Highlight of the Day - The Light Show at the Southbank Centre - it was phenomenal.  It's about 15 pieces of art which all use light in some way.  The fact that there were only 15 pieces, but that me and my friends spent well over 2 hours there, shows just how fascinating they were: optical illusions, interactive adventures and mesmerising beauties.  Go, go, go!

Embarrassing Moment of the Day - Randomly falling into a really heavy sleep on the tube - possibly a tiny bit of dribble - horrendous!

This day was a special day.  We organised a birthday treat for a friend, by making her lots of clues on gold cards and hiding around London with them, with each clue guiding her to the next.  We planned meticulously, but this didn't stop the odd error creeping in, like my friend bumping into an old colleague when she was supposed to be rushing ahead of me and the birthday girl to be ready with the next clue at Warren Street Station.  My friend worked out the clue, we went to Warren Street, I thought we had made perfect timing, and then I felt my phone vibrate as soon as we were coming to the top of the escalators.  "STALL."  "I'm behind you".  As she had been chatting away, she had wound up on the same tube as us and we had taken her over! So we were heading to a clueless spot.  Stalling was not easy and it was all quite hilarious.  The clue was about newspapers and it was actually as simple as going to the Evening Standard stand right outside the front of the station, but I made it out it was more difficult, which sent her on a wild goose chase for a couple of minutes.  There was another part where I was going to go the toilet after during our lunch and not come back, instead going with the next clue to Goodge Street, waiting for the birthday girl to find me.  We were in the Attendant Cafe (see below) and you have to go outside to the toilet to the pub next door.  Of course, she needed the toilet at the same time, so we had to go to the pub togehter and I just had to walk into the gents', turn around and head straight back out.  I'd really needed to go too - so spent most of the rest of the day almost wetting myself.  Not sure what the landlady thought of my strolling into the loos and running out 5 seconds later!  Quick work!

Our lunch was in The Attendant Cafe, just near Mortimer Street and the BT Tower.  It's an old Victorian public toilet that has been cleaned up (they promise!) and is being used as a restuarant, so you can eat your lunch in a urinal, with a hand-dryer hovering dangerously close to your head.  It's quite the experience! It's tiny, so a bit difficult to get urinal-seats, but the food is lovely, the staff are very friendly (they even played a part in our clues) and it's just so unique, it's really worth a visit.  I had a sandwich on tiger bread (another addiction of mine) and a really tasty coffee.  I recommend it! My friends had goat's cheese tart and warm french toast - they all loved their meals too.  Slightly ironic that the toilets are outside!  My only disappointment is that there were no cheesy puns like BOGOF on coffees or something, or a fridge labelled the water closet...I'm a sucker for a good pun! It's a bit too cool for that I think though.  I'll be going again, I really enjoyed myself.

After more treasure hunt and the Light Show, we finished the day in Skylon Bar in the Royal Festival Hall Building.  Lovely cocktails (I had a blood orange martini), if slightly awkward table arrangements, as we couldn't fit 4 plates (for charcuterie, darrrling), 4 drinks and the platter around one table, so we were sort of sitting in a line along two tables, which were also of different heights.  It felt a bit like Christmas dinner!

Lowlight of the day - Checking the TfL website to plan my journey home to my parents' house for Easter Sunday the following day to find that Southeastern trains, in typical reliable style, have cancelled all trains to my local station on both Sunday and Monday (covering my return journey) which leaves me with a two-tube-one-DLR-one-bus fun combo. Oh joy.

Embarrassing moment of the day - Being at home with the parents and "More Sex Please We're British" coming on, with opening scenes of people removing massive dildos from boxes...'nuff said.

I went home to my parents' for Easter Sunday.  I say it was not very Easter-like, though, as we didn't do anything particularly Eastery.  I'm a bit old for Easter eggs, we don't watch the Easter hymns like at Christmas when we watch the carols, as we just don't know the Easter hymns (I was hoping for Oats and Beans and Barley Grow, but apparently that's neither a hymn nor an Easter song).  We didn't even have hot cross buns.  It made me wonder exactly what we did as a tradition at easter except for eat cake and chocolate and I honestly couldn't think of anything.  My Mum still spent most of the time trying to feed me and interviewing me about all aspects of my life, as if we never speak on the phone or as if I hadn't seen her only about a fortnight ago! When she will realise that my love life, work life and home life are all highly unlikely to drastically change in the space of two weeks I'm not sure, but that day can't come too soon! I feel like I'm on Parkinson!

Not much to report today, so I thought I'd write about something wonderful I did last Sunday.  I went to the Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street between Brick Lane and Spitalfields.  It's a museum dedicated to the various immigrants who have lived in the area and that house since it and the surrounding houses were built by French Huguenot silk weavers in the first half of the 18th century.  It's a truly fascinating museum, based in a house which was also used as a secret synagogue by Jews in the area in the 19th century.  They knew it had a synagogue in the back of the house, but the other locals didn't, so they secretly worshipped there in peace away from persecution.  From the engravings of names of donators to the synagogue on the walls, to the large silk reel hanging on the front of the house (the sign of a master silk weaver) the house echoes the uniquely diverse history of the East End and an area that is today so sought after but has been through a very poor and run-down past.  Immigrants from France, Eastern Europe, Ireland, the Carribbean and the Bengal have inhabited this area throughout the years and all left their marks.  I used to be a tour guide, doing walks along these streets, covering much of their histories and this house summarises it all beautifully and succinctly within four walls.   It gives you a lot of food for thought about people, community, heritage, London and your own personal history. 

It's only open for a few hours every couple of months (I queued for a good hour in the freezing cold) but it is definitely worth it.  They do lots of fabulous work with local schools about immigration and local history throughout the centuries too.  A lot of it was on display.  If you ever get the chance to go, do it!

http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/

This was also number 20 on my list of 30 things to do before I'm 30, so well done me for ticking it off! One of the easier ones done!