Fun in London - on a budget!

On Sunday, James and I went for a short break in London. We stayed a Travelodge in Covent Garden. Only £29 and £12 underground (posh) car park. (Central London....Bargain!)

We had a lovely stroll around Covent Garden and surrounding area during the afternoon as the sun shone, stopping late afternoon for a tasty Italian meal. Then, went to see a Comedy Show at Leicester Square for only £9 – good price to pay for an evening of laughter.

On Monday, we drove to Earls Court. Sat Nav is great! This was the real reason for our trip to London. With my work, I had planned and organised a stand at the Futurebuild exhibition and now I had to bring all the equipment and set up the show. We thought we would set up quickly, then enjoy the rest of the lovely sunny afternoon. However, things don’t usually run that smoothly and when we got to the stand location, they hadn’t managed to finish the walls. As the display was mostly large posters to go on the walls, this caused a problem! After lots of discussions with the organisers, hunting down decorators, and lots of time spend waiting, not being able to go out and enjoy London or the weather, we eventually finished about 6.30pm and dashed off to catch the tube to Piccadilly Circus. We managed to get standby tickets for Allan Bennet’s play “Enjoy” starring Alison Steadman at the Guilgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. £38 ticket reduced to £21! After a very entertaining play we headed into Chinatown for an inexpensive and tasty meal, then back to our posh hotel (free to us, company paying £135 special ‘exhibition rate’, tariff in reception states £220 per night!!) The bed was not as comfortable and room not as big as the Travelodge, but of course, much smarter and plusher. We didn’t get time to try the sauna, but maybe next year!

Tuesday morning was spent at the exhibition. We caught a speech by London Mayor, Boris Johnson, looking his usual dishevelled self, but talking a lot of sense and then took a look at more energy saving and eco-friendly ideas for our dream house of the future, as well as some stuff for work – competitors, etc (suppose I had to). After lunch, we escaped with a walk along Compton Road to the Natural History Museum – very popular at the moment with the Darwin 100 year anniversary stuff. The building alone is well worth a visit – let alone all the fabulous and interesting exhibits inside - and all for free. Bargain! Spent over 3 hours inside and would have liked to stay longer. By kicking out time, we battled the now wild, wet, cold walk back to Earls Court – and after a bit of a mix-up with the car park, drove back 4 hours to Yorkshire. Exhausted!

A fun time indeed, and despite the credit crunch, who says London is expensive?