FIVE DAYS IN LONDON

Friday August 22nd
We took the train up to London to spend a few days with Fritha and Anthony and to celebrate Fritha’s birthday. After negotiating a couple of tube rides we took what’s called the Docklands Light Rail, which runs alongside the Thames to Limehouse, so called because they produced lime for mortar here as far back as the fifteenth century.
Where Fritha lives is amongst rows of converted wharf side warehouses, now very desirable residences known collectively as Canary Wharf. We met up with Fritha and Anthony and dropped off our case, before enjoying a late dinner at a riverside restaurant. The view from Fritha’s balcony is stunning, right out over the river and back to the City of London upstream, and more apartments downstream.
Saturday
The next morning Barb and I got up at around 9am. The others slept in so we made breakfast and headed into the city for a bit of sightseeing. Firstly we took the train to Covent Garden. This is a very lively tourist spot with lots of little cafes, restaurants and gift shops everywhere. It’s all grouped around the old Covent Garden Market, but today there was not a sign of a flower seller offering violets. No Eliza Doolittle singing “All I want is a room somewhere....”! Just street jugglers and buskers and lots of tourists like us.
We wandered around the area into what’s known as Theatreland for obvious reasons. Here we passed such famous landmarks as the Lyceum, the Royal Opera, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and then into Bow Street, familiar because of the Bow Street Runners, the Bow Street Magistrates Court, and of course one of the cheap bits on the Monopoly board.
I paid a visit to the London Transport Museum with exhibits of every kind of transport in this city since the eighteenth century. There were sedan chairs, horse drawn buses, trolley buses, double decker buses, and of course the London cab. There was also an interesting exhibition about the development of the underground railway. This featured a steam locomotive and coaches which comprised the very first underground, which must have been like travelling in a smoke and soot filled coffin.
We returned to Canary Wharf via the Thames Embankment, then by ferry under the great London bridges to the Docklands.
In the evening we enjoyed a magnificent dinner at a Kensington restaurant called the Babylon Gardens. The location was high above the city surrounded by a rooftop garden with its own pond, and full grown trees. We had champagne for Fritha’s birthday and good food and more wine. Finally home by cab and bed!
Sunday
We rose again at around 9am, once again leaving Fritha and Anthony asleep. We headed off to Waterloo Station where we caught a train to Hampton Court Palace. We had visited this wonderful Tudor red brick palace before, but things have changed a lot, if not to the building, then certainly to the way they show it off. There were people in Tudor costume, performing the roles of Tudor lords and ladies and inviting us to witness the finer points of jousting and courtly dancing. Barbara and I were cajoled into dancing the Pavan and the Galliard, in which we pranced up and down with Tudor abandon, accompanied by a band of strolling musicians.
We watched Henry V111, sitting in a wine cellar and playing cards with the Duke of Suffolk. Henry won of course, because as he pointed out, he was the King. And the sister of Katherine Parr showed us around the great halls and rooms of the palace. The Tudor Kitchens were among the most interesting exhibits. These great rooms with enormous fireplaces and blazing roasting fires displayed the foods of the time. The cooks, all in period costume, gave demonstrations of pie and sausage making, of baking, and roasting on spits, and cake making.
We took a ride in a wagon drawn by big Shire horses around the parkland which surrounds the palace, and inspected the ornamental gardens and the four hundred year old grapevine, which still produces 500 kilograms of table grapes each year.
By the time we got back to Fritha’s, Anthony had left for Amsterdam to begin his new job. So we decided to eat in. Fritha cooked pasta Bolognese and then we watched a DVD of Ünderbelly which we’d wanted to see for some time. It was strange to see pictures of streets and shops with which we are so familiar back home. Finally bed!
On Monday we were back in the City again. We took the train firstly to Fenchurch Street (Monopoly board again) then walked through empty streets past silent bank buildings and closed pubs. This is the area they call “The City”, normally a busy place but this was the August Bank Holiday. We made our way firstly to the British Museum. This is one of the few places where it’s free to get in. As museums go, it’s a magnificent place and we could have spent a week there. But we settled for a number of specific exhibits, in particular the Egyptian section. Here we saw a fantastic collection of Egyptian antiquities. There were mummies of all shapes and sizes. I had no idea there would be so many and in such fantastic condition, being thousands of years old. There were also the remains of a man who’s not been mummified, but buried in the desert sand. This 5000 year old body was in amazing condition, still with hair on its head.
We saw the famed Rosetta Stone, the large stone covered in finely chiselled writing which provided archaeologists with the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
There were huge Assyrian and Persian carvings and even a whole temple. And of course the famous Elgin Marbles! (No they’re not marbles as in kids alleys) These fine marble sculptures were taken from the Parthenon. Interestingly they now call them the Parthenon Marbles, dodging the fact that they were nicked by Lord Elgin. While it is amazing to see these ancient things, we have to remember that most of them were taken from other people’s lands.
We had a light lunch, and then walked towards Trafalgar Square, passing by one oddity, Smith and Sons Umbrella Shop, which has been selling umbrellas to the gentry since 1830. In its windows were brollies and shades and gamps with ebony handles and Malacca cane handles and plastic handles and every conceivable variation of umbrella ever designed.
We walked down Shaftsbury Avenue, through Soho and down to Trafalgar Square and heard the sound of violins. There was a rehearsal going on in the church of St Martin the Fields. There was to be a Vivaldi concert that evening, so we went in and spent a relaxing quarter hour listening to a string sextet at practice.
Then we walked across the road for a short visit to the National Gallery. Here, at no cost, you can marvel at works by Leonardo Da Vinci, at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and many many other paintings, too numerous to mention here. All too soon it was time to head back to the ferry, although by then we were getting pretty footsore.
As we walked towards Westminster down Whitehall, we passed the barracks of the Household Cavalry, where a crowd was watching an inspection in the courtyard. There were troops in fancy uniforms lined up while an officer with sword drawn, walked along the ranks. And sitting at attention on horses, two female cavalry officers awaited their orders. It was an interesting piece of pageantry which we just stumbled on.
Back at Canary Wharf, we decided to eat at home again. We sent out for pizza and finished watching Underbelly.
Tuesday.
Fritha had to return to work today, so she was gone before we even woke up. We did a bit of flat tidying up and then went sightseeing again. Some months ago we’d seen a documentary drama called Casualty 1906. It was set in the Royal London Hospital and dealt with medicine as it was practised in the early 20th century, in a large hospital in a very poor part of London. We had been to Whitechapel to see the hospital, which is still going, now in its 4th century. We could not visit the hospital museum at that time, so we returned to Whitechapel to try again.
This was quite a small museum but filled with fascinating information and stuff from the period. This is the hospital where Joseph Merrick, the so called Elephant Man lived out his days and there was quite a bit about him. There were cases filled with grim looking surgical instruments and another, dealing with the surgery done by a bloke called Jack the Ripper.
There was also a video about nurses in the hospital, made in 1968. This was of interest to Barbara as she was still nursing then. She got a good laugh when one of the senior sisters turned to a trainee and said “Nurse would you be so kind as to take this patient’s blood pressure?”
Barbara could not remember ever being addressed so politely by a superior in her day.
By now it was lunchtime, and we stopped in a local pub, where we had a hideous lunch of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches with chips. Yecccchhh!
After that we took the tube into Westminster again and spent the rest of the afternoon on a guided tour of the Palace of Westminster, i.e the Houses of Parliament.
These tours are limited to about 20 people at a time and the security is very very thorough. You put your metal objects through an x-ray and they photograph you before you go in.
Despite all that, the building is fantastic. We entered through a great hall which dates back to the eleventh century, with a ceiling supported by something like six hundred tons of oak beams which arch about sixty feet above. We were shown up the steps into the Central lobby with gilt and painted ceilings, and statues of prime ministers of the past. From there, long wood panelled corridors lead to the two houses. But first we went through the Queen’s robing room, a very elaborately decorated room with pictures of British historical events adorning the walls. This is where the Queen dons her robes before the opening of Parliament. All of this part of the Palace (and it is a palace still owned by the Queen) is much newer that the great hall. There was a big fire back in the 1800’s and most of what we see today was built since then.
We followed in the Queen’s footsteps to the House of Lords with its familiar red leather seats in rows on either side of the table. The main feature of this rather small room is the speaker’s chair. This has a filigreed golden canopy above a magnificent gilt throne. The Queen sits there before reading out the government’s programme for the next sitting.
We on the other hand were not allowed to sit down anywhere. We never found out why.
Again we crossed the Central lobby and towards the House of Commons, again with leather benches but this time with a speaker’s chair made of black bean. This was given to the Commons by the Australian Government. The two dispatch boxes on the table were given by New Zealand.
Finally we returned to the Great Hall where we could at last sit down, and even get a coffee from a small cafe.
Always with an eye to the tourist, they also have an exact replica of the front door of 10 Downing Street, so you can be photographed knocking on it.
Our final evening in London was spent enjoying a pleasant dinner with Fritha in a pub called The Narrow, which overlooks the Thames and is owned by Gordon Ramsay. Naturally the food was right up to Ramsay standards.
Wednesday
By the time we got up on Wednesday morning, Fritha had already left. She had to manage an event in Nottingham that day, so had taken a cab to St Pancras at 5am.
We had a leisurely breakfast before heading off to Paddington to catch the train to our refuge in the Cotswolds.
Our time is running out all too quickly, and we still have to visit York, Amsterdam, and Paris.