home, I noticed a statue that looked like a giant werewolf and reminded me of the TV show Dr Who, and a sign for a Roman Bath that I will have to check out some other time.

I think I will be able to cope with all this business travel if I can fill my lunch breaks and evenings like this!