Emma's Blog: Ruth's birthday 2025

3-4 January 2025

We did that thing we’ve done a few times now of having an overnight stay in London and going to a show of Ruth’s choice. This time, she chose the long-running Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap, probably from curiosity at its having been knocking around in the West End for so long, which I’d guess is the reason most people go and see it. We booked an overnight stay at the Hub by Premier Inn Covent Garden, and dinner beforehand at the cellar wine bar The Cork & Bottle – a gem of a place that we’ve now been to two or three times.

With this journey in mind, Ruth had recently renewed our Two Together Railcard. I don't currently take trains as much as I used to, but these are useful to have, enabling Ruth and me to get a third off the price of journeys we take together. Ruth was particularly pleased to change the photo she had in last year’s card. The pair of us did look a bit mugshotty. This year’s pictures are definitely better. Well, I think so.

Last year's railcard

The pictures on last year's railcard reminded me of a photo on a library card I had while a student that Dad said made me look like a member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Looking back, I had a number of cards from that era, and can't now say for sure which one it was, but it might have been this one. I didn’t really know who the BMG were but I seem to remember taking it as a vague compliment, though I’m not sure whether that was what he intended.

Also: best not to ponder photographs of yourself from c. thirty years ago, as I now realise having looked at that photo.

Our renewed railcard

Felt very high-tech managing to get both my theatre ticket AND our train tickets into my Google Wallet – no old-fashioned bits of paper for me on this trip. Ruth has been doing the electronic train ticket thing for a while but I haven’t really dabbled with it up until now, probably due to mild paranoia at the unlikely-but-possible prospect of my phone’s battery dying. Of course, it’s also possible to lose a paper ticket, which I certainly remember doing on one occasion.

Before dinner we went for a bit of a stroll around the Covent Garden/Bloomsbury area - Ruth had had a notion of popping in to the British Museum but we were put off by the enormous queue. Dinner was lovely, and as previously, we admired this mammoth wine bottle. There's probably a name for a wine bottle of that size, but neither of us knew it. I had crab and prawn linguine; Ruth had a steak. Definitely a special occasion restaurant. The white wine I tried - the Viognier shown on the bill - was delicious.

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

The mammoth wine bottle

St Martin's Theatre

The Mousetrap started out as a radio play called Three Blind Mice, apparently written for Queen Mary’s 80th birthday in 1947. It has been playing on the London stage since 1952, and at its current theatre (St Martin’s) since 1974. Ruth could have got the performance number stamped in her programme, but after the play we were funnelled out directly onto the street, bypassing the foyer, and she decided she couldn’t be arsed to go back in again.

Before curtain up

The above photo was taken while we were waiting for kick off. I am not someone who keeps their phone switched on during theatre performances, although there are people who do this and they should of course be swiftly ejected and booted down the street for doing so.

I enjoyed the play (though not the cramped seating – this is common in old London theatres but does make me assume people were smaller in the olden days). I have only ever read one of Christie’s novels, more through not having got around to it than from any distaste for the idea. Dad has a large collection of Christie novels that belonged to his mother. The one I’ve read was 4:50 from Paddington, which I remember thinking a bit meh. No idea whether it’s considered one of her better ones.

The Mousetrap is set in a country guesthouse that’s recently been taken over by a young couple; a motley crew of guests arrives, and it goes from there. In addition to the inevitable murders, it has a reasonably gritty theme (child abuse). In terms of whodunnit, there's a tradition that anyone who goes to see the play is supposed to remain schtum about the twist towards the end: after curtain call, a member of the cast steps forward and tells the audience never to reveal the secret of The Mousetrap. I had, as it happened, correctly guessed which one of the characters it was who was not quite who they seemed.

Walking back to the hotel after the play

It was my second time staying in one of Premier Inn's 'Hub' hotels, after a solo stay in the Soho hotel in 2021. The Covent Garden hotel on St Martins Lane is wonderfully placed for any theatre activity, and priced accordingly. The 'Hubs' have tiny rooms, most of which is the bed. There's no room for any tea and coffee-making facilities, but you can get free hot drinks from the hotel bar/restaurant.

We could have got a continental breakfast at the hotel the following morning but decided we fancied something in the cooked line. We ended up at Ristorante Roma on Irving Street, one of a line of restaurants behind the National Gallery. Italian restaurants in London often seem to do breakfast and they always have good coffee, as this one did. They sat us outside, which I was initially sceptical about given that it was early January and quite cold. However, we were seated in a covered area next to an outdoor heater and they gave us a blanket each, and it ended up being nicer than sitting in the dark interior, although a number of lightweights who arrived after us did request to be seated indoors.

Ristorante Roma

Blanket supplied

Celebrations of Ruth’s birthday over the past few years:

2024: London day trip. We went to the Red Eight Gallery in the Royal Exchange building to see a collection of Hannah’s paintings that were temporarily being exhibited there. Then for lunch at Larry’s in the basement of the National Portrait Gallery. Ruth had a bacon roll that was so posh it was barely recognizable as one such. I can’t remember what I had but I think it was some sort of artsy Ploughman’s.

Hannah's paintings

Extremely fancy bacon roll

2023: Oxford day trip to see an exhibition at the Bodleian of photos and other bits and pieces from the Tutankhamun dig. Then later for dinner at the London Street Brasserie in Reading.

2022: Cabaret! At the Playhouse Theatre, fully decked out as the Kit Kat Club. With the ORIGINAL LEADS, Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne. I am not a huge fan of musical theatre so Ruth normally refrains from picking it for a joint theatre trip, but she is a big fan of the 1972 film and felt she couldn’t pass up the chance of seeing this stage version while it still had its original cast. In fairness, it was very well done and I was glad to have seen it. I wasn’t familiar with Buckley but she has a belter of a voice. It was apparently Redmayne’s musical theatre debut. This London Theatre piece notes that they both won Olivier Awards for their performances. We stayed at the Premier Inn London Waterloo, part of which is a former lying-in hospital.

The Playhouse, done up as the Kit Kat Club

2021: from looking back, nothing – we would still have been under the newly-invented ‘Tier 4’ restrictions that had prevented me travelling to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas a few weeks earlier.

2020: The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre. Trip already blogged about here. We had dinner beforehand at the Cork & Bottle then too and almost lost our table through failing to spot the entrance to the restaurant (it's got two, and we'd been in via the Bear Street entrance previously).

Previous dinner at The Cork & Bottle

2019: Circus 1903 at the Royal Festival Hall. Stayed at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge. Mentioned here.

2018: in Wales. Windy walk up Blorenge and then afternoon tea at The Angel in Abergavenny. This was one of a couple of hill walks in 2018 that resulted in my decision later that year to take up running.