Splitting up

Today everyone sort of did their own things. Mirinda had to go to work, I had a Talking Newspaper, Fi and Lauren were going to tackle Oxford Street and Andrew and Jason were undecided…though they weren’t going to London to meet Preston from Leeds.

Naturally I went to the gym first. While I was there, Mirinda drove up to the station and the Hassells set about getting ready. I returned at 9:30 to find them still in their bed attire and discussing various options. I sat down with Fi and showed her how to get to Oxford Street then to Mirinda’s work. After repeating it a few times and uploading a tube map app to make life a little easier, she was ready to go…then it was just a wait for everyone else.

I bade them farewell and took the girls into the park for a run around. When I returned an hour later they were all just leaving the house. They had a few goes then piled into the car…then piled out again because the wing mirrors had refused to unfold. Sheer brutality helped with them and they finally set off for the station.

Fi and Lauren were meeting Mirinda after work and they were going out for dinner then to Sadler’s Wells for a bit of modern ballet (Swan Lake without swans…or a lake or Tchaikovsky) so they hopped on a train into Waterloo while Andrew and Jason decided to see a couple of castles.

They popped up to our own castle and looked out across the Avenue of Trees then down into the deep central well. They then decided to head to Guildford to see that one. Afterwards they lunched at the Mad Hatter pub. All in all, they had a lovely day.

In the meanwhilst, in London, Fi and Lauren didn’t get much further than the Disney Store. From her reaction, I’m surprised that Lauren actually left the Disney Store. But left they did and successfully met Mirinda (Fi was quite proud of the fact she was early) and then had a grand tour of the college (something I’m still waiting for).

The ballet was, as Lauren described it, edgy. I think it was generally considered by both Fi and Lauren as pretty weird. Mirinda explained to me that it was more like performance art than a ballet. She also said that mum would have hated it. After hearing about it I found myself quite intrigued and wishing I’d seen it as well.

As for me, I headed into town for a brief stop at Starbucks then onward to the studio for a recording of the Alton edition. It all went well though there was a bit of a worry when the engineer hadn’t shown up by 3:30. We were all ready with no-one to record it. Then he raced in, all a-fluster. A car had broken down on the roundabout, he breathlessly explained, and the traffic was at a standstill…except when it sort of moved.

I told him to take his time (and deep breaths). There was no rush. Eventually he was ready and we rattled off the edition without any hitches. Well, apart from me having to restart the What’s On section because I misread a date, thinking it was December when, in fact, it was January. Fortunately I realised and we restarted the section. Never a problem, just annoying.

Eventually (having stopped to shop) I made it home to find Andrew and Jason watching TV. I then realised I’d forgotten to tell Jason how to access Netflix. Or, in fact, how to turn it all on to start with. He’d managed the basic TV and they were watching Robot Wars.

I whipped up spaghetti bolognaise and we ate and talked, chatting about all sorts of stuff (Jason told me all sorts interesting stuff about the games industry and how much it’s changed with online gaming as opposed to playing alone – I was surprised at how far motivated it is by only money when the developers used to be more interested in pushing boundaries in gaming and effects back when I was a tester) until the women returned full of culture shock.

I think everyone had a good day. Mine was pretty good.