I have been wanting to visit and see all the work done there for a number of years, and on this occasion a wonderful tempting art class was offered.
It was based around spending a day in Buckingham Palace gardens sketching for inspiration on the Monday, (with a visit to the Palace Gallery to see a beautiful new carpet), and then spending 4 days in the classroom working this into a picture in a stylized form with an eminent tutor.
Then I went 'high' about two weeks before the course was due to start, so needed to be admitted to the clinic.
I am sure the psychiatrist thought this was a delusion, until my Husband asked if he could sign the insurance forms to see if we could get our money back for flights.
The School were very understanding and helpful as well.
However that's just par for the course with the Psychiatrist, they don't speak to family members quickly enough in my opinion, before making assumptions that just because I am high, I am also delusional. Still, it probably sounded delusional to him when he first heard it!
Anyway the very 'funny' and rather ironic part of this story is that as I would have been travelling by train into London from the North on the Monday, all the trains from the area I would have been travelling from had been unavoidably delayed from the early hours of the morning until almost mid day.
Apparently a rat had eaten through the main power cable and stopped all southbound trains.
I had visions of a rat with 'jaws' like teeth getting instantly vaporized once he got through the outer casing of the cable! Poor Ratty.
However under the circumstances, I would not have made it to Buckingham Palace for the day, and it would have been all very stressful to me.
The power outage caused havoc for the whole morning, delaying most commuters from the North. I just hope Ratty somehow didn't fry himself on a high voltage cable, however unlikely that is.
I do wonder at the Bizarre nature of 'might have been' moments we all experience when some seemingly insignificant thing stops us doing something that would land us in a terrible experience.
Also on the other hand, sometimes we will never know what that crisis moment that stopped our intended plans in their tracks, may have saved us from by not following those plans through.
Perhaps we just have to trust God, that his Angels guard doorways we are not meant to pass through that would lead us into danger or despair.
Travelling can be a lonely experience, not many people are warm and friendly to sit with, I hope if you are travelling you have lovely companions.
God bless and keep you safe today if you are travelling, Don't blame Ratty or his friends if you get delayed, It's just all part of some unimaginably complex plan for our lives. Hope there are lighter moments for you if you get delayed, especially all those holidaymakers stuck in Egypt at the moment.