Third day in London

Third and last day in London and a bit muddly. First we drove up the road until we found a couple of churches: we decided on the Methodist one. At first thought there wasn’t going to be anyone there, but in fact it was quite full - and it was a fairly new building. And talk about welcomed. We hadn’t even got out of the car before an elderly couple who’d parked in front of us came up and greeted us, talked about New Zealand, told us about collecting NZ postal items, and gathered us up. Inside it was the same; people didn’t just say hullo, they actually spoke to you, both before and after the service. It was Remembrance Day and at eleven o’clock the radio was turned on for a few minutes and we listened in to the service (with the Royal family) at the Cenotaph. The rest of the service consisted of various people talking about their war experiences, and especially the many people who hadn’t necessarily served at the front but had been back-up workers in various places: firemen, voluntary constables, nurses and so on. They also had communion which was good, as we haven’t been to many services in England where there’s been a communion (except last week as well!)
We were going to go to the movies after lunch but it took too long to get there so we went right into London central again and pottered around a bit. Celia wanted to get some of the artificial snow from Hamley’s (not Hambley's as I think I wrote previously) - you add water to it and it grows to ten times its original size. The place was still abuzz with people, far more than in most of the other shops along Regent St. (Though when we came back along the street later in the evening, the streets were packed again.)
We couldn’t decide what we wanted to do so in the end we got on a bus and went for a ride. Wound up at the Albert Hall and found that there was a concert on in the evening at 6.30. And there were tickets going at a reasonable price. So we bought some, got back on the bus, went and had something to eat (Celia had a little snooze in the café!) and got the tube and bus back again. (The joys of one day passes.) The concert was wonderful - I’ve written about it in more detail on myother blog.

London, part two

On Thursday morning we roused ourselves out of our jet lag and, with our friend, made our way on the bus to Regent St, where our bank is. Suddenly we were back in Korea again, by which I mean that someone directed us to the right floor in the building, told us how long we’d have to wait, showed us where to get a free cup of coffee, where the toilets were, and in general treated us as worthwhile customers. More than that, the person who saw us in due course was exceptionally friendly and had everything ready to go for us. (And she had just been speaking to her friend from Attleborough, where we were due to stay in a few days’ time with our relations!).
After that we made our way to the Southbank, because my friend wanted to show us the refurbished Festival Hall. We finished up having a very nice lunch of paninis with roasted courgettes, humus and mint – interesting combination. After this we had the first of our many long walks around London. I’d forgotten just much walking you have to do: there’s plenty of transport (buses, trains, tubes, etc) but that doesn’t mean you never have to use the old-fashioned process of one foot after another. Anyway, we walked along the embankment remembering places we knew from the past, and in general re-acquainting ourselves with everything.
The Tate Modern was new, and we headed for it. It’s an interesting building – must contain some hundreds of thousands of bricks – and is enormous. Unfortunately, the exhibitions I saw didn’t grab me greatly. I think it was that they just weren’t modern paintings of the sort that I enjoy: lots of stuff that gives modern painting a bad name, even though some of the artists, like Francis Bacon, are huge in the art scene.
The following day we wound up on the Southbank again (after having done a patch of time in Camden Town, which was crowded). We had some very large and tasty filled rolls (handmade, as it were, in a Greek/Italian? place in Camden Town). We watched a guy painting, very meticulously, the railings along the Embankment. I spoke to him and asked how much he had to do – he claimed ‘down to the mouth of the Thames’ but I think he may have been kidding. He said he’d only done two sections of the railings since he started in the morning; that’s how slow the job was. In view of the number of buskers in the area I told him he should have put out a basket for some cash. I felt there was something familiar about his accent, and said so to Celia. She went and asked him where he was from. Taranaki in New Zealand...!
Footnote to the last bit: we went to church this morning in Wymondham (pronounced Windham) with our neice and her two children. Of course, we met someone who was married to a New Zealander, and he turned out to be from Rotorua.

First London days - part one

Arrived in London late on Wednesday. Nearly didn’t get into the country because the customs official I met up with decided that I really was some ancient terrorist (something that I felt my passport photo made me look like) and questioned me pretty thoroughly about what I was going to be doing, whether I had any money, how long I was staying, whether I’d be working, whether I’d be bleeding the country dry or not and so on. Celia had gone through customs with ease, and we only found out later that I should have gone through with her. Instead I started out in a queue of some 200 people. After she got through (in the British line) she waved at me to move into another lane, and, after I’d finally figured out what she was on about, I got into a lane with no one in it!
Anyway, we got out of there, found our bags without any problem (which I regarded as a miracle in itself), and didn’t even have to go through any bag search or whatever. But then the fun started. Remember that we now carrying: a lap-top in a case with umpteen cords for cellphones, lap-top, Ipod and so on; Celia’s handbag; her backpack; my backpack (full of books and such); and pulling two suitcases which between them weighed 40 kg.
We discovered that it was better and cheaper to get the ordinary underground (from Heathrow) directly through to Kentish Town (where we were going) rather than the ‘Express’. This meant changing at Bank (if I remember rightly – things are getting hazy by this stage) and going onto the Northern Line. That would have been okay, except that at the changeover of lines we found we had to climb up two flights of stairs because there was no escalator!
Anyway, we got to Kentish Town and I pulled out my instructions for finding our friend’s flat. Somehow I missed the fact that it was only two blocks away from the station (at least we were going in the right direction) and as a result we were still trying to find the street several blocks later. Someone took pity on us and re-directed us back along the road, by which time we were at a point of exhaustion. It was very muggy (and remained so during our three days in London) so we were sweating profusely.
But! We finally got to the flat, dragged our bags down the stairs to the doorway, and voila! our friend’s son greeted us with great friendliness, even though the last time he saw us he was only four…