London

On the Saturday morning of my middle weekend in Bristol, Tild and I raced off to London for a long weekend. We caught an early train, manoeuvred the craziness of picking up our tickets from machines which hate travel cards, almost missing our train and spending the next two hours reading and sleeping and watching out the window. My map reading abilities over the weekend left something to be desired, with me sending us off in invariably the wrong direction and Tild quietly pointing out that we were most certainly going the wrong way; while laughing at my inability to tell left from right without rotating the map to precisely the direction I needed.

We walked. A lot. This is no exaggeration. We climbed into bed each night at 9.30, completely exhausted from a day spent rocking around London, from the cold and from our gigantic dinners. The hostel was cute, clean, but a little strange, we shared our room with a girl who was always asleep before we got back, and always first awake, ready to disappear for the day. Breakfast was included, which we got the most out of by ‘borrowing’ the packaged cheeses for lunch. It was in London that I would discover that I can cut tomatoes with my fingernails and that orange cheese and tomato in bread make a fantastic lunch.

Our first day was crazy, Notting Hill market in the morning- not that we stayed long, it was so packed, shoulder to shoulder. I’d started feeling a little ill before we hit the market, but it only got worse with the crowd. Tild basically caught me about to pass out, and we made a swift exit to hunt down coffee. The magical thing about coincidence is that it gets you when you least expect it. If the Notting Hill market on a Saturday is scarily packed, the actual suburb is probably more scary. It is a rich suburb, where people line up for brunch. The chances of us finding a table in order to get a coffee were next to nothing. We needed one pretty bad though, and pulled into a tiny chain looking place, where takeaway coffees were 30p cheaper and they glared at you if you tried to sit after ordering one (keep in mind, this is before we received the coffees, we were waiting and standing). But then, of course, the coffee was delightful.

Headaches and crowd illnesses forgotten, we bought a giant baguette and headed for Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens (never really sure where the divide is). We took photos next to the Peter Pan statue (this trip has simply reconfirmed that it is my favourite book ever. I downloaded it when we returned to Bristol and have read it another three times). The gardens are beautiful, filled with runners, dogs and just people enjoying the fact that there is this giant expanse of green in the middle of their city. I’m so glad I’m here in Autumn, actually, the colours, the beauty of it all is amazing. We settled in on a bench overlooking a field with a hundred dogs chasing and playing. Right next to us was an elderly woman feeding the birds right from her hands.

We walked through the park, tried to find the Speaker’s Corner, only to discover it gone, thanks to renovations. Sad sad sad. Took in Oxford street and all its crazy commercialness, went to Victoria’s Secret and became overwhelmed by all the colours and craziness, as well as how chipper all the sales staff were. Found Hamleys! Toy store hijinks ensued, with Tild and I running all over the store, checking out the Lego and the Barbies and getting pounced on by a guy doing magic tricks with clicky lights. He made it look like he was holding a light and that he could pass it through his brain and eat it and get it back. He kept dancing. And asking if we liked dancing. And making bright lights appear out of Tild’s ear. He seemed to think they would be amazing to have in a club. I believe he is right.

LOTR Lego. Amazing facial expression by Frodo.

There was a Lego phone box, a Lego Kate, Wills, Harry and Charles, many Lego Star Wars, LOTR, etc. sets. There is a lolly shop and things that fly around the room. I am not surprised that as a child I got lost in here. I think Tild wanted to stay. Even after I loudly got annoyed about the pink ‘girl’s’ floor. We made our way down to Trafalgar Square and took photos with the lions and looked at the pretty shiny lit-up fountains. Everyone was taking photos and sitting around and it was twilight and gorgeous and not unbearably cold. We walked up to Leicester Square and took in all the Broadway ads, big and bright lights and madness. China town afforded us a great Vietnamese restaurant, where Tild satisfied her craving for pho and I was able to eat satay noodles and feel just like home.

We took a nice walk back to the hostel and collapsed, ready for day two.

Began with a walk to the British museum, with only the slightest detour so I could go to Sherlock Holmes’s house. It was cold and rainy and didn’t take long for Tild and I to be soaked through our shoes. We were hiding under our umbrellas and it was all good fun, the whole way around the museum- seeing gorgeous old things, the pantheon frieze, the rosetta stone, paintings, sculpture, artefacts, magnificence- then we left again.

That is a lion. It was too big to fit in the photo.

Tild at Sherlock Holmes's house.

And the cold started to seep into our very skin. It was raining, with a breeze, and we had decided against coffee that day. Murder. England was trying to kill us. And then, just as it had happened the day before, magical coincidence.

The Twining’s Shop.

A magical paradise of hot free tea. Also, well worth a visit because it’s cute and has cool old photos and a pretty hilarious visitor’s book. We spent almost an hour roaming around, drinking different teas and warming ourselves back up again. We split, for Tild to visit the Tate and me to go to the Tower of London- meeting once more at the Globe Theatre. Being without Tild again was fairly odd. Put music on for my walk and just kind of took in the area of London. It gets a bit more office-like down here, it is less tourist filled and the river is actually pretty in a working sort of way. It’s as if the city is overcrowding into the water.

The tower was interesting, I was cold and tired and therefore quiet and just let it all wash over me, keeping my beanie very firmly over my ears. I saw the crown jewels and the places where Richard III supposedly killed his brothers or his nephews. I read my little guide and wandered all over this place, as ever in Europe, awed by history.

Tower Bridge, as seen from the Tower of London

But it was walking back across the Tower Bridge- after I got over being unable to think of anything but that hilarious scene in the Spice Girls movie- that I realised I really like London. I like the cold and being wrapped up in a beanie and the old old history of the place and the way that people have lain over the top of it, adding layers of complexity to it. We had heard such a mix of languages, seen such diverse things. Was accidentally late to meet Tild, being so wrapped up in my own thoughts. It was getting late, we had barely eaten that day, no real substance in tea and sandwiches had been hours earlier. We decided on Indian. And then it took us promptly another hour and a half to get back to Paddington or to find an Indian restaurant. Actually ridiculous. We walked up the length of a Lebanese/Arabic/Sheesha street, saying no to places that looked pretty good just because we had dead set ourselves on Indian.

And then, it appeared. Deeply inconspicuous was this wonderful restaurant. But the 8 pound buffet was more than what we wanted. It was perfect. We were greeted by the cheeriest man on the planet who hustled us off downstairs to the place where the buffet was laid out. It was pretty standard, 3 dishes, chicken, beef, vegetable, rice and two sides. Plus free naan. And amazing deliciousness. We made a discovery in one of the sides, essentially a curry potato cake. Slice of potato coated in a curry batter. Am still killing myself over forgetting the name of this delicious treat. The other diners watched in horror as Tild and I loaded our plates sky high for the third time, threw down water, ate these potato cakes like someone was going to come running up and take them back. It was the best.

We rolled home.

Spent the next morning in Chelsea- hunting down street signs from a reality tv show for me to take photos of (failing miserably), getting lost in the glory of Harrod’s. All while feeling slightly too much like scummy backpackers to be in stores and neighbourhoods this nice. We headed to Buckingham Palace, trying to see over the heads of people the changing of the guards, hilarious rant from Tild about their choice to play the James Bond theme song – “It’s just so commercialised! Is anyone even looking at the building?”- and bailing quickly out of the crowd once again. Saw the entrance to Downing St, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey and crowds and crowds and craziness. Decided to skip Westminster Abbey. It’s 16 pounds to go inside and basically a three hour wait to get in the door. Figured the outside got the whole gist across and Tild and I headed for the Eye.

Me, in Chelsea

Tild, in, well, Hobart.

The Eye is one of those things that I think is strange and commercial but when you get down to it, is also a Ferris wheel and I love those. The view is incredible and it’s slow and quiet and you get this whole new side of the London that we had been running all over for three days. We ate lunch on the river bank, subtly trying to watch the buskers without paying (we are poor, don’t judge) and ignoring the stares to people noting that we were cutting tomatoes without utensils. We got approached by some graphic arts students, who asked us to sit in an old style English chair and listen to a recording while the took video and a photo. It was truly bizarre, but also fascinating. My recording was a woman talking about love and her lengthy marriage and the day that she got up and left because he was a chronic gambler and how she has been on her own ever since. She never would have left if he had been a good man, because love is not like that. It is for life.

While Tild sat, I talked with them, asked what they were doing, who the women on the recordings were- they had a project about integrating the elderly back into society and they had visited a home and just listened. They said these women really just wanted to share their stories. We talked about my living in France and Tild in Bristol and their lives. All on the banks of the Themes, around this grand old chair. It was kind of perfect.

More perfect things, like heading back to Notting Hill and finding that without the market, it is a beautiful, quiet place to be. I think we liked it a whole lot more just the two of us. It was dark and we were just walking along in air that was still fresh and cold, but was mild, seemingly making up for the day before. I bought a Notting Hill market bag from a store- the poor thing is already pretty battered- and we revelled in having the place to ourselves. We grabbed our bags from the hostel and tucked ourselves into a little Lebanese restaurant and ate dip, felafel and pitta bread till the train came to take us away.