* shameless Banksy plug ( trying to sound more arty than I actually am )

Thank you to everyone who sent texts and cards and gifts etc and apologies to those who texted mid Friday morning and I replied saying I was up ‘The Shaft’ , and to the person who replied ‘of whom ?’ , which sent me hysterical on the 72nd floor of the highest building in London — The Shard . John and I loved it …the view, the river , the computerised telescopes which told you all the buildings you were looking at , without having to press your eye up to a tiny peepholething and put 50p in the slot , the wind ( and that was just John ) , the height , all of it . Then….just as we were exiting through the gift-shop *, I heard my name called , and surprisingly it wasn’t someone from Storm Model Agency ( or even ‘Pretty Ugly’ , the one Ann suggested I signed up to ) , but the lovely Ryan , in his very dapper Shard uniform – he works there. He was the icing on my metaphorical birthday cake. The nice stuff continued with a hot roast pork sandwich in Borough Market , a walk east along The Thames to Rotherhithe and the Brunel Museum ( don’t bother ) , more house cleaning ( wish I didn’t have to bother ) ,Thai dins and then last night a first visit to the fabulous ,wonderful,raw,beautiful,higgedley piggedley, old ,in the middle of being restored ,Wilton’s Music Hall – the oldest and last surviving Grand Music Hall in the world . We saw ‘The Great Gatsby’ and felt terribly under dressed .Everyone had gone to town , you couldn’t move for flappers, gangsters, priests ( ?) , and men dressed like Mumford and Sons . In the interval we were given song sheets and there was a grand old sing-a-long in the cosy bar we chose to sit in .Then when we returned to our little stage side table , half the audience were up on the stage dancing with the cast – it was hard to hold John and Bob back !