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| A train at Clapham Junction (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I couple of stops later I watched out of the window as a man dressed in a Hawaian shirt and grass skirt ran for the train but missed it.
And I thought maybe the man in a monkey onesie was just another lad like my DS#1 who loves his cosy nightwear "babygro" so much he wears it in the daytime.
I'm not really one to criticise what people wear in public - after all I am the woman with pyjamas for daytime, bedtime, evening lounging and dinner parties.
But it did seem odd when DH and I arrived at Clapham junction to see not just one or two but quite literally hundreds of people who had decided against jeans and t-shirts in favour of fancy dress - all at the same time.
There were herds of leopard-skin clad folk, a group of very burly, manly nuns, some cowboys and a handful of Apaches. There were a couple of gorillas, mostly on their own, and dozens of young men in beachwear, often with grass skirts, who seemed very adept at hurdling the turnstiles at the toilets to avoid forking out 20p.
The atmosphere was electric-it seemed a party was pending somewhere but it was very hard to work out why. I had originally assumed stag night but then wondered about some kind of uni event judging by the overall general age of the revellers.
Walking across the bridge at Clapham Junction we realised all the animals, oddballs and smart gorillas seemed to be gathering on platform 6 - which is the line to Twickenham- so I wondered if there was a rugby event on?
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| London Sevens (Photo credit: Catherine Murray) |
I googled it when I got home and found it was rugby related -they were all heading for the London Sevens event - a carnival-style event in the Rugby calendar with fancy dress pretty much obligatory.
For all of you rugby fans out there tutting at my ignorance let me tell you my interest in sport of any kind is pretty much zero. That includes watching it, taking part in it, talking about it or listening to people talk about it.
I know, I know - sport is good for you but so is colonic irrigation allegedly and I'm not interested in taking part, watching or talking about that either.
Anyway, our train moved off and we quickly realised we were carrying football fans heading for Wembley. See above for my level of interest in football. They didn't have the imagination of the rugby fans and were dressed in the traditional footie get-up of team shirts straining over beer bellies, and tattoos.
They were happy folk though (probably mostly thanks to the cans of Carlsberg they were knocking back) and sang most of the way regaling us with classics like " Martin is our leader" and a ditty about someone who played for City and somewhere else - I forget the detail.
I was entertained most however by one chap who loudly and earnestly explained to his mate why it was best to roll joints really big and fat instead of skinny. I don't think he was talking about joints of lamb? The whole carriage was agog!
My surreal day continued. We got home to find the goldfish looking panicky in a large jug with his filter precariously balanced in it. DS#1 thought the tank was leaking but looking at the amount of gunk on the filter I guessed overfeeding had blocked the pump making it splatter water out of the top.
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| "Clone" of Jack Sparrow in Tokyo, Japan (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
An emergency trip to a pet store followed to replace the filter - walking through the doors we were faced with a human-sized dalmation stacking shelves on two legs and pirate Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean manning the till.
By this time I really was tired so I decided not to comment on his outfit and eyeliner as I was paying and just headed home for a lie down in a dark room. Enough is enough!
