We were never doing this (London) again?

You know how sometimes you say "we are never dong that again" and then do so? Well, we had two examples of why you should try stuff again recently. First topic was visiting the London boat show. We last went in 2012 and thought that it was pretty poor - very few boats and lots of marine equipment manufacturers were missing. We also stayed in a horrid Travelodge near the exhibition centre with the most uncomfortable beds we have ever come across.

This time, we stayed in a basic IBIS opposite the Excel centre and really enjoyed the show. That might be because we had Andrew and Linda (the non Welsh Welsh) with us. It might be because they had Fairline guest passes that allowed us to drink Prosecco on the Fairline stand. (Nordhavn Europe, take note..)

Or perhaps it was simply because the show itself was just so much better....

Around this visit, we "got culture" of a sort, seeing two shows:

which was excellent and reminded the Captain of the River Plant at Dagenham from his early days at work when walking through the trim area was a truly scary thing! If you haven't heard about the famous strike that brought about equal pay laws, then look at Wikipedia on machinists strike

For fans of the Kinks, we also saw sunny afternoon - a musical about the band. It got 5 stars on many review sites, try this one Telegraph review

No matter what the critics say, it was great and worth their 5 stars. The finale version of "Lola" rang in the captain's ears for ages - way better than tinnitus:

The second "we will never do this" involved flying to Zurich in January. The crew (together with John and Tina) had visited Munich one February and the weather was truly wonderful. It never got warmer than -12 degrees centigrade. Want to know how Zurich went? Well, read the next post....

Wandering around London, we spotted yet another Norhavn in St Katherine's dock:

Shogun is a 55 and hence makes us look suitably insignificant.

We also managed a walk along the Thames., preceded by a cable car trip across it on the strangely sponsored "Emirates cable car link". The "Berghaus triplets" from the Ben Nevis range (see our posts from July 2014)  had become the Berghaus one and Jack Wolfskin duo though:

The views were great, even if this spooky reflection of Andrew over the dome looks like a photoshop thing (and it isn't!!):

For the boating types, we also walked from East to West, passing the meridian. Proof:

All in all, a wonderful few days in London. Keep reading for the second "we will never"....