Caroline & I enjoyed our 3 nights/ 3 full days exploring the city. We stayed in an AirB&B in Mile End (wouldn't have chosen such an area in the 1980s!) on a council estate & up a flight of stairs but was in easy walking distance from Mile End tube station. The area has gone a bit more up-market (area-guide) with hipster shops, bike lanes & pocket gardens but is still fairly grotty with over-flowing dumpters & dog shit on the broken footpaths. Our upstairs room was clean, over-looking the coutyards of the estate, and close to the bathroom. The other two bedrooms upstairs were also rented out to AirB&B while the owner & her partner slept in the lounge downstairs next to the kitchen where our neatly (tasty yet unusual) made breakfasts were partaken.
Sheila and John had lent us their Oyster cards so we could travel easily around this vast city & it meant we didn't need to pay the upfront cost of buying cards.
Our visit to London was mainly about catching up with friends as well as visiting a few old haunts as well as some new.
The Tate Modern was under construction when we last lived in London in 1998 so that was our first stop the morning we came to the city to catch our train south to Kent. The Battersea Power Station was a monolithic edifice that dominated the South Bank & not much attractive happened around that area. Now, as the Tate Modern, it is the heart of a vibrant park, café and bar scene with the Jubilee Walk connecting it to Waterloo Station, the South Bank Centre, London Bridge and beyond. It was a sunny day when we visited with many people making the most of the warm weather by lazing about on the park lawns or enjoying food/drink with friends in the garden bars/ cafes found all along the embankment.
After a security check and depositing our wheely bag in storage we ventured up to the exhibition floors, choosing to visit only the free exhibits rather than queue for the Giacometti & Tillman exhibitions. We needed a cuppa first though so took the lift up to the café on floor 6 where we could view the Thames, St Pauls and watch people cross the pedestrian bridge. The galleries we visited were extensive with a great feeling of space & light…… and what an amazing collection of modern art! I hadn’t quite appreciated just how BIG the collection is so was quite exhausted by the time we had completed viewing two floors - 3.5 hours - and needed to atch our train onwards.
On our return to London on the Bank Holiday Monday we set out for our AirB&B straight away rather than drag our bag all round town. Over London Bridge we went to Monument where we had decided we would take the Tube from but before doing that we ate a rather delicious lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. Being on the Tube in London of 2017 feel very different from 1998, especially so as it was only a few days after the terrorist attack in Manchester so security was extra high; one tends to look at young men with backpacks rather diffently.
Anyway, we checked into our B&B, had a cuppa then went out to see whether we could get into the British Museum - was bout 3.30pm by the time we got there and the queue to get in stretched down the road, closing time at 5.30pm so we gave it a miss to go a wandering instead. Along Tottenham Court Rd, Oxford St to Oxford Circus, onto Piccadilly Circus down to Trafalgar Square marvelling at the new buildings going up and the diversity of the shops. I felt rather overwhelmed by the sheer number of people out shopping along TCR & Oxford St looking as if their lives depended on more bags full of stuff they don't need. Mind you we poked our noses into a couple of stores, one being a huge organic food store called Planet Organic where we picked up some tasty treats for our cycling adventures. The range of prepared foods available amazed me - one never need cook again as only need a microwave to ensure a warming veg-organic meal each day ...... if you had the dosh!
Any disappointment about food was soon forgotten once the concert started for the playing was excellent and the audience appreciative. The Trafalgar Sinfonia recieved a well-deserved standing ovation at the end and gave a splendid encore piece called 'Oblivion' by Piazolla. We returned to our B&B feeling very uplifted; a great beginning to our London sojourn.
The next morning we ate the savoury breakfast provided & headed out to the British Museum for opening time at 10am - the queue ws small so we were through security check (like at an airport) & inside by 1030. We went specifically to see the free Desire, love, identity exhibition unlike just about everyone else who were going to the paying one on The American Dream, and Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave. But, of coruse, we saw so much more than that wee exhibition as the BM is a fascinating place .... and much improved on 30 years ago when I last visited. The items, be they Roman, Saxon, Assyrian or Egyptian seem to be displayed in a manner that gives context and connects them to each other or to the landscapes/people of today. The British grabbed so many antiquities from others over the centuries but one has to say that those taken out of Syria in the 19thC are much safer in the BM that back in the Syria of today. Apart from the antiquities section I was delighted by the collection of clocks & watches from medieval times to today; the early time pieces were so intricate, delicate & beautiful.
By the time we'd had our fill of the museum (3.5H is quite enough!) it was well after lunch so our next stop was the rather ecletic & wonderful London Review bookshop & cake-shop where had a couple of lovely vegetarian tarts with salad & two yummy-scrummy cakes .... well worth searching this cafe out if you'e in London. Thee staff are friendly, too. Bought The Rehersal by Eleanor Catton at the bookshop to send to Rosa as she had never read a NZ novel - hope she enjoys her writing. [So many other interesting books I would have loved by cycling & buying books does not go together!]
Popped round the corner in Holborn to visit the 3 shop as wanted to buy a mobile wifi - tavelling & relying on guest wifi means connections can be unreliable. A very pleasant chap took a goodly amount of time setting me up with a great system so we can be connected whereever-whenever whilst in the UK. After that we walked to the Barbican via Charterhouse Square where we met Penny & EK for drinks at the Sutton Arms. Lovely to see the both of them - they are very excited about the birth of their wee boy sometime in July, with Penny looking particularly well on it.
After a couple of hours chatting with them it was time to make our way across the park to meet Penny O'Connor (ex-colleague from my time teaching at Islington Green School in 1988) at The Iskele Turkish Restaurant on Whitecross Street - an area that has become very trendy with many cafes spilling out onto the semi-pedestrianised street.
The food at this Turkish restaurant was delicious and reasonably priced. The staff were friendly and obviously enjoyed the opportunity to sing birthday greetings to the group at the next table, to which we all joined in! After dinner we walked with Penny to her 19th floor apartment on Bath St to take in the view & have a cuppa before catching the Tube back to Mile End.
Wednesday morning we got a last minute booking for a free visit to the Sky Garden on Fenchurch St near Monument Station. We had wanted to see a London view from one of the new tall buildings but weren’t keen on paying 16-20GBP for the privilege. The SkyGarden is a delight with a lovely café nestled below the actual internal garden. One definitely needs to book a ticket in as security is tight with a queue for screening much like at an airport. We spent some time there admiring the view, taking photos & enjoying a morning tea [cakes were great but the scones are not worth it].
We then caught the Tube up to Highgate as I wanted to revisit old haunts but upon getting out at Highgate Station I realised it was the Archway Station that we should have got out at. No matter, I managed to find the street on which I lived in 1987-8 & walked through to Waterlow Park where we strolled for a while taking in the views & admiring the great play areas for children (a variety of highly structured and wild/creative zones). I had hoped to visit Highgate cemetery to see whether I could find the Papprill grave I found in 1988 but it now costs to enter so we didn’t bother. Plenty of people paying to see Marx’s grave & others though.
Wandering back through the garden we found ourselves at the community garden so took a few photos before strolling down to Archway Station to catch the Tube to High Barnet where we were to meet Barbara Littler, Deputy Principal when I was at Morpeth High school. We were impressed with the redesign of the area around Archway Station - much more cycle & pedestrian friendly, with a number of new buildings & public spaces created. As with a number of other areas in London there was a ‘Boris Bikes’ (supported by Santander Bank) station with people obviously using them for short trips.
At High Barnet we phoned Barbara & she came to pick us up & take us to Dutch Nursery & garden centre for afternoon tea. Lovely to see her again after 20 years – surprised to learn that she turns 81 this year – and then to visit her home to meet her two cats Horace and Herbert.
Around 5pm she dropped us at the station where we caught a bus to Archway (wanted to see a part of London from above ground) and from there we travelled to Canary Wharf in Docklands to have an evening of exploring this ‘new’ area. We found an Indian restaurant (Manjal) to our liking and ate a wonderfully delicious meal at a very reasonable price. The area was far more lively than when we last visited 20 years ago – then it was mainly office blocks dead in the evening, now many more people actually living, working & playing in the area, and certainly on this warm evening it seemed a very pleasant place to live with canal boats & old cranes adding colour & history to the area.
Back at our Mile End B&B we packed up, booked entrance tickets to Kew Gardens & slept a very sound sleep with the window wide open to let in some cooler air. We were certainly lucky with the weather whilst in London with temperatures of around 25-28C & only a couple of spots of rain to mar one day.
Before heading back to Amesbury we spent Thursday morning at Kew Gardens, taking the District Line all the way from Mile End to Kew Station. Visiting the gardens is obviously a popular thing to do for young mums & bubs as we had to negotiate our way through the prams to get to the entrance. We spent about 3.5H at Kew as there is much to see, enjoy and learn. I particularly loved the gnarly bark on many of the very old trees and reading the most informative interpretation panels. It was a very hot day so refreshments were in order – take our advice & pack your own picnic as the food in the gardens is nothing to write home about (though the proper restaurant may be okay). Caroline went up on the treeline walk whilst stayed down below enjoying the shade.
 |
| Bloody noisy at Kew as in Heathrow flight path - the planes never stopped! |
No comments:
Post a Comment