A roarin' good time in London! Our Lion King trip report... About This Page:

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A roarin’ good time in London



Date: Saturday 28 February

Adventurers: Me, Cheryl and DH Mark

Event: We go up to London’s West End to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre

Celebration: the tickets were my birthday present in December from DH!



This trip started on Sunday 21 December 2003, when I unwrapped DH’s birthday present. I was supposed to think he’d just got me Eeyore socks, but of course I didn’t fall for that one and worked out something else was wrapped up in the socks – and sure enough, there they were – two top priced tickets to go and see the Lion King musical in London’s West End on Saturday 28 February, the first Saturday night of the new year which had seats available when DH had booked it!



Anyway, fast forward to Saturday 28 February. We’ve decided we’ll go up to London a bit earlier, as we don’t often the chance to visit the capital, although that’s changing, thanks to all the wonderful PassPorter meets we’ve both enjoyed and are still planning with people visiting London! We were aiming to leave at 2.30 p.m., meaning we should be in London an hour later, but almost as we were about to leave, our neighbour rang to ask if DH could help him with something. He’s a lovely guy and I hate to say no, but I had to tell him we were about to walk out of the door to head up to London to see the Lion King – nothing was going to delay me a minute longer!



Our trip up to London was relatively quick. We live about 35 miles south east of London, but you do tend to travel slowly from the outskirts of the city into the centre, even on a weekend – there are just so many sets of traffic lights, that as soon as you speed up, you’re slowing down again. We did fine with directions, until we were about half a mile from the car park and then we spent the next 20 minutes trying to find it, passing the road it was in by accident, finding roads we wanted to go down were one way – you know the sort of thing!



Finally we made it and found a parking space with no trouble and we were off. As we were quite close to Covent Garden, we headed for there. Covent Garden is famous for its street entertainers and is home to many interesting shops and restaurants. For more information, check out these sites: Covent Garden and Covent Garden Life The fact that I’d discovered it now has a Disney Store just before we left also had something to do with my strong desire to visit the area as well!



The area has changed from the last time I visited – probably about six or seven years ago now. There seem to be a lot more shops there and a lot more mainstream shops, although the quirky, more unusual outlets that Covent Garden’s famous for still remain. I know the last time I was there, it didn’t have a Disney Store, HMV or Gadget Shop, but to me, these were all good additions, as it gives you a wider breadth of shops to visit – and that’s always good, right?



The place was packed and the problem was a lot of people were just wandering and kept stopping in the middle of the pavement, meaning we had quite a few near misses, where we almost walked into them. There was a huge crowd at one end, watching one of Covent Garden’s street entertainers – the crowd was so big and so deep, we couldn’t see what it was, but it appeared to be one, or possibly two, guys on a unicycle. I figured if there were that many people watching, it was probably a good time to go inside and browse.



We wandered through a couple of bookshops and a Peter Rabbit shop – it did have some Eeyore items, but not that many and when it came to the personalised keyrings, they didn’t have one with Cheryl on it. We headed outside again and I took a couple of shots of the area, while DH went and got some money out from a cashpoint.





The inside of Covent Garden market





The exterior of Covent Garden





One of the new parts of Covent Garden – and this part also includes the Disney Store!



Now I appreciate this next part will not mean anything to most of you, but as he got some money out, I looked at the guy standing near me, who was carrying a baby girl on his back. I did a double take and thought “that’s the actor who plays Marlon on Emmerdale” (probably the third most popular soap opera over here) and then he walked up to me and asked for directions to Bond Street – his Yorkshire accent confirmed who it was, but of course I couldn’t help him find Bond Street. I didn’t say anything to him, as I couldn’t remember his real name and I think there’s nothing worse than calling someone by their character’s name. Off he walked just as DH returned – it took him a while to register what I was saying and I’m not sure he believed me, but I know who that guy was – and he was famous (at least over here he is!)



Next we headed over to the London Transport Museum, which is also based in Covent Garden. I have an odd fascination with the London Underground – I don’t know what it is, it’s something to do with the fact it’s all built underground and I never cease to be amazed by the whole underground city beneath London and how on earth they built it without everything above collapsing! So into the shop we went and I was able to pick up a book about all the disused stations on the Underground – another fascination of mine, after I covered the closure of one of those stations as a journalist. Seeing it being closed down made me wonder what happened to all the other stations which have closed in the past… now I can find out in my book!



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