Day 20 - Wednesday 15th August

Nicky had to take the car in for service mid-morning and so Suzy and I looked after Amelia at home.

Amelia was very keen to play the Wheels on the Bus app on my iPad. Eventually the app froze and she couldn't play it anymore. At present this app seems to be more popular with her than Peppa Pig - which seemed impossible until now.

After watching Peppa Pig, Bubble Guppies, etc. on TV, we got Amelia dressed and went out to go to the fruit shop and the supermarket. By the time we had finished our morning tea at Costa Coffee, it had started to sprinkle.

Amelia goes to Clowns Nursery on Wednesday afternoons and because the car was in service, they had to get there by taxi.

This morning, Suzy had bought tickets online for the two us to see a live show tonight - namely the Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. The show is playing at St Martin's Theatre and is famous because it has been playing continuously for almost 60 years.

With a little more online research, she found that Jamie Oliver has an Italian restaurant just around the corner from the theatre. She is a fan of Jamie Oliver and so was very keen to go to one of his restaurants. (I prefer Nigella Lawson.)

Suzy wanted to do some shopping this afternoon in the city near the theatre and so we decided to meet at the theatre at 5:45pm to pick up the tickets and to ensure that we were early enough to get a table at the restaurant.

After they all left, I went for a walk along East End Road towards Finchley Central. It's a nice area with tree-lined streets, big houses, private schools, shops, etc.

To get to the theatre, I caught a Northern Line train to Leicester Square. A man selling the Big Issue magazine near the station exit gave me directions to the theatre and the restaurant.

There was no trouble getting a table at the restaurant when we got there just before 6pm. It turned out to be a good choice - good food, good atmosphere, good service plus a bottle of the house red.

After the meal, we had enough time to do some sightseeing by strolling down to Trafalgar Square.

St Martin's Theatre is a traditional old theatre with timber panelling, a bar area and even a man selling ice creams at the front of the theatre next to the stage. This added to the atmosphere of watching a show that celebrates its 60th anniversary in November.

We had tickets in the stalls downstairs. The stalls area has only a gentle slope and so it was a little hard to see between or over the heads of people in front of you. Luckily the theatre was only half full and so we were able to shift to seats that had a better view.

You can see why the show has been running for so long because it is an excellent who-dunnit plot.

At the end of the show when the actors come on for a bow, one of the actors swore the audience to secrecy about who the murderer was.

As always the Northern Line train service did a great job of getting us home. After a most enjoyable and memorable evening, we were home soon after 10:30pm.