A trip to London

The full-on Hamlet post will be coming a little later, this one is about the rest of my London trip.

I arrived around mid-day, and checked into our hotel, near the Barbican, and met with my sister. 

We had plenty of time before the highlight of the trip, so we decided to go and visit the Geffrye Museum, which is based in a former almshouse and is a museum of the home.

Outside there are trees and benches and grass.

Inside, there is a little chapel, and a series of galleries with rooms, furnished as a main living room or parlour would have been furnished, in various different periods, starting in the early 17th Century and continuing up to the 1990s.

There are, unsurprisingly, more rooms for the 20th Century than for earlier periods, but all are interesting. 

After having lunch in the museum's cafe and  going through the galleries, we went out to the back of the museum where there are gardens, which are again arranged to reflect tastes of of different periods, together with a separate walled garden featuring bee-friendly plants, plants for dyes, medicinal plants, and edible herbs/plants. 

And the museum also has a number of (very clean and bright!)beehives (wisely, these are beyond a flowerbed with clear 'no access' signs!)

It is not a large museum, but it is an interesting one to visit, and I am glad we went.

Afterwards, we walked back to our hotel to freshen up and change, then went to the Barbican where we were able to meet up on the 'lakeside terrace' with one of our group, for a quick drink and  lots of chat. 

After this, we headed up to the 'Gin Joint' restaurant. This has (as the name suggests) an extensive list of gins available, and a very impressive cocktail menu which is would have been churlish to ignore.

We each indulged. Of course we did, how could we not?  

Mine was a 'Bermondsey Orchard' which featured rhubarb liqueur, apple and sage and egg white (and gin, obviously). 

Others in our group tried the 'Fort Fiesta' (which included pink gin and grapefruit) and a 'misty French' which involved lemon and champagne (and gin)...


They were all very nice. As was the meal which followed, although  it was a little alarming that all of the staff disappeared when we were trying to pay our bill. Given that this is a restaurant in a theatre, advertising  pre-theatre menu, and not particularly busy, to make it so difficult to pay, at a point 10 minutes before the evening's performance is due to start, is a bit of a failing!


Happily, however, we all made it into the the theatre and into our seats before the doors were closed!

Sadly, two of our original group were not able to join us, both due to family illness. We had one substitution, and returned the other ticket which was duly re-sold. I hope the young woman who bought it enjoyed her evening!