As usual we all gathered at Kings Cross at 11 am except Nick didn’t. A variety of delays meant he didn’t arrive until 11:45. We sat on a table stretching our coffees out until he arrived.
Nobody had made any effort to organise what we should do whilst at our meeting. The time spent discussing any trip never takes more than five minutes. I decided that we could follow a walk around King’s Cross and Camden. Everyone concurred basically because none of them had bothered to think about how we should fill up the time.
Off we set. The first question I heard centred around, have you sorted out a pub for lunch. London’s Hidden Walks provides lots of interesting stories connected with the buildings and area through which you pass. No one wanted to listen to the stories until we arrived at Mornington Crescent. Here we found Sickert’s house which immediately sparked Jon’s imagination. The area was the centre of the Camden group of artists. The book highlighted the connection between Sickerts work and Jack the Ripper, which Jon echoed.
We continued down the busy Camden High St full of dives where you can buy cheap food. We left the high street and found the childhood home of Charles Dickens. Nearby a Brew Dog pub beckoned and we all entered.
A couple of drinks and a short agreement that we would go to Trieste for our EEC Trip. A very average burger was consumed and then we left. Garry to his brother in law in St George’s Hospital to deliver cigarettes. The rest of us back to Kings Cross.
I left the others at the station and descended to the Met Line and immediately bumped into our neighbour Neil. We had a nice chat as we enjoyed the Met lines air conditioning.
In the evening I picked up Pat for bridge. His mind was elsewhere as his bidding was all over the place. We came 5th out of 7.