Ok, this might be a long one.
So having traversed the customs officials and security of Heathrow, I made my way to Paddington Station where I found Dad falling asleep at a table at the pub I was meeting him at. So I woke him up and we began the process of finding our way to Leatherhead. I can't quite remember how long it took to get there because I spent most of the commute in a jet lagged daze, but we did get there eventually and checked in to the hotel. Beds! Huzzah! But dinner first. Most everything was closed by the time we'd got our room and dropped the bags off so we went to Sainsbury's and found some "just add water" soup and oatcakes and jam. Dad also found some alcoholic ginger beer, so he was happy. Back to the hotel, ingest food, and collapse into bed. Only to wake up at 4 am unable to go back to sleep (not Dad, he was snoring away). So I gave up and read until I noticed the sky was beginning to get lighter, at which point I decided that a small amount of sleep might be a good idea if I didn't want to go all zombie later that day.
I got up properly at a fairly reasonable hour and we went exploring. We found the theatre Frost's show was happening in, went to a local bookshop, found the nearest pub, and the nearest Italian sandwich shop where we had lunch. Then I crashed. Until dinner, which was had at the pub. They show much more interesting sports on the pub/restaurant tvs here than they do in Canada.
Saturday was another mostly crash day for me, except that we were seeing both shows that day. So the matinee was with the understudies playing the leads and the evening show was the main cast. The afternoon show was good enough to make me decide I might not mind West Side story after all, and look forward to the evening show. The brother and two of his friends came out to say hi after it finished. I have not been tackle hugged in a very long time, and Frost is no light weight. Him and his dancer muscles... It was great to see him and Em though. Had a very nice dinner chat with Em's Mum between shows, and headed back for West Side story take two! This was also very good. I liked the fact that there was live music, The audience was very full and certain family members cheered loudly, and I noticed that there was no understudy for the role of Tony. There was an absolute crush of people waiting in the front afterwards and people coming in and out to try and get the parents to grab their child's bag, and then the cast emerged. I don't think I have ever been in the middle of so many crying and post show buzzed people before. It took two hours for everyone to get outside, let alone head off to bed, but it was quite fun to watch. And of course, even after we were back in the hotel room that did not mean we were winding down. Oh, no, we couldn't possibly! Frost chattered for another hour at least, so none of us went to bed until 1:30 or so.
Sunday we slept late. Of course. We still managed to get everything packed up and downstairs in time for checkout, whereupon we headed to the pub for brunch and to wait for our pick up, and talk about Frost's last three weeks some more.
D arrived to pick us up with Cal in tow as they had just arrived from a trip to Canada to see D's Mum. it is rather funny that we arrived in England about the time they left. We got to their place, a lovely house on the North Downs ( I think ) and hauled our bags upstairs and had a cup of tea until R had to go get Im. I then went and got my laptop set up whereupon Frost took it so he could chat with his new friends, after which we had a very, very good dinner of barbecued salmon and vegetables from their garden and a pudding of fruit (from their garden) and yoghurt. And then we went to bed.
On that note I shall leave you. Good night all.
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