Of London, tourists and "Les Miz"

SO OUR LITTLE adventure to the Big Smoke proves to be quite successful - the train journey there and back pretty painless, the hotel quiet and comfy, and the show very good.

And although we only spent a couple of nights there, it feels much longer, with our batteries now recharged and with us looking forward to picking up the threads of normal life again.

Oh, yes, it was an expensive weekend - I doubt if we'll get much change out of £1000 when it's all tallied up - but then London is expensive, always has been.

The other thing that's stuck me is that the place seems a lot busier than I remember - with hoards of tourists taking snaps of red telephone boxes and double-decker buses, and the traffic a positive nightmare.

A taxi driver remarked that many Londoners have abandoned their city, and have gone to live elsewhere, like him, on the south coast. They still work in the capital, but wouldn't live there for anything.

And on the whole I think I agree with him. I did once consider living there myself, but looking around, now, I'm glad I changed my mind.

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the show, Les Misérables - which My Good Lady treated me to as a 60th birthday present.

Now, I have the 10th anniversary concert version of this show on video, and I sat through the first part thinking how much better it sounds on my stereo headphones on telly.

But then the second part opened and I was totally swept away by it - somehow the live production really took off.

You can't help be moved when the barricade scene unfolds, and at the end, when Valjean dies, I swear I had to brush away a little tear; the final chorus ended and had almost the whole audience standing in whole-hearted applause.

It really is a powerful show and I'm thrilled to have seen it.

The Fox and firewater

I MADE A mistake last night, I had a glass of whisky.

Just the one - but my giddy aunt! What a head I've had today - it feels as if it's stuffed with cotton wool and hay, and just this side of being an ache. Somehow, too, my eyes feel watery and sore.

No more firewater for the Fox, then, not for a while anyway.

It's a pity, too, because I really enjoyed the drink - a 14 year old single malt that was a Christmas gift from a friend and which has been at the back of the liquor cupboard for nearly ten years; it was amazingly smooth and sweet with a lovely, peaty, smokey aftertaste.

Before I discovered the pleasures of the grape, the grain was often my little tipple treat.

These days I hardly ever touch spirits; even if I have a g-and-t, I often prefer my t without the g.

Anyhow, I have to drag myself around today, and I'm very pleased that it's My Good Lady who's doing the dinner this evening; I feel even more cack-handed than usual.

I even have to have an early night tonight, to sleep it off (although, as usual, I'm wide awake by the early hours).

If I'm still feeling gooey in the morning I might risk a "Prairie Oyster" or some other such revolting restorative.

And it was just the one - honestly!

A favourite CD

THE CD THAT My Good Lady and I play most frequently these days is - I'm somewhat surprised to admit - Top 20 Hits of the 50s.

There's something really appealing about this compilation; it cheers us up no end.

And I suppose, too, that with our interest in matters culinary, songs such as "Shrimp Boats" and "If I Knew You were Coming I'd've Baked a Cake" and "Jambalaya (on the Bayou)" have an obvious appeal.

The wonderful breezy innocence of these songs makes it perfect listening for when we pull the cork on a rich Chardonnay or a zippy Sauvigon, and the list of performers reads like a Who's Who of great American singing stars and crooners of yesteryear - from Dean Martin to Doris Day.

I make no apology for the catholicism of my musical taste - I seem to enjoy everything from grand opera to Amy Winehouse - but that this should be our most frequently played disc does leave me a little bemused.

Soup making

Firstly, to make my Roast Root Vegetable Soup, I must roast my veggies - a mixture of onion, turnip, parsnip, sweet potato and garlic, all chopped up and covered in olive oil and seasoning.

Once they're all nicely softened up I put them into my vegetable stock together with some diced beetroot and a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme.

I simmer the soup for ten minutes, then blitz it all up in a liquidiser.

And that's more or less it. Just before the end I toss in some tinned cannellini beans, chopped coriander and serve with a good dollop of crème fraîche.

You can certainly taste the natural sweetness of the root vegetables. We quite enjoy it, but I'm not sure I'm keeping the recipe - somehow the cannellini beans taste a little granular and tough.

It was fun to do, though.

Thursday stuff

"ARE YOU GOING to take a puzzle book with you to London?" I ask My Good Lady.

"No," she replies, "why should I?"

"You usually do when you're travelling."

"I didn't take one on the Rocky Mountaineer," she says, referring to our two day rail journey through the Canadian Rockies a couple of years ago.

"Ah," I point out, "there we were on the lookout for bears and elks and such like. There aren't many bears between here and London."

She insists that she'll be content to sit and watch the world go by.

This is on account of the fact that we've got our train tickets booked, finally - no mean achievement in itself!

The number of different fares - depending on whether you want to buy online or at the station window, whether you book in advance or on the day, whether you catch this train or that and on which day you want to travel - it's all enough to make your head spin.

We now just need to let them know that MGL will require assistance to get herself and her wheelchair onto the train and we're all set.

For my culinary experiment this evening I do us a pasta dish with bacon, mushrooms and onions all mixed in a passata sauce. It's an old familiar, although not one I've done that often; it's quite tasty, but the pepper could have done with a extra minute or two's cooking. Also, I think a good pinch of chilli powder would have livened it up a bit.

As usual with Question Time (BBC 1) there's one member of the panel that sets me grinding my teeth.

This evening it's Carol Vorderman who has me steaming with futile annoyance - presumably it's because she's some sort of celebrity that makes the producers imagine she has something worthwhile to say.

I would have switched off but at least Shirley Williams could be trusted to speak with measured intelligence, and Boris Johnson is always good for a laugh. (I had to smile when, in disagreement with another panellist, he could be heard muttering, "rhubarb, rhubarb...".)

Day celebratory

IT TURNS OUT to be something of a celebratory dinner - not intentionally so, it's just the way things pan out.

My Good Lady makes us a Butter Chicken curry, not using pre-mixed powders or sauces, but from scratch, drawing on a recipe by Gordon Ramsay - not at all one of my favourite chefs, but it turns out to be excellent nevertheless.

Doing it this way - mixing all the spices by hand - gives the meal a freshness and a much more authentic Indian quality which is quite different from the usual Anglicised flavours so familiar to English curry-lovers.

True, it is a bit of a faff, but definitely worth it.

The celebratory nature of the meal is because we manage to get a London hotel booked for our little trip later in March.

It's certainly swish, this place, and rather dearer than we orignally planned; it was not our first choice but the first two fell flat because they had no wheelchair accessible rooms available. So here we are booked in for a couple of nights at the St James Hotel, part of the French Sofitel group, and the place where the great chef Albert Roux has his restaurant.

Not that we're likely to be dining at the latter - I believe there's a decent café just up the road in Piccadilly Circus - but still, it's nice to know.

Why we're rather thrilled, though, is because of the French connection - the receptionist who answers our queries has a distinct French accent; she's polite, welcoming and very helpful. Somehow we just know this is the right place for us.

So now we've just got the train tickets to sort out and we're all set.

On the whole, then, a satisfactory day.