Well, as you might have guessed from my previous post, the weekend was spent down in London visiting family. Part of this trip was to watch my cousin Joe (13) perform a small part in the current production of Siegfried (the third opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle) at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Surprising both myself and Chris, Dawn and I actually quite enjoyed the 5 hour spectacle, despite Joe only being in it for a total of 15 minutes! However the critics have not been so encouraging, our particular favourite scathing review goes to The Sunday Times - Stop the Ride, where Joe is described; "assistant stage managers dressed as wood pixies" and "the whole scene looks jejune and ridiculous." Blimey!!

Anyway moving on to the pictures the Opera house did give me a chance to get a good shot of Covent Garden, the shot of Nelsons column below, plus an architectural gem, the glass walkway between the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet. A couple of other nice shots of the Royal Opera House were taken by Chris when he was down there.

Moving on we had an night out with one of our friends from the DEFRA days, Alex, and jolly good it was to catch up. It felt like we hadn't seen each other for only a few weeks, let alone years! Another plus point was that we ate in a Spanish tapas restaurant for the first time, and that was really good. We'll be seeking out some of those in Sheffield (Tony, where is your restaurant guide....)

As my auntie works part time backstage in the theatres of the West End, we managed to get an exclusive backstage tour of Chicago. I took plenty of photos, mainly of funny backstage things, like the cast creative corner, props, and Dawn posing with props!

Finally we spent the Sunday lazing around in the barmy October sun, and out in the park, taking arty pictures of leaves and flowers, playing with their dog, Bertie, and generally having fun!

That's it, you can find all of the photos from our weekend in London here.