The next couple of days...

...were something of a blur. We've both been tired, recovering from 144 (isn't that technically a 'gross'?) hours with only a few of those involving sleep.

We're on a bit of a budget, something that London isn't particularly forgiving of. In light of that, we're avoiding spending too much money before we leave on Sunday to head into Austria. We did, however, get to see "The Producers" live at Drury Lane. To be frank, we're just lucky such a great show was playing - out of respect for Monty Python I probably have seen whatever was playing. Great show. Jus will never know. She was asleep before the second act was underway.

We've been wandering around Covent Garden a fair bit and popped over to the SAE College in London to check out the cavernous catacombs of my English co-workers.




There's an ethereal beauty about some parts of London in early winter evenings. The days are so much shorter than winter days in Australia, throwing my body-clock off entirely. There's a lot to like about London, despite the fact that everything here costs exactly the same numerical figure as in Australia - except that it's in pounds, which is a killer.

An odd thing happened to us today as we were waiting for Anita to join us at a Chinese restaurant before the show.

This small, dark-haird young woman with glasses and a red coat, not unlike Justine's own, was crying desperately on the sidewalk. We were a little wary at first - there's plenty of scams to be had and neither of us could afford to be taken in. While we tried to find out what was wrong, we both watched each other's backs in case this was a distraction of some sort.

It turned out the young woman was French and had come over with her boyfriend and to work. She was desperately lonely, had very little money and couldn't find a job. Christmas was coming up and she knew absolutely no-one. I think she just wanted a little human contact. Justine and I spoke to her for some time, about her father in France, saying that she should perhaps go back there for Christmas. She was reluctant to say too much. I think that at the moment we encountered her all the pressures of being alone in a foreign city far from home suddenly became too much to bear. I've experienced this sort of thing before, where I just have to be out among people, to feel that I'm connected - not matter how tenuous that connection might be.

Tomorrow Anita is taking us to Hampton Court.