On the Way to the War of the Worlds

 

Here I am outside the War of the Worlds Immersive Experience in Leadenhall Street, in vaguely Victorian dress to look the part of someone fleeing from the Martian war machines.

It had been a quite fraught journey to get to this point.

We left in plenty of time to get something to eat before the show, but disaster struck as I got onto the train at Woolwich Arsenal.  I have a little blood blister next to my nose, and it had chosen that moment to start bleeding.  It was still bleeding by the time we got to London Bridge, where my Young Man found the first aider on duty.  He was lovely.  He got me a chair, and then took me to the first aid post and gave me sterilised swabs to mop up the blood.  The only thing I could do was to sit there quietly until the blood stopped flowing, keeping pressure on it all the time.  It turned out that the first aider had gone to school in Cardiff, and we had quite a pleasant chat with him.

When I stopped bleeding, he pointed us in the direction of the station's Boots to get some ointment to put on.

Boots was useless.  No Germoline, or Savlon, or even Vaseline, or any other sort of ointment to put on cuts.  It was self-service, so there was no member of staff behind a counter (there was no counter!) but there was a member of staff sort of lurking around the place, who suggested we try teething gel.  

We did not try teething gel.

The Young Man decided to try WH Smiths on the off-chance they had something, and we found a little tin of Vaseline there.

By this time there was no time to get a meal, so we ate sandwiches outside the station, and took a taxi to Leadenhall Street - where we had a few minutes before we were due to go in to look around.

Across the road is St Katherine Cree church.  According to Wikipedia, it was first built in 1280, but was rebuilt in 1628, making it the only Jacobean church in London.  It is now a Guild church rather than a parish church.

Round the corner, we found that we were very close to the Gherkin:

and on the corner of a nearby building was an interesting plaque:

This was the corner of Holland House, also nearby: