The hotel room keeps causing problems. As soon as the heating is repaired, the room starts to warm up. At the same time, Gabi gets trouble breathing. The guy at the front desk believes that it’s the chemicals in the heating rather than cats in other rooms (we found out that there was a cat show going on at the NEC today; Gabi is allergic to cats). Great. He suggests to turn off the heating immediately and gives us a portable heating unit to keep the room warm. As the problems don’t stop, we decide to leave the hotel early and head back to London tonight instead of tomorrow. Luckily, there’s a spare room at our hotel.

But first, we try to enjoy our second day of the Sherlocked convention. Which we start with a talk with Rupert Graves who plays a police inspector. He’s very funny and full of energy and jumps right onto the sofa.

We love Rupert Graves anyway. He talks a lot about how he became an actor and his career. We enjoy the talk a lot.

We then have a long break, ideal to clear the room and stow everything into the car, and to make a complaint to the guest relations manager of the hotel. Afterwards, we hang out with our friends at the lobby bar and have lunch, a steak sandwich.

The queues for autographs are still long. Ours advances quickly, though, and soon Rupert signs the photo we bought. It’s a pity we only take a picture with him later so he can’t sign “our” photo.

We finally have all autographs we’re after. Now let’s take that photo with Rupert!

This concludes this year’s Sherlocked convention for us (and for most of our friends). We say good-bye to everyone – we’ll meet some of them again during the next days – and drive to London.

It takes us three and a half hours to get there so we only arrive at the hotel around 8pm. We instantly feel very comfortable here. Everyone at the budget hotel chain is so kind and helpful and our room and the bathroom are big and practical – the exact opposite of the Hilton.

I leave the room again to get dinner from the nearby train station: a satay chicken box from Leon for Gabi and chicken and chorizo for me. It’s great to be back in London. The buildings, the lights, the buzz, the smell… we just like it here. And the guy at Leon says: “I see you here often. Would you like a loyalty card? And your coke is on the house.” It’s true, I was here last week when we first arrived in London and had ordered from him. London ist just great!  ❤️