Last week I was informed that I had won a competition through the great Love Film. It consisted of 2 tickets to the performance of Six Degrees of Separation at the Old Vic theatre, and a night in The Cavendish Hotel just near Piccadilly Circus. I enter as many of the competitions on Love Film as I can, and I never win! So i was amazed!
I decided that I owed my lovely Sister a great deal, so i would take her along. We met just outside the tube station and made our way down to the hotel to check in. Walking into the very swanky hotel lobby we both felt a little out place with our rucksacks and flip flops! However, we checked in and were given the keys to our room...on the 14th floor (of a 15 storey building)!!! As we came out of the lift, our room was directly in front of us, just down from the entrance to the Penthouse Floor!
Our room was fairly basic, but comfortable. The key feature was the enormous window overlooking the greatest aspects of the London Skyline! We had the London Eye, Big Ben, The Gherkin, The BT Tower and The Center Point building all there in front of us. It was awesome! We dropped our bags off and tried to decide where to go for dinner before heading to the theatre. We realised that we should just stay at eat at the Hotel Restaurant, as when would we ever get that chance again?
So, we headed back down stairs to the restaurant on the first floor, where were seated by the window and handed a very posh menu! I went for Pan fried Chicken Livers wrapped in Bacon with some kind of red wine sauce for starters, followed by Roasted Leg of Pork with Potato Farls and Celeriac. My sister had the Broccoli Soup for Starters with a Salmon Fillet with purple sprouting broccoli and leek and potato puree as her choices. Having ordered our food, the waiter returned with 3 little homemade bread rolls - an olive roll, a Parmesan roll and a caramelized onion roll. Then a pre-appetiser of Pepper Bread with Parma Ham arrived. It was just a small mouthful of Delicious sweet red pepper wrapped in light and fluffy white bread topped with the salty parma ham. Both the starters and the main courses were delicious, and presented so beautifully, we almost didn't want to eat them. By the end of the mains we were contentedly full so declined the desserts and headed off to the Old Vic.
When we picked the tickets up we discovered that we were down in the stalls, and as we took our seats we realised that we were in the 5th row! Tony Head was so close! I enjoyed the play, even though it started out quite slowly, and it took a little while to get used to the slightly forced American accents, but once they got into the swing of things, and the audience relaxed a little, it was pretty good. The acting was amazing, as there are a fair amount of very impassioned speeches, which you forget, as an audience member, that they have to perform night after night. The story was quite good, but I felt it got a little lost at times, with many more characters than I was expecting. And considering it was free - I don't think I can complain at all!
After the play, we tried to find somewhere that sold coffee and desserts, with maybe a glass of wine or two! But we found ourselves back at the tube station heading towards the hotel. We passed a Cinabon shop, and the sweet sugary smell of the Cinnamon doughnuts was just too much - and we caved! So instead of coffee and desserts out, we bought a bottle of Pink Sparkling Wine to enjoy with our Cinabons in our room! It was a Delicious, gooey, fizzy way to end a brilliant night.
To round off the whole experience, we had breakfast to look forward to. We went back to the restaurant to see what delights awaited us. We took our seats and were promptly offered some tea or coffee - then we went to check out the hot buffet. I bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms and scrambled eggs! It was a great way to start the day! I think my favourite bit of the whole experience was as were checking out! The lovely man behind the desk took our keys, and asked us for the room number. He then looked at the computer and said, "And you have......nothing to pay!" He seemed very surprised by that! We, on the other hand, loved it!
So...Thank you Love Film and thanks to my lovely Big Sis for the extras!!!!
I decided that I owed my lovely Sister a great deal, so i would take her along. We met just outside the tube station and made our way down to the hotel to check in. Walking into the very swanky hotel lobby we both felt a little out place with our rucksacks and flip flops! However, we checked in and were given the keys to our room...on the 14th floor (of a 15 storey building)!!! As we came out of the lift, our room was directly in front of us, just down from the entrance to the Penthouse Floor!
Our room was fairly basic, but comfortable. The key feature was the enormous window overlooking the greatest aspects of the London Skyline! We had the London Eye, Big Ben, The Gherkin, The BT Tower and The Center Point building all there in front of us. It was awesome! We dropped our bags off and tried to decide where to go for dinner before heading to the theatre. We realised that we should just stay at eat at the Hotel Restaurant, as when would we ever get that chance again?
So, we headed back down stairs to the restaurant on the first floor, where were seated by the window and handed a very posh menu! I went for Pan fried Chicken Livers wrapped in Bacon with some kind of red wine sauce for starters, followed by Roasted Leg of Pork with Potato Farls and Celeriac. My sister had the Broccoli Soup for Starters with a Salmon Fillet with purple sprouting broccoli and leek and potato puree as her choices. Having ordered our food, the waiter returned with 3 little homemade bread rolls - an olive roll, a Parmesan roll and a caramelized onion roll. Then a pre-appetiser of Pepper Bread with Parma Ham arrived. It was just a small mouthful of Delicious sweet red pepper wrapped in light and fluffy white bread topped with the salty parma ham. Both the starters and the main courses were delicious, and presented so beautifully, we almost didn't want to eat them. By the end of the mains we were contentedly full so declined the desserts and headed off to the Old Vic.
When we picked the tickets up we discovered that we were down in the stalls, and as we took our seats we realised that we were in the 5th row! Tony Head was so close! I enjoyed the play, even though it started out quite slowly, and it took a little while to get used to the slightly forced American accents, but once they got into the swing of things, and the audience relaxed a little, it was pretty good. The acting was amazing, as there are a fair amount of very impassioned speeches, which you forget, as an audience member, that they have to perform night after night. The story was quite good, but I felt it got a little lost at times, with many more characters than I was expecting. And considering it was free - I don't think I can complain at all!
After the play, we tried to find somewhere that sold coffee and desserts, with maybe a glass of wine or two! But we found ourselves back at the tube station heading towards the hotel. We passed a Cinabon shop, and the sweet sugary smell of the Cinnamon doughnuts was just too much - and we caved! So instead of coffee and desserts out, we bought a bottle of Pink Sparkling Wine to enjoy with our Cinabons in our room! It was a Delicious, gooey, fizzy way to end a brilliant night.
To round off the whole experience, we had breakfast to look forward to. We went back to the restaurant to see what delights awaited us. We took our seats and were promptly offered some tea or coffee - then we went to check out the hot buffet. I bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms and scrambled eggs! It was a great way to start the day! I think my favourite bit of the whole experience was as were checking out! The lovely man behind the desk took our keys, and asked us for the room number. He then looked at the computer and said, "And you have......nothing to pay!" He seemed very surprised by that! We, on the other hand, loved it!
So...Thank you Love Film and thanks to my lovely Big Sis for the extras!!!!
