London one-way!

We came back to London today, dropped our packs off at Mile End and took the train back out to Sutton, where our friend Sarah lives. We met Sarah when backpacking the south island of New Zealand last year! Well, for her birthday she organised a day at the Epsom Downs Derby. Derby Day is magnificent, the snobs all have tickets for the grand stands, and some go on bus tours where the double deckers park right next to the track and get served by waiters and other preferential treatment.

The rest of us laymen take the road under the racetrack to “the hill” aptly named because that’s what it is, even though you don’t get the same reaction after seeing it! There’s a huge market, festival rides and music stage in the middle of the track, and everyone just finds a space of grass and settles in. All this for free! Go to the Open in Oz and you have to pay megabucks just to get in let alone do things and eat!

The initial group was five of us, but by late afternoon there were about 20 of Sarah’s friends all gathered. Sarah’s boyfriend Mike had mixed up 16 litres of sex on the beach cocktail the night before, mixing it in a big plastic container and with our help funnelling it into empty cheap lemonade bottles! We had crisps, cakes, chicken munchie things, cocktail franks, drumsticks, mini sausage rolls…etc.

All week they said it would rain, but it was soo hot we went to buy dome tents to get some shade and I came home with a sunburnt back! I told Lija it was perfect weather to wear my red dress, too perfect in the end.

The actual races began at 1.30 and went through till after five, pretty much every half an hour, and we sat in front of the big screen, but in the last mile was where we were sitting and I could see the horses and jockeys race past in seconds, and the Queen was there to present Frankie Dettori with his winning trophy! Gran told me I should have bet on him, mind you, I didn’t place any bets cos I preferred to save my money and buy a cocktail at dinner.

After a long, hot, awesome day we packed the eons of food and drink leftovers and walked back to the train station after waiting half an hour for a cab that wasn’t going to happen cos it was too busy! After freshening up we went down to Chicagoes, the Chicago Rock Café, kind of a take-off from the Hard Rock Café. It was great, we had dinner and a dance, all the old toons that I could name every movie they came from! I think we got home at about half 3. When I say we I mean Sarah, Emma, Mike and I.