London perambulations I

The early sun of London morning
Burned the darkness with unanswered light
But morning found you crying
Waiting for a woman
Where she left you in an empty state of mind
Waiting not for her but for relief from passing time.

I’m up and out early, installing the car at Maybury and riding the airport bus into Waverley. Claire, Megan, and Owen are already there, drinking coffee at Pret. Owen departs for Glasgow while we get the 9:30 to Kings Cross.

It’s warm in London, as we walk through the teeming masses up the Euston Road and into the calm of Portland Place. A nice cuppa and we’re off to SpecSavers and then an early dinner at Lobos on Frith St. Then it’s off through Chinatown and over Waterloo Bridge to the Southbank.

The Great Wave is in the Lyttleton at the National Theatre. It’s a new play and mixes history with politics and intrigue. The acting is excellent, but for me it’s the staging that wins the night. A central plinth that slides and rotates, with waves and dates projected onto surfaces erected on it.

The city is buzzing. There are buskers and beggars, tourists and locals, crowds everywhere. At Oxford Circus a horde chant along with a percussionist. We sidle past, into the welcoming familiarity of my mother’s flat.