A TIP OF MY VIRTUAL FIN

To the Sylvans for prize-winning wedding present (a website) and pointing the way, Stevie for feedback, feedforward and sharing html skillz and the man with the technicolour haircoat who doth provide.

The thing about leaving the country is that your friends start doing remarkable things like answering your emails, turning up on time to meet you, taking afternoons off work to see you and even CROSSING THE RIVER (shome mishtake shoorly) to visit you in South East London. A very warm thank you to all my lovely mates for their many and varied send-offs, and do keep in touch. (But let’s face it, I need at least a year abroad away from you all to detox.)

So yesterday OVP and I decided we should take in all the London tourist attractions I’ve somehow managed to avoid over the past 20 years and most importantly check on the Thames Barrier, all tragic current affairs considered, and see how it’s holding up.(I’m skeptical frankly. But that’s another story.)

A magical day of sightseeing, lovely company and much laughter which went something like this: bus, tube, boat, dlr, train, cab, cab, train, bus and took in no small number of fine drinking establishments in-between transport links. To Bexley in the evening for a photographic private-view by ‘The Mirage Group of Photographers’ in a gorgeous venue – Hall Place. Some lovely work – particularly by ex-RFH HR boss Paul Foley  (who looks, like all my other redundant colleagues, positively over-exposed with health now that the weight of a large riverside arts venue has been removed from his shoulders).

We’re city people OVP and I, so were reeling between agoraphobia and claustrophobia when we found ourselves in zone 105 surrounded by fields at nightfall with that ominous ‘limited service’ message on our mobile phones and no laptops, let alone wi-fi. We attack the cab driver ‘"C’mon man. Just 5 minutes is all we need. Let us use your laptop for 5 minutes pleeeeezzzze."
Actually we didn’t say that, but it was a close thing.

Confessions: ‘I sleep with my mobile under the pillow incase I wake up in the middle of the night and need to look something up’ and ‘my laptop lies in my bed where my husband used to sleep and I fall asleep watching WWLTV online incase I miss anything’.
What losers.
WiMAX – bring it on – that’s when we’ll be free.

We make it back to zone 1 for final drinks and goodbyes at Bar and Kitchen.
OVP ‘You’re going – it’s MY town now’.
I’ll miss you guy.


Executive Summary (for Phil):
Sightseeing and drinking all day with OVP.