Walk: The Wonderful Women of Westminster & Film: Heretic
Now, with Hallowe'en on a Thursday.. and me taking it off.. well, I said it'd be a shame not to take Friday off too! So I did. Which left me free to join Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpies on a walk about The Wonderful Women of Westminster!
My quickest route involved a walk across Westminster Bridge - but the views are always great!
I had fun pushing through the crowds, of course. We were to meet outside Portcullis House, which I could find - unfortunately, I started out on the wrong side of it! When I actually checked the address given on the event page, mind, I realised it must be on the river side.. and sure enough, there they were, and I even made it on time, this time. More or less. And sure enough, we were standing beside our first "wonderful woman of Westminster" - the statue of Boudicca:
Crossing the river, we came to something I'd never seen before - the Covid Wall! So, volunteers paint red hearts on the wall, and whoever wants can write the details, on one of the hearts, of someone they knew that died of Covid. One heart per deceased..
Which makes this stretch a poignant walk - with, again, a beautiful view across the river:
Further down, we came to the memorial to those who served in the SOE - undercover operatives during the Second World War, this was the only sector in which women served in combat. And we heard about Violette Szabo, an operative ultimately captured and executed in Ravensbruck:
Of course, no tour of the women of Westminster would be complete without a stop to talk about Emmeline Pankhurst:
Moving on, we heard about St. Margaret's Church:
Dedicated to St. Margaret of Antioch, it might not still be here, apparently, if the Duke of Somerset had had his way - he wanted its materials to assist in the construction of his new house! Happily, he was fended off by armed parishioners..
Walking through Parliament Square, of course, we came across protests - in this case, I had to look quite closely; they might have rethought the appearance of this sign, it's not immediately obvious what it says!
Finally, of course, we went for lunch - and back to the Lamb and Flag, and their excellent fare. Conversation was excellent too - and lo, they're already planning for Christmas (tucked in amongst the Hallowe'en decorations):
They also sell rather good t-shirts, if you're interested:
Afterwards, we repaired to The Salisbury for another drink - we might have chosen Mr. Fogg's Tavern, but there simply wasn't the space for the five of us who were looking for it. Never mind, The Salisbury is also a lovely venue, with beautiful Victorian glass - and we drank and chatted merrily. Always great to see these people!
Anyway, I needed to kill time - because that evening - just like the last time I was on a walk with them - I was joining The Hideout: this time, for Heretic, with the (very polite) scary guy played by Hugh Grant, of all people! who finds a new way to deal with Mormons calling at his door.. and we were in the Vue, only a few minutes' walk from the pub. So I headed there early, and beat the organiser to it, for once. :-) There's a bar, which isn't always staffed, but this time it was, and we hung out there until it was time to head upstairs for the film. A decent group showed up for this - it looked good.
I'd heard it said that Hugh Grant is good in it - and he is. He does sinister well. And I liked the way it was executed, and gave it a decently high rating when we were scoring afterwards - not always easy to score a film you've just seen. But oh lordy, I honestly had to look up the plot again before writing this. Because nobody in the film seems to hold to a single train of thought, several twists in the story are quite confusing, and I just felt quite mesmerised for much of it. You know, I can best compare it to the later Matrix films - something profound is probably going on in the writer's head, but we're never quite sure what that might be. Best I could come up with is the conclusion that all religion is about control. There you go, sorted. However, if you want to descend into the confusion yourself, feel free..
Afterwards, some of us fancied a drink - and with one needing food, I suggested the nearby Hippodrome, which does food all day. We ended up in the rooftop bar/restaurant - which is open to the air, but not too cold! First time I've been up there, so that was interesting.
I was too tired that night to blog. So.. check out the next post for yesterday's doings!
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