Steve visits the Gym!

Reading time: 3 minutes...

Off to the Capital today – one of my less frequent trips into London these days! To think, I used to do this pretty much on a daily basis when I was working!!! 😲. What a difference, 10 years in retirement makes!!! But ME in the GYM??? Surely some mistake! Read on! 😉

The reason for the trip? An overdue get-together with a group of like-minded ex-business-buddies. This is a deep friendship formed back in 1999 when we all met and collaborated on a massive project for the (then) ‘World’s Favourite Airline’. Initially, there were five of us, and we christened ourselves ‘The 5ive’ (how creative is that?!) – and Carey, Angela, Antoinette, Philip and yours truly have stayed in touch ever since. It’s been that sort of friendship where we’ve spent a few weekends away together – and not managed to kill each other! 😀

The 5ive do Stratford-upon-Avon (October 2012)
The 5ive do Bath (October 2013)
The 5ive do Birmingham (October 2014)
The 5ive do Liverpool (September 2015)
The 5ive do Bristol (I missed that one in 2016!)

In later years, a few other business colleagues from the same project joined us – June and then Rick – and in the fastest rebranding exercise going, we briefly became The 7even eventually evolving into The Magnificent Seven!

The last time we all got together like this was back in November 2022 when we visited one of our more familiar haunts – ‘EVs‘ (Yummy Turkish cuisine) – near Southwark Tube. On this occasion, we agreed to make the venue a little easier for me to get to – and so we settled for The Gymnasium, sandwiched between King’s Cross and St Pancras International. I’ve eaten there before and it was great! Tasty food, good service and (for London) agreeable prices!

With my return ticket for just £25.80 and the table booked for 12.30, all that was needed was my friends… Check! ✅

…and a menu! 😋. Check! ✅

Sadly, Rick nor Philip couldn’t make this one, leaving me to enjoy the company of four women. Tough job!! (Not!) 😉.

Probably the toughest decision was whether to eat inside or (as it was a gorgeously hot day) outside, under one of their massive umbrellas. We opted for outside! What could possibly go wrong?

Although the food on offer was good, the service was less so! Incorrect advice from our Waiter about cooking the burger, forgotten orders and sluggish service tainted the whole experience – even though the food itself (when it arrived) was yummy!

…and then it started to rain! 😲

…and then it REALLY started to rain! 😲😲

This resulted in a mass evacuation indoors whilst the waiting staff broadened their CVs by arming themselves with buckets, mops, and squeegees!

Meanwhile, they found us a table inside where we gave into temptation and scanned the Dessert menu.

We WERE all tempted… but some of us shared (not me though!)

As usual, I cut short my get-together in order to use my timed-ticket. The girls agreed to take care of the bill and work out my contribution. But as if things couldn’t get even more chaotic, I learned later that all their card machines had packed up! 🤔. Not really their fault but talk about ‘bad timing’!!! 😬. In fact, they had to let my friends go, on the promise of paying over the phone tomorrow!

All-in-all then, it had been great to catch up with my friends (and we even had a chance to discuss our next weekend away – possibly Cambridge) but The Gymnasium was a real disappointment – I can’t think I’ll be recommending ‘the gym’ any time soon! 👎👎👎👎👎