LOOK OUT!!! He's got an umberella? Part 1

Hello chums, as promised here is a quick breakdown of my trip to the "smoke" to visit with I and his wife F and their two little daughters (O who is 4 and C who is "just" 2)

I had booked the train tickets two weeks earlier over in the train station (Lime street) as it cost less than doing it over the internet, remember when getting stuff over the net used to be cheaper? So including the bus fare to the station and back, plus the price of the tickets, I saved 50 quid, hurrah.

I travelled late on Friday arriving in the borough where I and F live with their two lovely daughters at quarter to one in the morning, I was waiting for me and we walked slowly (remember I walks with a limp due to his battle with a brain tumour) to his place. When we get to his place we all stay up for about an hour chatting and catching up over a cup of tea and then it's to bed, early start in the morning and lots to do.

I have a thing that some people call "new/different bed syndrome", it just means that I don't sleep very well in a new place. The last time I looked at the clock before I fell asleep it was 3am. It's now a little after 6 in the morning and I'm listening to the sound of a passenger jet overhead, it sounds like it's in the room it's that low. As I lie there grabbing another "40 winks" I become aware of the sound of another plane getting closer until it too sounds like it is in the room, what the hell? It just so happens that every 40 to 50 seconds a jet plane will fly overhead, it gets to the point that after about an hour you don't notice them that much and after two and a half hours you nearly miss the fact that they've stopped.
When I'm at home and hear the sound of a distant plane I reach for my binoculars to get a better view of it. However when I was down south with I and F and I heard the sound of a plane I didn't think "oh, look a plane" No I thought "Aghh!!! that plane is going to land on me!!" they are that low. Their house is on the approach to one of London's airports. You can see the exhaust spewing out of the things, it can't be good for you .
In the area that they live in though everything you need seems to be close by, unlike my little sister who has to shop for groceries over the net, and the tube station is close enough that it's an easy walk, even with a gimpy leg or a pram full of kids.

Once we had had breakfast myself and I set off into the city, well Camden Town actually,

you know, where the lock is.

And headed to the airsoft shop to get some more gas and bb's and to have them look at the Glock 23f I have, to give it a good checking over and see if I had knackered it when I fitted the upgrade parts. Oh and to get the final gun I wanted, the Ingram M11 (with a silencer) and also to get a small torch that can be mounted onto my Colt 1911 a1 pistol.
We arrived at the shop to find it closed and a tramp eating a pack of Jacob's cream crackers sitting outside, it's half past ten in the morning the shop should be open dammit. After a few mins my detective chum detects the opening times, the shop opens at 11am every day (it's almost part time for the staff), we decide to wait and so settled back to do some people watching, egad what people!
The shop opens and we spend about 40 minutes in there (drooling a lot) and then leave and head off to Camden market.

On our way to the market I calls one of his copper chums, J, who agrees to meet up with us at the market, he's not in work today and needs to do a little shopping. It's a ten minute walk from the airsoft shop to the market. We meet J and head on in. I points out that the place where we entered looks very "Bladerunner" esq, lots of food stalls with overhanging canopies and the food of several nations on sale, the smell is F'in amazing, my nose reminds my stomach that breakfast was a thousand years ago and my salivary glands explode showering everyone for miles in saliva.




I had this, I love Indian food so even with all the different choices available the little part of my brain that is hard wired for Indian food took over...
Once we all had got something to eat we set off to a courtyard with seating and of course a bar to sit down and eat our scrummy grub...
Unfortunately, for me, on my third fork full I notice a hair in my food, it's long, shiny and black and above all NOT FUCKING MINE!! I put the fork down, push the container away, I'm done.
No photo of that tho'. My appetite disappears and doesn't return till that evening and the smells coming out of the kitchen as F cooks a lovely chilli, I may have to steal the recipee but keep that under your hat.

While we sit and the other two eat, J says that he is looking for a military dress uniform to go to his gay uncle's wedding, cool, now we have a goal instead of just bimbling around just looking at stuff. Food eaten and mine cooling slowly in the bin, we set off in search of some military chic for J.
No luck there, colourful tho'.
And as for this next one, all I've got to say is it's Chavtastic...
This next one was very popular with the Goths, not what we needed really...
Now this looks promising..
Nahh. Lots of military stuff but all of it in shades of green brown and black, hardly fitting for a wedding, unless that wedding is in a war zone.



Ladies and gentlemen I think we have a wiener...
Alas it was not to be. J would have to get a second mortgage to buy a jacket he'll wear once. It looks like he may have to hire.




And now we come to these pretentious twats...
I walked into this place with my camera in my hand, it wasn't even on, and I was approached by this young girl who said,
"Can I ask you to turn your camera off please."
I replied,
"Yes you can and may I say you did it very well. Good day"
And I walked on following I and J. Ten seconds later someone as old as my nephew accosted me and told me to,
"Turn the camera off 'please' 'sir'. We don't allow photography in this boutique"
I asked,
"Why?"
He said,
"It's company policy 'sir'."

CUNT!


Inside it was like being at a rave, I even saw a 'D.J.' spinning discs, music not to my taste and very loud almost at the pain threshold, I hope their staff don't sue for being made deaf while at work Ha Ha Ha. I nearly made it without laughing, gits. Everything was in day glow and lycra. I was loving it, he used to go to raves as a young man but I can only stand it for a little while.
I think the no pictures rule is to protect them from being sued by Paramount or H.R. Giger for copyright infringement.
I thinks it's because of all the "first generation art" in there, bollocks!
Look at the next pic and on the right hand side inside the shop at head height you will see things that look like Borg regeneration stations, I stood in front of them and they do look like they tried to copy the real thing.
A shop not for anyone over the age of 19 with a functioning brain. I don't include I in that last statement, he's wyrd anyhow.

We continue on our trek around the market...
next thing you know, J finds his one true luv...
Could this be THE shop...?
NO!

We have to leave now, well we've seen everything, but we have to go to the science museum to meet F and the girls and do the whole museum thang.
Here we go walking down the road, I look about me, holy crap!
We seem to be on a street of freaks...
No. really, a street of freaks.
Anyhow, we make it to the station, Camden, but we can't go thru' the normal doors because everybody in London is trying to get to the surface via this station, drat.
So we have to use the rear entrance (fnarr fnarr), the way in is round and if it was a tube would be ribbed...

and once at the bottom we get on the tube and head for South Kensington and the Science museum.

Read all about our heroes escapades in the next instalment, entitled. Blancmange? Who ordered this?!