Pride

There’s never much time when we decide to leave The Island on a Sunday morning. We were on the 11:45am FastCat. I commented how it still feels strange to me that there’s much of a queue to board when we’ve spent winters being in some very short embarkation lines. I guess that it’s a good sign.  Upon arrival at Portsmouth Harbour station, we stopped at the Costa in the Wightlink departure area to grab a drink for the train. It saved having to exit the barriers to use the station cafe. I’d not eaten breakfast so was quite tempted to also eat the sandwich we’d brought before the train departed. But I didn’t. 

The train is always quiet on departure and gets busier. We made the mistake of sitting in seats where there is no overhead bag storage and so, when people needed the seats next to us, we got nicely squished by our own luggage.  We missed a connection at Clapham by seconds and the following train was cancelled. It took us longer than it should have done to get home. But still faster than the alternative route suggested by one of the apps. 

I went straight out to buy some food for dinner. Spicy cauliflower & halloumi rice was the menu of the day, with enough for tomorrow in case we go to the cinemas and need a quick meal. The prep time was considerably longer than the 5 minutes the recipe suggested. But the result was lovely and it gave us ample time to eat and get ready to be at Covent Garden for 7pm. 

We were heading to “Don’t Tell the Bishops” a post-Pride concert in St Paul’s Church, which is also known as The Actor’s Church (we sat right next to the memorials to Noel Coward and Charlie Chaplin. We’d also ordered a bottle of wine in advance and it felt quite odd carrying it - and two plastic glasses - to the pew. 

The show was produced by Mark Robert Petty, who also produces the fortnightly Crazy Coqs Presents evenings. It was a selection of songs, performed by West End singers (as well as The West End Gospel choir and a theatre arts group). It was a lot of fun and a surprising selection of LGBTQ+ themed-songs from a wide variety of shows.  Angie Brown, possibly best know for her voice on the 90s hit single "I'm Gonna Get You" closed the show. These shows are always thoroughly enjoyable. It’s impossible to say what I enjoyed the most. Sooz Kempner was a fantastic host.