Desperately Seeking Trains (and some glass)..

There was just one creature hopping mad at the Fulham Symphony Orchestra concert in London on Saturday evening. A pigeon had flown in, unannounced during the opening notes of the program. It was either terrified by the number of people or by the noise generated by the orchestra in the enclosed space of the Town Hall. It flew from this end to that, from ceiling to dome to a low whoop over the orchestra players head and back again. It was very distracting for everybody and eyes strayed away often from the evenings performance. The Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham was in attendance, in full regalia complete with gold chains etc; perhaps the pigeon was a fan...

Mr.R and I were at the FSO performance as guests of one of his friends who was playing that evening. The two of us also sat and helped sell tickets at the box-office before the performance. Post concert, we were going to stay over with friends at their new flat at Kew Gardens. The evening had ended nicely, but that was not the way it had begun.....

TRAIN TROUBLES
Two days ago, a bridge/tunnel collapsed over a railway track two stations away from ours. As a result, train services on this line have been suspended till repairs and restoration are complete, possibly in the next 10 days. Of course, Mr.R and I had to take a replacement bus service to the next town about 20 mins away and then catch the tube into London from there. We hoped the rest of the evening would go smoothly, but changing lines to get to Kew Gardens where our friends were, was a pain.

Anyway, that done, we watched the Live8 concert telecast from Hyde Park and around the world and the friends exulted as Pink Floyd made their reunion debut after decades. Text message heralding this historic event were sent to sleeping friends back home in India, just to make them jealous.

We spent the better part of Sunday (after a lazy late breakfast of dosa's and coffee) loafing around the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew hunting for Dave Chihuly's spectacular glass sculptures scattered across the garden. The garden itself is a neatly laid out paradise of plants and rare species from across the world. Take a look at their website for more details - they have successfully managed to recreate a tropical environment in their huge 'greenhouses' to mimic the conditions of the desert, the tropics or the rain forests. The plants are real, as are the efforts that go into keeping them alive and thriving.

THRU' HELL ON THE WAY BACK
Something like this would have never happened in Bombay. Really.

Mr R and I said our goodbyes post lunch and set out for the Kew Gardens tube station where we were met with signs, announcements and a bewildered crowd trying to make sense of the announcements that said ' Services suspended'. There were no trains. At all. We had a long way to go and we didn't really know much about this part of London. A short chat with the ticket window gave us a vague idea as to what our next steps should be. In Bombay, no matter how much engineering work is to be done (usually on a weekend too), you would never ever see the entire line being closed down to the public. You would cripple the city if that happened. But London's Rail network is notorious for it. Divided into several 'lines', weekends usually are a problem. Like Today. A 45 minute journey took us almost three and half hours to complete. The journey involved two buses, three trains and lots of footsteps. Crazy really. There would have been a riot in Bombay if this would have happened there and the motorman would be ducking for his life. Every cell phone would be buzzing with the news that there was a rail problem afoot. You could stop and ask any chaiwallah or newspaperstallwallah for information. In England, cell phone's are not used for local chit-chat. And news of disruption of rail links are not high on anybody's priorities. And there are no chaiwallah's or paper-boys. On a weekend, even the shops are closed. So nobody sent us a text to warn us that we were going to be stranded for a while, trying to get onto overcrowded buses or figure out where Richmond tube station was...

Am so glad that the weekend has come to an end. Need a holiday just to recover from the tiresome travelling!

Hope your weekend was better!