Gringotts, Clubs & Cardiff

It's been >2 weeks since my last post and I've had some interesting experiences. First, I visited Gringotts, aka the Australian High Commission in London, which was the location chosen to double as the goblin-run bank in the Harry Potter movies. Unfortunately, I did not get to go into the exciting, high-ceilinged marble hall but rather a small, cream-coloured office area around the side of the building. I did peek into the hall, though. Very nice.
That evening, I managed another first - my first visit to a prestigious London members only club. I was invited to dinner by Kong Suk Por's sister and her husband, who were down from Stratford-Upon-Avon to attend the Proms. Very posh, very elegant, very stylish indeed. There was a ballroom and lounge decorated in 19th century style, an art deco lounge, a library with a full size snooker table, a 25m indoor swimming pool, squash courts and a fencing salle! All in the heart of Mayfair! Cool. Dinner was fantastic, too.
From having the whole flat to himself most days, it must have been quite a shock to the system for Taffy when his cousin David arrived that night to stay while house-hunting before term starts and then Vicki arrived on Saturday. I must say that the flat was up to the task. We gave ourselves a pat on the back. Good choice. : )
On Sunday, Taffy, Vicki and I visited Greenwich to see the prime meridian. It was an incredibly hot day (mid 30s & humid) and many others had the same idea. We felt very sorry for the employees who were dressed in 19th century clothing and standing in the sun.
On Monday morning I took myself off to Aberdeen for my last week on the project. It was sad to finish up after 2 months. I can't imagine what it would be like for the people who are on projects for 9+ months, as is usually the case.
Got home on Friday evening and up again bright and early on Saturday to go to Cardiff with Vicki and Taffy (David found a place during the week and returned home to Leeds). Cardiff is a small city (pop 305,000) with a very small, easily walkable city centre, which suited us well. We accidentally found half of the landmarks on our way to the visitor's centre, where a strange old man kept responding to our questions on what to see with 'come with me' and walking us over to stands full of brochures.
Cardiff Castle is a peculiar castle. It looks like a well preserved old castle but is actually mostly quite new. There are some reminants of a Roman wall at the base of its wall and a keep in the middle of it that dates back to the 12th or 13th centuries, but the rest of it was built by the 3rd Marquess of Bute, a rather eccentric recluse (reputedly the richest man in the world at the time), who employed William Burges to design a medieval-looking castle in the late 19th century. It was gifted to the city of Cardiff by the 5th Marquess of Bute in 1947.
We had dinner at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay, which looks like what the Docklands in Melbourne tried and failed to be. It is very lively with bars and restaurants and lots of people out on the street.
On Sunday we took a bus to the small town of Tongwynlais to see Castell Coch (the Red Castle). This was also owned by the Marquess of Bute and designed by Burges and looks like a fairytale castle nestled in a forest on the side of a hill. The castle is completely impractical for living in - narrow spiral staircases up to the family's bedrooms, corridors open to the elements, no guest bedrooms but it does have a working drawbridge and portcullis.
The 3 of us had dinner in Chinatown on Wednesday before Vicki went to see Les Mis. The meal was reasonable but expensive (paid £30 for something that would have cost $30 in Melbourne).
On Thursday night, we had dinner in Waterloo to celebrate my birthday early as Vicki is leaving today. Afterwards, we went on the London Eye, which I found strangely boring and disappointing. Halfway through I worked out why - the London Eye is not well placed. There are only a handful of pretty landmarks that can be seen from it at night: Westminster, Charing Cross station, St Paul's cathedral, the Gherkin and Canary Wharf. On my frequent flights back to London, the planes have invariably been told to fly in holding patterns before coming in to land. Consequently, they have swung out to the east of London and I have had bird's eye views of the whole of London, both day and night, from Woolwich (being able to identify my building and desperately wanting a parachute so that I don't have to make the trip all the way from Heathrow back to the flat) to Heathrow. The London Eye just can't compare.
Anyway, have been terribly popular at work with different people requesting my services and have been given internal projects to work on all of this week and next. The task next week involves going into the office, which, at 1 1/2 hours each way, I am not looking forward to.
The last weekend of August is a bank holiday and Taffy and I will be heading over to Bath and its surrounds.