London: Greenwich

Years ago I took my year fives on a very educational and carefully planned trip into the centre of Melbourne but unfortunately along the way we saw a possum in a tree and a Ferrari. Then on the way home two very drunk adults covered in tattoos were sitting right in the middle of our train carriage so all the learning was forgotten and there was no point having the students write a recap the next day because the museum wouldn’t even get a mention.

See if you can pick which event from this excursion was equivalent to a possum, Ferrari and drunken strangers all rolled into one.

We left home at 10:30 and headed to Greenwich, which meant taking the brand new (to us) Elizabeth line! Look at it in all its futuristic brutalist glory.

So shiny, clean and purple (all the tube lines have a colour, this one is purple so there was a bit of purple in the upholstery).

We stopped at Custom House and walked to the cable car. It takes passengers across the Thames to the O2 arena. It rises 90 metres and has great views.

Lea loved it and was keen to stay on it for several trips in a row.

I’d made the critical error of having two cups of tea before leaving the flat so I was dying for the loo when we got off at the other side. Luckily there was a cafe so we stopped for a coffee and pastry.

I’m no connoisseur, but the Portuguese tarts (pastel de nata) were the best we’d had yet. They seem to be very fashionable right now. Lea had a custard croissant that was also the best she’d had.

Unfortunately the cafe was also the place where Lea disgraced herself by admitting she had not brought the teaspoon I had SPECIFICALLY bought for her to use in cafes that don’t offer spoons (she likes eating her cappuccino foam first) and I shook my head and tut-tutted for at least a whole minute. I also said I’d shame her and write about it in the blog. I have kept my promise! TUT TUT!

Anyhow, after I made a big todo about nothing we went out to look at a big headless statue outside the cafe.

We caught the bus to Greenwich.

Front seat up the top! I wonder if we’ll see anything interesting along the route?

Later we read that apart from one person who was treated for smoke inhalation, no one was injured.

Anyhow…

First stop was this unusual sculpture.

‘Sculpture of a Dead Parrot’ (obviously not a parrot but a cockatoo) is a work by a local artist who is thought to have taken inspiration from Monty Python. It’s in the grounds of a hotel and there’s no plaque, I had to look up information online.

Next we walked to the Maritime Museum.

While everyone else browsed the general exhibition, I paid for a ticket to the astronomy photography competition.

It had several categories and entries from around the world.

It didn’t take long to see all the pictures so I went for a look around the general exhibition. They had a replica of a very interesting ship.

The Rawalpindi is one of four ships of the same class that brought immigrants to Australia. Its sister ship, the Himalaya, brought my mother and her family! The display had photos of cabins and ship life that I think Mum would’ve enjoyed seeing, so I took some photos.

After the Maritime Museum we decided on The Kings Arms for lunch, a pub that was almost across the road from the museum.

It was a very cosy and beautifully decorated pub and the food was terrific.

Luke and I both got the steak and ale pie but could have easily shared one. Pete very kindly had a slice of mine, which I would’ve sorely regretted eating if it had stayed on my plate.

Yes that is a quarter of a cabbage. Surprisingly tasty!

After lunch we headed to the Queens House.

You’d think, from my photos, there was almost no one in London.

The building was used by royalty at different times but also for housing soldiers, artists and was also used as a set for Bridgerton. It was currently housing an exhibition of paintings with a nautical theme.

The building itself was very interesting, with some lovely wallpaper (which seems to be a motif of this trip) featuring monkeys and pomegranates.

Also a notable staircase, the first of its kind built in England.

Lovely!

Next was a short walk up a steep hill to the Greenwich Observatory. We didn’t pay to go in but managed to find a spot where we could stand on the meridian line.

Somehow this got the biggest smiles of the day.

Back down the hill to the Old Royal Naval College, where Luke and I left Lea and Pete in the cafe while we went into the Painted Hall.

The Painted Hall is an enormous room with a painted ceiling and far more impressive and interesting than the Sistine Chapel… in my opinion, anyway!

It also has far fewer people jammed in. and padded benches visitors can lie on and mirrors for ease of viewing.

The painting is full of references to history, mythology and legend.

Christopher Wren designed the building and also St Paul’s Cathedral

There’s plenty more to do in Greenwich but it was getting towards 5pm so we walked the short way to the ferry and caught a boat back towards the city.

Lea and Pete went to have dinner with Mark, Luke and I went back to the apartment for a quick change and rest before heading to our evening’s entertainment.

Austentatious was an improvised comedy performance where audience members shouted out possible Jane Austin titles. The suggestions were ‘Pride Month and Prejudice’, ‘Bloodbath in Bath’ and the one that was chosen, ‘Perspiration’.

The story was so convoluted that I’m not going to attempt to retell it, but it was very funny and the audience loved it.

After dinner Luke had booked us a table at Berenjak, a restaurant his old workmate, Mark, had recommended.

How nice to turn up and find out it’s in the guide! Also to find it was worth booking a table, because people were turned away ahead of us at 9:45pm.

The cuisine was Persian street food and the flavours were fantastic.

A great way to end an action-packed day!

5Jun2023

London: War Rooms and the Mithraeum

by Miss Penny Black

On the advice of a large number of people, we bought tickets to the War Rooms, the tiny rooms and and tunnels that Winston Churchill and the British government used as their operations headquarters in WW2.

After a breakfast at home we caught the tube to Embankment and then walked via St James Park.

The War Rooms were very interesting, even for someone like me, who will actively avoid war-related things. We got audio guides and then walked through the narrow and dim corridors, peaking into rooms and trying to imagine what the space would be like when full of tobacco smoke and people rushing around.

In between the historical sections is a large room with lots of detail about Winston Churchill’s life. When buying tickets they said to allow 2.5 hours, but if you really wanted to see and read everything I’d say 3 hours minimum. Unfortunately, in the past I’ve found those sort of estimates usually overdo it and I’d booked a table at 1pm at a nearby pub. Lea and Pete had to rush a bit, which I felt bad about, but it’s hard to predict these things.

It was quite dark the whole way through.

Winston Churchill, a man after my own heart, had noiseless typewriters installed.

We had lunch at the Blue Boar, a pub not far from the War Rooms. It had recently been voted the best pub in London but, being in an office area, was quiet on Sunday.

I left before everyone had finished eating as I was going to meet a friend and everyone else was going to see The Play That Goes Wrong. Luke and I saw it on our last trip but he wanted to see it again.

Luke and I had met Patrick on our Haggis bus tour last time we were here and added him on Facebook. He’d offered to come meet up in London as he only lived an hour away so we arranged to meet at The Crosse Keys.

The Cross Keys is one of the Wetherspoons chain of pubs, which are somewhat notorious for being downmarket but this one was in an old bank building and quite grand.

Patrick hadn’t changed a bit and we had a good catch up about all our travels then headed to the London Mithraeum, which was just around the corner.

Patrick had said he’d wanted to see it so I invited myself along. It’s a Roman Temple that was unearthed by developers and remained a mystery until the last day of the excavation when the head of a statue of Mithras, a Roman god, was unearthed on the site. Not much is known of the cult except that it was male-only (I have no idea how they know this) and there would have been a statue of the god slaying or wrestling a bull at the alter.

The exhibition was in the original location, under an office building. Before going down to the site we looked at an installation of urns, all suspended from the ceiling by rope and fitted with microphones. As we walked around them the microphones picked up the vibration of the urns and each one had a different note. Two of the urns were from Roman times.

Downstairs, the temple was in a dark room. Once a group was in they lowered the lights and played sounds of people speaking Latin and the atmosphere became a bit smoky. There was an outline of the god statue and it was all very evocative. Apparently the cult lasted around 400 years.

Next we walked to Postman’s Park via St Paul’s Cathedral and the ruined church park.

The park has a very sad memorial to everyday heroes who died trying to save someone – a mosaic wall with names and short descriptions of what they died doing. For example, people who died trying to save someone who was drowning.

After that we said goodbye and I caught the tube back to the flat, where Luke, Lea and Pete had just returned. They enjoyed the play a lot and reminded me of many of the funny scenes I’d forgotten.

We all had a rest before finally heading to Dishoom for dinner.

We arrived at almost 10pm and, unsurprisingly, were seated straight away. We shared some rather spicy curries, cheese and chilli toast, broccoli salad and naan. It was at the high end of our spice tolerance but we all coped and no doubt it made us stronger.

We walked home, glad Friday and Saturday nights were past and our noisy neighbourhood would be a little quieter.

1Jun2023

London Day 1: Covent Garden

by Miss Penny Black

We arrived yesterday and met Lea and Pete at Mark’s office before heading to Camden and our accommodation. Our tiny apartment has two bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom.

I used a wide angle on this. It is TINY. Our feet hang off, or would if some complete idiot hadn’t chosen a bed frame with a wooden fence at the end.

The kitchen, which is the only place we can all sit together. One of the chairs is so wobbly you have to prop it against the oven but luckily that means you can still reach the table because the room is SO SMALL.

After being slightly shocked by the tiny apartment we went for a walk around the block to get some supplies (wine and cheese) and check out the neighbourhood. There is an unbelievable quantity of garbage around the streets… it’s worse than Naples, which is notoriously filthy. However the location, between Euston and Kings Cross, is excellent and Camden is certainly very lively. Street sweepers do come along frequently but if anywhere in Melbourne was this bad there would be outrage.

Also it’s above a kebab shop. That’s our door.

On our first night we went out for a late dinner at a place I found called The Blues Kitchen.

It’s just around the corner from where we are staying and I had no idea what it would be like except that there was live music every night.

Luke and I shared a full rack of ribs and they were perfect, although very spicy!

Yesterday was Amanda’s Big Day Out! We walked the 40 minutes straight south to Covent Garden so everyone else could enquire about theatre tickets and then I took everyone to Bone Daddies for lunch. They do top quality ramen. I’m not sure everyone loved it as much as I did but that’s the price of putting me in charge!

You can press raw garlic into your ramen! They also have sesame grinders, which I’ve never seen anywhere else.

I have one prime mission for the day though: Gudrun Sjoden. I have spent many hours over the last few years browsing this Swedish designer’s online store but never bought anything. She sells brightly coloured, hippy-ish, organic and ethically produced clothing. It is much more expensive than the clothes I normally buy.

About a week ago it occurred to me to see if she had a London store. She did!

I had a quick look in before lunch but then decided I needed much more time, so after lunch Pete and Lea went off to do their own thing and Luke said he was happy to come with me.

The ladies inside were so nice and the store had a basement level as well! Every piece of clothing except perhaps one or two was available in every size (amazing) and they had the entire range that’s online.

I was so excited I only took one photo in the store.

The store has a little table and chairs with glasses and a water jug for those poor souls accompanying the shoppers so Luke had a place to sit while I tried things on. Eventually I decided to buy everything I liked and worry about getting it into my backpack later. Mostly I chose things I couldn’t make myself or that weren’t like things I could get at home. Mainly cardigans and jumpers with knitted patterns, such as these:

After spending a moderately exorbitant amount on clothes I spent ten pounds on two pieces of cheese.

The guy behind the counter let us try four different types and the ones we ended up with were a very melty Camembert and a really ancient cheddar.

We ended up finishing the day eating cheese around the tiny table and planning the next week’s entertainment. Luke heroically took charge of the buying of tickets and so now we have a lot to look forward to.

To finish, here’s the most curious shop we walked into yesterday!

No, really!

26May2023

Windermere: Cragwood Estate

by Miss Penny Black

From Buttermere we needed to get to Cambridge, which is pretty much at the opposite end of the country.

This would mean a bus, a bus, three trains and possibly a bus, so we decided to split the journey over two days.

This option became even more enticing when we found a relatively reasonable room rate for Cragwood, a hotel that is part of the same group as Merewood, where Mum and I first stayed on our last big trip. It was one of the loveliest hotels I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting, so finding out we could stay in the affiliated hotel, which is just over the road, was a no-brainer.

But first we had to catch the bus to Keswick.

A visit to the laundromat was in order. After four days without a washing machine we were in no state to swan about a fancy house pretending we belonged there.

Seven pounds just for a single load! Ouch. Still, it did mean visiting my favourite clematis, which grows right outside.

The washing and drying took about an hour so we had time afterwards for a quick visit to Mrs F’s cafe for a last bowl of soup.

Luke was treated to the full Mrs F’s experience, with the lady who owns the place talking non stop to us and an American couple from the moment we entered until the moment we left.

She even remembered me from my visits a month ago, which was lovely.

The cafe is decorated in the style of her nan’s house.

Now that we were relatively clean and presentable it was back to the bus interchange. We found a park bench as we’d missed the last bus by only a couple of minutes. Fortunately we made a new friend to keep us entertained. A boxador!

There’s friendly and then there’s ‘I’ll lie on your feet before we’ve even exchanged names’.

Then we made another friend on the bus.

The bank holiday traffic flowing the other way was a slow and steady stream – we were making our escape at the right time!

The bus stop was right outside Cragwood, which was handy. Not too far to carry my bag, which has grown heavier and heavier with new clothes, gifts, and even a chopping board that was given to me by the lady at the Booths cheese counter.

First stop was our room, which had a window seat that was bigger than my bed in our previous accommodation.

I think our bed was bigger than the room we slept in at the cottage. After a bath and getting into our newly-washed clothes, we headed out to look around.

The old part of the building had beautiful wood panelling.

The grounds were lovely, with a perfect striped lawn looking out over Windermere.

The gardens were full of rhododendrons in flower.

We got a drink from the bar and went to sit in the shade.

We had booked dinner at 7pm but when we walked in there were two women with two small children, both of whom were playing with phones that had the volume up. I don’t judge or care if people give children devices in restaurants to keep them settled, but having one, let alone two, with the volume up is so irritating that I asked if we could come back at 8pm. Fortunately they weren’t busy and didn’t mind.

We were glad we asked to change because we ended up enjoying a peaceful and delicious meal and talking to one of the waiters. He was from Valencia and had moved to the Lake District many years ago.

I had mackerel then chicken, Luke had pigeon then pork. We both had desserts and the only problem I had was the same one we’d had throughout the Lake District – not enough icecream with the sticky toffee pudding.

After dinner our waiter gave us a little sample of Kendal mint liquor, which tasted just like after dinner mints but in liquid form. Very nice but a lurid colour.

We took our last glass of wine out to the terrace.

Tomorrow is a long day of travel but I’m looking forward to seeing Andrew, his new house and his corgi, Winston!

26May2023

Buttermere: Last Day!

by Miss Penny Black

Before I do anything else, here’s some pictures of the inside and outside of our little cottage.

Please note all doors and windows are 2/3 normal size.

The tiny windows and low ceilings definitely add to the doll house feel.

A bedroom that is barely big enough for one bed, let alone two. The beds are so small our feet hang off the ends!

Mark and Sue went off to climb Rannerdale Knotts, the home of one of England’s largest bluebell fields. Unfortunately the bluebells are mostly done here so the rest of us opted to dither around the cottage until 11:30 then walk to Buttermere for lunch.

We somehow managed to take the wrong track once again (a different wrong track this time) and had to jump the stream. It’s a track that’s about 500 metres long and we somehow are yet to find the right path.

Back to the same cafe as the previous day for a different type of pie and a different flavour of fancy lemonade.

Across the road from the Buttermere pubs is a walk that goes alongside a deep beck. We headed up and along, enjoying the shade on such a warm and bright day.

It’s (yet again) hard to capture but the side was steep and dropped away sharply. The path was fairly flat but narrow and I started to feel a bit of vertigo. It was annoying that, on such a straightforward path, I felt suddenly very anxious and had a moment of panic. Sometimes I wonder if I’d been more outdoorsy and comfortable with this sort of thing if I’d kept up the walking we’d done with Mum on our childhood holidays. We used to go to the Blue Mountains and climb down ladders on cliff faces ands scramble around. Still, I do what I’m comfortable with doing and that will have to be enough.

At the end of the path we went through a gate and onto the open hillside, just in time to see a jet zoom past.

A fairly awful photo of one of the fighter jets. I cropped a tiny section of a much larger photo so sorry for the quality but I’m amazed I got it at all.

Sometimes you don’t have to climb too high for amazing vistas.

Poignant feelings given it’s such a stunning day but also our last proper day here.

Eventually we walked the short distance down to the road and took yet another path back through the wood and field to our cottage.

We spied two little black lambs drinking from the beck.

We have really enjoyed being here in lambing season. From our sunny spot by the kitchen window we watching little groups of lambs climbing on logs, chasing each other and annoying their mothers.

Almost definitely the last photo of a person on a bridge.

A shaded wood with the last patch of bluebells.

Back to have a drink in the sun and relax before dinner.

Sue and I decided that if we ran a bed and breakfast she would do the greeting, the laundry and the continental breakfast, I’d do the shopping, cooking and gardening. That seemed to cover pretty much everything so we’re good to go!

Dinner was at one of the Buttermere pubs. I didn’t take any photos of food but here’s the actual, very last photo of our group and a bridge.

I talked them all into standing by the sign and then informed them that they’d been unwittingly lured into a final bridge photo.

Lea managed to finally post the card she had forgotten to take to the postbox for the last week.

A last look at the lambs on the way home…

In the morning there was nothing to do but pack up. Sue, Mark, Lea and Pete left just after 9:30.

Luke and I weren’t going anywhere near as far, so we hung around until almost 11 packing our things and using the wifi. We had a chat to one of the caretakers and she said the scratching Pete and Lea heard in the roof above their bedroom was a protected colony of bats! We’d seen them fly out the previous evening but they were so small and dark we thought they were birds.

We’ve all loved our time in the Lake District and felt very fortunate to have had such stunning weather. Blue skies every day (well, for at least part of every day) and only a spot of rain overnight.

I’ve really enjoyed sharing my favourite place with Lea and Pete and, apart from a few hairy moments, the walks have been pretty right for our ability levels. The food has been great and our accommodation, while quirky, has been perfectly located. Luke and I are looking forward to a better bed tonight though!