11h59m

Yesterday wasn't quite as packed with excitement and things to do as I'd hoped, but it worked out nicely in the end.

I woke up at my usual work time to head off for my free consultation with the Chiropractor in Acton. The weather was quite bitter in the morning so, even with two t-shirts, quite a heavy shirt, my new winter jacket and my hat, I still felt the chill. Travel was OK, and the walk from Acton Town to the clinic was quite refreshing, and almost nostalgic... It would have been more so had Acton not changed so dramatically since my school days in the area.

The checkup was quite revealing - the doctor's trained eyes spotted a couple of odditites in my posture, and her hands found several irregularities - in the base of my spine, up the top of my spine, and in my left knee. By the end of the checkup, I was laughing every time something went crack. It's quite amazing that the body not only functions when parts are out of alignment, but adapts to compensate. If only that didn't end up making everything worse...

She warned me that, while I might feel great in the short term, by the end of the day, I'd be in pain. Quite an interesting, not to mention pleasant change from the doctors who say "This won't hurt a bit...".

She concluded the initial treatment with a brief (but painful!) shoulder massage, warning me "I may look petite, but I'm very strong". I left feeling loose and limber but, as she had warned, it was not to last.

By the time I got home, my sister had already arrived for our fun day out. The only certainty in our schedule was being at the National Film Theatre for 3.10, when Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes was being shown. The hope was that we'd have time to trip down to Greenwich to see some maritime chronometers but, since we only got started around 11am, that was looking unlikely. I had a backup plan in the form of trying to take a Duck Tour, but that was dependant on the duration of the tour. As a last resort, there's generally plenty to look at on the South Bank promenade.

Lunch at Giraffe on the South Bank was excellent as always, though I was surprised to see the waiting area turned into a buggy park. I wouldn't have thought that Giraffe would be so popular with younger families, considering how unusual and fussy their menu is. Still, they put balloons on any table with kids, and they seemed to keep the little terrors occupied.

We didn't really have time for dessert because we were hoping to fit something else in before the movie, so we headed off in search of the Duck Tours. By sheer chance, there was one 'bus' parked up at the pickup point in the road behind the London Eye (my sister commented one how incredible it now seemed, in 2008, that the 'Millennium Wheel' was originally conceived as an attraction to run for one year only). While there were, potentially, two seats available (because four people who had pre-booked had not turned up) the tour would have taken an hour and a quarter and, by this point, we had less than an hour.

So, we went back to the promenade.

Along the way is a book market that runs on Saturdays, right outside the NFT. The idea of my sister passing up the opportunity to browse cheap books being completely unprecedented, we took a turn around the tables. Only I bought anything, though... I chanced upon a 1973 edition of E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Masters of the Vortex (aka Vortex Blasters, the seventh book in the Lensman series) in pretty good shape for a 35 year old book, and easily worth £2.50.

After a while of browsing, I checked the time and suggested to my sister that we walk on, or we'd end up doing nothing but perusing the book market until the film started. We didn't really stroll far, though. Only to a small selection of shops including a creperie (well, we had skipped dessert!). With only a few minutes to go before we had to return to the NFT, we bought a crepe each and started to eat on the go. Mine kind of fell apart, so I ended up only having about half of it, but it was very nice all the same. Better cutlery would have helped, I feel, because the plastic knives and forks they were handing out were pretty darned useless.

When we got back to the NFT, we hurried to NFT2, the screen listed on the ticket, and were told by the usher that we needed to go back to NFT1... So back we traipsed. It would have been helpful if there had been some kind of sign up saying that The Lady Vanishes had been switched to a different screen... Had we known when we walked in, we wouldn't have missed the opening few minutes.

Still, the movie was great... and it was interesting to note that so many of the sarcastic swipes at British public transport as as true and funny today as they would have been then.

Afterward, we ventured back down the promenade and visited the little gallery that often has interesting shows on. Last time I was there, it was automata... This time it was more traditional paintings and suchlike, but many displayed an element of whimsy that I really enjoyed. One picture featured a man sawing wood, looking stunned as he was framed in the shadow of a tree in his doorway. A rather cute work of sequential art featured a besuited man gambolling in a flowery field, picking up a flower to smell it, only to be brought crashing back to reality - he was actually on a packed train in the London Underground.

We then walked on a bridge or two before crossing the river and walking back to Embankment to catch the train home. Not as full a day as I'd hoped, but it had been a lot of fun, and my sister was happy to find me so "well educated" about the wonders of the South Bank.

Coincidentally, when we arrived back home and I went up to my room, the time was precisely eleven hours and fifty nine minutes from when my alarm went off in the morning.

Over dinner, we watched the third episode of the new series of Primeval. Again, it was better than the last, but still exhibiting that videogame dynamic. And more irritating/stupid background characters. And another predictable ending.

As the day ended, I had a headache - I would imagine this was as a direct result of the realignment in the morning, as I had been warned. Certainly the very top of my spine was painful. Still, some ibuprofen took care of that, and today I feel mostly fine... apart from my shoulders...