Again a later-morning start to the day, with breakfast nearby at a nice Lebanese place – excellent omelette with the freshest flat bread and delicious orange-and-carrot juice. Yum! We’ll probably return for dinner one night based on the quality of brekky.

We had nothing booked until midday. And while looking at midday, we found that between where we were, and where we needed to be, stood Fortnum & Masons. We has been requested to pick something up from there, so off we went. It wasn’t quite as outrageous nor ostentatious as I thought it might be, and on the lower ground it was very clear to see where David Jones went for a visit when they did their Sydney food hall back in the day. Nice little shop.

Gift secured, there was still plenty of time to kill so we walked slowly up to Seven Dials, our next destination, and had a coffee waiting for the clock to get close to 12:00. And our appointment? Oh boy this was good – it was a cheese train – like a sushi train, but for cheese. “Pick & Cheese” with the Seven Dials Market. A selection of quality cheeses passing the eye constantly, the best idea ever, why isn’t there more of it! We were ushered our seats at the train, given a menu describing which was what, plus a dish of crackers, and left to our own devices. There were about 25 cheeses on the menu, and helpfully each dish was numbered so you could tell what you were getting. Each cheese shared its plate with specially matched accompaniment as well – one of the softer cheeses had a hot chilli jam, one of the more bitey cheeses had a tiny fennel salad, there were even cheese accompanied with Turkish delight, salted caramel fudge, or roasted rosemary potato. All these pairings were very well thought out, and it all made sense once you stuck it in yer gob and ate it 🙂 There were also a few non-cheese dishes – one dish of ham, a dish of salami, something you might need between cheese courses.

Each booking gets you a 1hr 15 minute session, but after about half an hour or cheese I was pretty much done, sadly, even though there were a few more I wanted to try. Anyway it was great fun (uh, if you have deep pockets, or should I say, plenty of cheddar) and I’d love to go back again another day.

The nearest tube station back to the hotel was at Covent Garden, which was when I remembered that (a) The London Transport Museum is at Covent Garden, (b) Entry was half the usual price due to doing to Euston Tunnels tour earlier, and (c) I’m a massive nerd who likes this kind of thing. So while Perry headed back to the hotel for a nap, I headed into the transport museum to see what was different since my last visit in 2015. In summary, lots! I won’t bore with lots of history, just with a bunch of photos.

After that I popped into the Apple Store, also at Covent garden, before getting back on the Piccadilly line and back to the hotel.

One final thing I liked about being back at Covent Garden, finally a chance to remember a blurry photo I hastily took on my first visit to London in 2006. It’s nothing spectacular, not even a photo of the exact same location, but just glad I could make it right some 17 years later.

Tonight, it was time to see Heathers The Musical. Off to Victoria station and a short walk to “The Other Palace” theatre – not too far away from the more well known palace around here. I haven’t seen Heathers the 80s movie so I didn’t know what to expect. I’d you haven’t seen it, think of it as Mean Girls on steroids. If you haven’t seen Mean Girls, watch Mean Girls :). Also, you know your seats are close to the stage when you can reach out and touch it. Wasn’t at all awkward. Nope. Not in the slightest. Ish.

Just for a change in the shows we’ve seen so far, it’s basically, you guessed it, a tragic love story. The performances were brilliant, the singing top notch with a few real standouts, and really clever set design that gave us much more scenery than I thought the modestly sized stage could hold. It was smart, punchy, wickedly funny and chock full of well written music, in that “it’s music for a musical” if that makes any sense. Like, it’s not just songs, it’s fragments, chopping and changing, being revisited, tying together and keeping the story moving.

There’s one aspect where this production has one over Broadway. Every member of production had a perfect American accent. It sure doesn’t work the other way around when it comes to Broadway shows doing English accents! Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then as always there was a train at Victoria ready to whisk us back to the hotel, where I can finish writing up the blog. Then the bloody fire alarm went off again. But only briefly. Here’s hoping for a good night’s sleep and not a visit to the cold streets of London at 3am.