Tube Strike

It is not quite noon and it seems that we have been traveling for more than a day. Workers on the tube went on strike about 6:30 last night, although some stations locked their gates earlier. Immediate havoc ensued with thousands of people temporarily stranded. Thinking positive on our part did not bring an early end to the strike which will continue all day today. Scheduled to fly to Berlin at 13:15 we arose at 7:30 to formulate a plan. As the Heathrow Express was still in service, Mike booked our tickets albeit with some computer difficulties.

Now the trek began. We were staying in Southwark and needed to get to Paddington. Luckily the weather was sunny and mild so with determination we began to walk wearing backpacks, with helmets attached, and dragging rolling cases. The streets were jammed with cars, taxis, motor bikes, and bicycles pushing and shoving in every direction and, unusual for London, lots of beeping and hooting of car horns by frustrated drivers. By the time we reached Festival Hall on the Southbank we deemed it time for a coffee break.

Back on the street we found an empty black cab who reluctantly agreed to take us to Paddington if we would guarantee a cash payment. It is fortunate we don't travel on a strict budget or we would be fasting for a few meals. Along the way the inching motor traffic was forced to stop to make way for a marching regiment and a horse mounted unit. Where in the world were they going this morning? and why?

We arrived at Heathrow with much wait time for our slightly delayed flight to Berlin. Our limited German, wish I had a better high school teacher and was a more diligent student, caused us to march around searching for transportation to the city center. The long 'bendy-bus' was large but inadequate for the crowd piling on. The journey seemed long as I tried to keep my backpack and helmet out of peoples' faces, my case propped against my leg, and my balance on an uneven ride.

On arrival at the central bus terminal we began the search again for the local bus to Potsdamer Platz, the location of our hotel. Stepping off the bus, we realized that the Platz is not just a block or two but a very large area and the directions of "just a few steps off the Platz" was not particularly helpful. The rain had begun. Mike could easily get to his jacket. I had packed less efficiently. Feeling tired I nearly accosted the nearest German and was rewarded with a direction of two blocks to our new home, the Berlin Marriott. By the time we got to our comparatively large room it was 6:30, we knew we had lost an hour due to the time difference, but still felt as if we had travelled for the same time as a transatlantic crossing.

 

 

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Bury St. Edmunds

As per their tradition, Brian was up before everybody else the next morning and served coffees as people surfaced for the day, then cooked breakfast for all. We sat around the breakfast table for ages doing more catching up about our various histories before moving to the living room to continue more of the same until most of the morning had disappeared. It was time to pack up our stuff!

Doris suggested she would take us on a quick historic tour of Bury St Edmunds, roughly 20-30 minutes drive away on our route home. We said our fond farewells to Brian, who needed to stay home for another commitment, promising it would not be another thirteen years before we got together again.

It was good to have a tour guide as there is much to know about Bury. In the time of Henry XIII it was the size of London. It was important for its wool trade and the enormously large and important abbey. The abbey was robbed of its wealth and destroyed on Henry's orders. Today remnants of the walls and foundations are surrounded by a large and beautifully designed and maintained public park. We shared a farewell coffee with Doris and headed off to drive back to London to return our car and find our latest AirBnB in Southwark (suth-uck), just south of the Tate Modern gallery and a few blocks from London's tallest building The Shard. From our small two chairs and a table balcony on the sixth floor we had St Paul's Cathedral on the other side of the Thames just to the north of us, The Shard stretching skywards right in front of us, the tops of the towers of Tower Bridge visible over the buildings across the street, and the communication mast of Crystal Palace on the horizon to the south.

After settling into our new bright and airy flat, we took a sunny evening walk over Tower Bridge to eat at St Katherine's Dock, then walked back sat the daylight started to fade.

 

 

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Our Visit to Suffolk

Up and out reasonably early for a Monday morning on our way to City Airport to collect our second car of this holiday, then north and a bit east through Essex towards Suffolk to see my friends Doris and Brian, whom I last saw thirteen years ago. Following the fast M11 motorway stretch, we turned off to cruise through pleasant English countryside and picturesque olde worlde villages. Our first stop was Thaxted, where we stopped for an early lunch in a pub before wandering the back lanes of thatched cottages to get to a restored windmill hidden away in a field.

Back in the car we followed the twisting roads to Lavenham, the main reason for taking the route I had chosen. Lavenham's main street and every side street features multi-coloured or Tudor framed buildings, many of which have slanted or twisted in relation to their neighbours over the centuries. We wandered around the town for more than an hour taking zillions of photographs on three cameras before we decided, with another twenty five miles or so to go, it was about time to continue our journey.

Driving past signs with old names familiar to me like Knettishall, Garboldisham and Coney Weston, we soon drove into the village of Barningham and turned onto a narrow road before turning off onto Doris & Brian's even narrower single-car width track to their house, which is tucked away in a clump of trees in the middle of farmland.

Brian came out to meet us and in we went to meet Doris. Intros to Jan, hugs, fond hellos and lots of laughter resulted from three of the four of us realising that, of course, after thirteen years none of us had changed in the slightest! Following a brief catch up over welcoming teas and coffees, we went for a walk around the estate. Brian and Doris both originate from London, but had moved to this house with its third of an acre plot surrounded by other peoples' farmland over forty years ago. They had created a wonderful landscaped garden out of dirt and nothingness, and had extended the house several years ago to give themselves a dining room and additional bedroom. Since I had last seen it, they had bought one of the fields beside the lane leading to their house and added a glazed conservatory, which is where we had dinner and spent much of the rest of the evening.

 

 

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Loving London

It's Wednesday, it's London, it's summer. Therefore it must be the National Portrait Gallery annual summer exhibition! After muesli and fruit juice in the flat, we are out walking a familiar route along the Thames embankment, across Waterloo Bridge, through the park, across the Strand and into the Gallery to spend an hour or so strolling amongst this year's entries for the annual competition.

Afterwards we made a brief side trip to Leicester Square to check out potential theatre deals at the half-price ticket booth, but having seen nothing that grabbed our attention we said temporary goodbyes to go separate ways; I was going off for lunch with Gil, Jan going off to explore on her own, with a 3pm rendezvous at the Festival Hall agreed for later.

While Mike lunched I walked, camera in hand, to record the known and the new. The wheel is no longer the British Airways Wheel but the Coca Cola Wheel. Salvador Dali has been replaced by Shrek. The city is still alive with tourists, buskers, school field trips, and interesting new sights.

Back together we walked to the flat from the Festival Hall for a brief catch up and to rest our legs, then ventured out probably less than a quarter of a mile to eat at a local Indian restaurant, in contrast to my lunch at a Turkish place and Jan's soup near Festival Hall. Interestingly, surprisingly, the Indian waiter told us they didn't serve alcohol but were happy if you brought your own so I walked across the street to buy from the pub almost opposite.

 

 

 

 

 

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Two Days in One Posting

How to celebrate 4th July in England? By meeting Jack in the courtyard of a bar next door to Ascot racecourse of course. A quick drink and an hour or so of conversation before Lucy and Jack headed off to a barbecue and we had to get back to Heathrow to drop off the first of our three rental cars, and get the tube into Central London to check into our first AirBnB apartment. We arrived 15 minutes after our promised 4-5pm window, and after a quick handover by friends of our apartment host Noel. We had to get into speed shower mode to head back out to a brasserie near Picadilly Circus to meet friends Marilyn and Ian, who we hadn't seen since 2012. Once again we arrived behind schedule, but then had a great evening of good food and conversation before saying au revoir at 11.30pm to tube back to our new temporary home near The Shard.

On Sunday morning we woke to hear rain pattering on the trees outside, so hovered around at the flat waiting to see if it would stop or get worse. Fortunately it almost stopped, so we walked to South Bank for a quick breakfast and brief exploration of this year's temporary exhibitions, artwork and food stalls. By this time the rain shower had stopped and we walked across Hungerford Bridge before getting the tube to Hampstead, where we were to meet Mike's brother Brian, his wife Carole and their son Nicholas for lunch later on. We spent about an hour wandering about exploring the houses along several of the narrow backstreets of this extremely expensive part of London before emerging at Whitestone Pond at the crest of Hampstead Heath. Mike's plan had then been to slowly meander through the Sunday display of paintings, sculptures and other artwork on display on our way back to,the restaurant where we were to meet the others.

To our surprise, the expected art exhibition was not there. Instead, the entire street was closed off to traffic and now featured temporary fairground rides and a sea of stalls selling wonderfully tempting multinational food preparations of hot savory dishes, bakery goods, cookies, ice creams, plus toys, soaps, craftwork, jewelry and a myriad of other goodies. We wandered amongst the wonderful cooking aromas wafting in the air, before bumping into Brian and Nicholas doing the same in the opposite direction. We walked back to join Carole in the restaurant.

After eating and sitting chatting, we all wandered back up the hill through the stalls to Whitestone Pond, then veered off down a sandy trail onto the East Heath leading to the series of ponds, some for fishing and others for year-round swimming. Having reached the bottom of the trail, we turned around to retrace our steps all the way back up to Whitestone Pond, then back through the fairground and food stalls a final time before saying our goodbyes at Hampstead tube station.

Jan and I decided en route to stop off at Coventry Garden to find somewhere for dinner; eating on a gallery above the piazza before walking the northern embankment of the Thames as the sunset lit up the City. The light was so good we walked back to the flat, grabbed cameras and walked back towards Southwark Bridge to take more photographs of The Shard and the architecture of the City.

 

 

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Beautiful Baby Jack

The first English breakfast of the trip consumed, and an entire morning free before our first ever rendezvous with "The Honourable Jack", so what to do. We decided to drive from Berkshire (bark-sheer) to Buckinghamshire (buck-n-um-sheer) to visit Cliveden (Cleve-dun) House at Taplow near Maidenhead. Cliveden is yet another English stately pile surrounded by lush gardens managed in modern times by the National Trust, this one purchased at one time by John Astor from the original owner. We were unable to visit the house, which is now an up-market hotel, no doubt featuring overnight prices we would consider outrageous for a week-long stay, but we did get to wander the grounds in front without feeling the benefits of shotgun pellets keeping the peasants in their place. An elaborate clock tower was the first thing that came into view, square in section but with a spiral staircase visible on the exterior and gilt, gilt, gilt glimmering brilliantly in the sunshine.

Having taken a few snaps around the tower, we wandered off to see the grounds we had actually paid to visit, on the way getting into conversation with one of the guides on her first day back from leave celebrating a 'milestone' birthday who helped us with our decidedly shaky Latin in transcribing the enormous carved stonework which spanned the entire side of the house. We then headed towards the Partere, geometrically designed formal gardens laid out for viewing from the rear of the house, before strolling the paths that meandered down to the Thames. Having gone down, we then had to climb back up a different set of paths to reach the Water Gardens; a series of ponds or lakes featuring fountains, fish and water lilies and a pagoda-like structure.

Who can walk past a Maze? Well obviously we can't! But we did find our way to the centre, and seem to have found our way out again because we have been to other places since. However, by that time we needed to be on our way to see His Royal Jack-ness, so we retraced our route back to Windsor and continued a bit further south to the large pub/restaurant that Lucy had made a reservation. Not quite sure of our timing we arrived 15 minutes early, but as we climbed out of the car Lucy and Adam pulled up beside us in the car park. We walked across to where they parked, watched them unload the buggy/stroller and load Jack-the-lad into it while we cooed and oohed and aahed. The 30 seconds of squinting and squirming in the brilliant sunshine that we witnessed was the only diversion from calmness, serenity and laid back-ness that was evident in the couple of hours we spent together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Day One - Tedious Travel Day

It has been a few years since we've been on a plane circling an airport, but as we flew across the Irish Sea our pilot announced he'd been told to slow down because of heavy traffic into Heathrow. Our speed dropped from 600mph to 500, then 400 as we flew over the English Midlands, then to 250 as we flew in a loop over Buckinghamshire and headed off east of London for another large arc over Essex, before we started our final descent. Heathrow busier than ever with masses of travellers, but we finally made it through immigration, shuttled our way to collect our rental car and headed off west in the traffic for a short drive to our Windsor hotel.

We walked the half mile or so into town to wander around in the sunny environs of the castle and the riverside. Just passing the coffee shop we began to wonder if the hanging baskets were being watered. It has apparently been too long since we have felt big splots of rain. Needing a mid-afternoon snack we ducked inside while the rain cloud quickly passed.

Back into the sunshine we sat by the Thames watching hoards of the Queen's majestic swans squabbling unmajestically for the food that other people were showering them with. A sea of synchronised white necks and orange beaks rose in anticipation as an arm was raised, then all swooped rapidly down in formation before the beaks jabbed at one another in the water. Mike persuaded me that every single swan was tagged and, sure enough each displayed a metal ring on one leg, but I failed to believe him when he told me that the Queen personally named each of her swans and that each tagged label was cross-referenced in a huge set of leather-bound ledgers listing their names which was maintained by a Royal Flunkey at Buckinghamshire Palace.

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Across the River Thames we strolled up the Main Street of Eton as far as the college. The shops along the way displayed the amazingly garish, unstylish jackets bespoken of the finest fabrics, sold for large sums. Perhaps the recognition of being an Eton fellow makes it all worthwhile although it is hard for me to believe the current generation would be seen wearing these on the street.

On the subject of dress we were curious to see a large number of older gentlemen dressed inwhite shirts and black bow ties. Curiosity got the best of us so we stopped two men and politely inquired. They are part of an eighty-five member choir, there used to be eighty-seven but a few have died, invited to sing at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. Unfortunately the performance was over and we had missed it.

Later, we had dinner al fresco at a riverside bistro watching the boats and the birds before wandering back to,the hotel for a relatively early night after starting our day on Wdnesday and finishing some thirty hours later on Thursday.

After our few spots of rain, we were surprised to see Friday breakfast newspaper pictures of golf ball sized hail and read about severe storm damage in Richmond, which can't be more than 15 miles away. Showered and breakfasted by 7am? That is not a standard likely to be maintained for the rest of our trip!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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