5ive go mad in London

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Well, maybe not quite!

View from the Jubilee Bridge I set off for London around 2ish and got into town around 3.30.

After a quick walk to the Circle Line, I was soon at the Embankment, heading across Jubilee Bridge, heading for the South Bank. It was hot muggy day and perhaps as expected, the place was very busy with people – the Tube, the streets were just packed.

On arriving at the South Bank, it was even busier – people, people and more people everywhere but there were plenty of street entertainers (mostly the same – the ‘live statue’ variety) to keep the crowds happy.

logo-chezgerard After a bit of searching (and with Angela’s help by text), I found the restaurant I’d pre-booked – the Chez Gerard – on Belvedere Road (my sat nav didn’t have this particular Chez Gerard in its database – bah!). Angela arrived slightly ahead of the rest, around 5.40 and we settled down in the restaurant for a natter accompanied by some bread,olives and a cool(ish) bottle of house-white.

Carey, Philip and Antoinette arrived within minutes of each other and after a quick initial natter, (June couldn’t make it), we started looking through the menu. It’s a French restaurant and the choice was pretty good. It didn’t take me long to make up my mind – the Gnocci for starters followed by the Burger (how very french!!!!). My starter was a little strange – more mushrooms and sauce than the title suggested, but this was more than made-up for by the burger. There’s are meaty burgers and then there was this beast – even I couldn’t have eaten two! It came with the smallest french-fries I’ve ever seen and some strange green-stuff, that I was told was lettuce 🙂 Boy, was I stuffed by the end? – I couldn’t even manage dessert (and that’s unusual for me) and I just settled for a double-espresso.

It was good to the gang, and we could have stayed and chatted for longer, but we all had homes to go to. We got the bill, paid our dues and then headed our separate ways, literally. As it 10 years of us ‘getting together’ next year, we’ve decided to do something special, around this time in 2011. We’re not quite sure what yet, but it’ll probably be a meal somewhere, possibly at lunch-time, somewhere in London. It was good to the gang, and we could have stayed and chatted for longer

I headed back across the bridge around 8.30 (still busy with people) and made for St Pancras, narrowly missing the 9pm train by a whisker. Normally, I snooze on the train, but this wasn’t to be, as the carriage had acquired a screaming sprog for the whole of the journey. Headache!!!!

I stumbled through the front-door around 10.45, still stuffed and with the sound of the sprog reverberating around my head.

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