Sad leaving British Columbia, but hey we're heading for London to kick off our month's tiki tour of even more British England. Pauline and I have both been to England before, but in separate lives. Pauline was here in 1999 on a teacher exchange scheme. I was here in 1981 - the year Chuck and Di got married. That's 45 years ago. I wonder what's changed? I hear they've got a new ferris wheel thingy in the heart of London, and a bit of broken glass called a Shard. But perhaps we'll see them from ground level - not really in the mood to blow over £30 per ticket on them. £120 is $276! Bad news that the kiwi dollar is so weak - will just have to live with it. We've seen all the tourist attractions, so will focus on those more out of the way places.
It's mid-afternoon on 3 September as we circle Heathrow waiting for our landing slot. Not a bad flight, but the seats were uncomfortable, made much more tolerable by 90 minutes of Billy Connolly's superb stand-up comedy. Looking down, it's clear England is having a long, hot summer. Grass is browned off, hedges and trees are dying, and it's a brisk and drying 24 degree breeze as we land. After a wet early June England hasn't seen any significant rain since then. July has been the driest on record since 1836, and August was similarly parched. Apparently El Niño is expected to bring a wetter, stormier autumn and early winter, to the extent that the Brits are expecting food shortages and are being advised to stock up. It doesn't bode well for our Ireland leg in October either. Hopefully September will treat us to mild autumn conditions. Might even sneak in a game of croquet.
But where to stay in London? Our flight touches down in the afternoon, so we want a BnB not far from Heathrow, close to the Elizabeth Line to whisk us into the central city. Somewhere where there's a cool ethnic vibe, and relatively safe. Something that feels homely. An apartment at 5 Samara Drive sounds nice:
After clearing customs and immigration without issue we head to the train station. "Sorry, the Elizabeth Line is temporarily closed - you'll have to catch the bus". Fortunately this isn't Vancouver Island. We get seats and are treated to some back streets of West London you'd never see from a train.
The Airbnb accommodation is only 8 years old, but it's in one of those five-story apartment blocks which has been built down to a price, not up to a quality standard. Ventilation and air-conditioning are non-existent - just a single opening window and a door to the deck. It's sweltering as we arrive, and a small fan doesn't cut it. British architecture really don't know how to handle heat - the Brits will be suffering more as climate change increasingly bites.
A quick trip to a local ethnic corner store sees us with cheese and crackers for dinner, milk, bananas, yoghurt and porridge oats. No muesli or coffee sachets in sight. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices when you travel and drink tea. But even the tea is marginal. London water is very hard with dissolved calcium and magnesium bicarbonates and they leave scum in the cup as they combine with the polyphenols in the tea. Perfectly safe, but disconcerting all the same. Perhaps even beneficial for those on mineral supplements.
Good news - the Elizabeth Line has reopened after engineers isolated the burst water pipe that caused a signal failure. All go for tomorrow. Will I find a decent coffee?
Day 1 - the V&A
There's an indifferent forecast and light drizzle as we wake, so today we'll head for an indoor attraction. It should have been the Bayeaux Tapestry temporarily on display at the British Museum. I tried to buy tickets a few minutes after they went on sale on 1 July. Went to bed when I was at 20,000 in the queue. Got bumped. Woke to find I was now at 30,000 in the queue. Hours passed. By the time I could make a choice all feasible slots aligned with our itinerary were gone. Such is life.
The Tower of London? Tower Bridge? Buckingham Palace? Madame Tussauds? Westminster Abbey? Been there, done that. We settle on the Victoria & Albert museum. There are a few techy things in our itinerary, so this is Pauline's chance to indulge herself with art, sculpture, materials and design. And absolutely brilliant it is too.
No, this isn't Pauline as she steps out of the shower.
We wander under Marble Arch to the expensive end of the Monopoly board - Oxford St, Park Lane, Mayfair, and criss-cross Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Brown and parched, but the duck, geese, swans, magpies and crows are all surviving ok. And the squirrels. Less timid than the Canadian ones - one even came up to me and sniffed my finger, perhaps with the faint expectation of food.
Pauline has a thing about Mews - small, quiet, usually cobbled residential streets that were originally built in the 18th–19th centuries as service lanes of stables behind the grand homes of wealthy Londoners. We visit half a dozen of them in Knightsbridge and Chelsea. The stables have long since been converted into garages containing sleek black Mercs, BMWs and Range Rovers. And the homes? They start at £2-3m and go up from there. Judging by the residents, there's a lot of Middle Eastern oil money here. I suspect the English are not amewsed. (Sorry - had to put that in for the grandkids).
A tea party going on near Paddington Station, our best stop on the Elizabeth Line. This is new. Obligatory pic for Sam as his monkey communes with another primate or two.
And the coffee? A trendy cafe in Marylebone might be the answer, especially at £4.50 for a flat white. Sadly no - it's lukewarm and bitter. The search continues.
But I'm getting to enjoy the vibe around our accommodation. Strangely, I feel right at home.
Day 2 - the markets
It's the weekend and we wake to blue skies and a sunny forecast. Over breakfast I stream TVNZ1's 6pm news to see what's going to happen today. Perhaps I'll buy a Lotto ticket. I wait for the grandkids to expose the flaw in my reasoning.
On the agenda today is a gentle walk from Primrose Hill along the canal to the bustling Camden Markets. It's a nice day so we'll walk through Regents Park, and find it greener than the rest of London which remains brown and parched. They have a bore, and from there a lovely waterfall that feeds the Japanese garden.
A magic walk along the canal sees us at the markets, and I hopefully see a cafe advertising a flat white. Then the upsell, "Would you like our regular beans, or our special Peruvian beans?". My mind goes back to the bitter coffee I had yesterday. My mind also goes back to kopi luwak coffee we saw in Malaysia, where the best beans are eaten by civets and enhanced by their digestive enzymes, then sold for a fortune in London for the connoisseurs/gullible - you choose! I take the plunge and go for the Peruvian beans at a modest price premium. And bugger me it's the best flat white I've had in London to date.
A Tramp Abroad also goes in search of fine cheeses. Lunch was a selection from a conveyor belt - a Welsh brie, a Cornish gouda, and a Stilton-style Warwickshire blue made from raw milk. All superb. The Camden Markets are an excellent choice for the discerning epicurean.
Our return trip to the city took in Trafalgar Square (we have an appointment with Horatio tomorrow) and Buck House as they were an easy walk on the way back to Paddington, and you can't really say you've been to London without dropping by.
We arrive at Paddington Station to find all Elizabeth Line services have been cancelled due to a fire near the line. Picture this. You're in the middle of a huge city and need to find your way to the outer western suburbs by bus. AI? Useless. Google Transit? Useless. A Jamaican bus driver with dreads to his waist? A gold mine. Note to self - switch phone to Rastafarian mode.
We make it back to Southall by the back roads - a bit later than planned, but definitely more scenic. It's been a long day and Pauline checks the stats on her watch. 15km of walking and 27,000 steps. We'll do an easier day tomorrow.
Day 3 - nautical London
I open my phone to dozens of messages. Oh - of course - it's Sunday 6 September. That means I've taken 70 trips around the sun. What better reason to add a time component to this blog post.
After yesterday's near-half marathon effort we decide to use public transport to do the heavy lifting in getting us to Greenwich. The trains are pretty full, but because I'm an old codger, youngsters are now a bit more inclined to offer me a seat. An African woman with a young daughter in tow is carrying a placard, but we can't quite see the writing. Perhaps there's a protest march on?
We exit the train into a seething mass of humanity, most wearing running gear. Yup, we've hit the Greenwich half-marathon, and multiple placards are showing support for their other halves who are running. No worries, we're heading to the Royal Observatory up the hill, well away from the crowds.
In this day and age we think nothing of glancing at our phones to note the time to the nearest second and a little blue dot shows our position on the planet to within a metre. Not so 400 years ago as ships were setting off to discover new worlds. Determining latitude wasn't too hard, but out of sight of land longitude was a challenge, and mistakes deadly. You've got to admire the scientists and engineers of the time in devising methods as complex as measuring Jupiter's moons to sophisticated chronometers set to Greenwich time.
Reminiscent of today's flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, there were a few less scientific ideas put forward too.
And the time we're here?
The gnomon indicates the correct time. But hang on - we're on British Summer Time (BST), an hour ahead of UTC. Ah - the Observatory uses two different base plates, and they swap them over when daylight savings finishes. Clever!
Pauline's indecision to the fore - should choose the eastern hemisphere or the western? Or have a foot in both camps?
It's my turn to straddle the meridian, and I check my location.
Not exactly zero degrees longitude? What gives? AI to the rescue:
Your phone uses GPS, which defines longitude using a modern global reference frame.
The historic Prime Meridian at Greenwich was defined in 1884 using a telescope — and that old line is about 102 metres west of the modern 0° longitude.
So your phone is correct for GPS, and the painted line is correct for history.
Down the hill to the Maritime Museum to learn more about Lord Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte, KB. Quite simply, he was the nation's saviour, destroying the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and ensuring Britain’s command of the sea for a century. No wonder he's so revered.
There's a Pacific section at the Maritime Museum too, so what was there to learn about our European discoverer, James Cook? Mostly good, but one image caught my eye - a copy of a 2013 work hanging in Sydney's Maritime Museum.
Something tells me this won't be hanging in our new Cook Straight ferries.
A visit to the Cutty Sark will finish off our trip to Greenwich nicely. We fight our way through crowds of runners and supporters trying to find the entrance. It's barricaded off. After a fruitless half hour we discover it's closed due to the event. Bummer!
At least the Elizabeth Line is open, and we're home in plenty of time to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. Pauline's chosen Madhu's just up the road - one of Southall's finest Punjabi restaurants. My ambition of having a curry in Southall has been realised. We choose the banquet because it gives you a little bit of everything. It also gives you twice as much as you can possibly eat. Fortunately they do doggy bags on special request.
Some inspired gifts from Pauline too - a T-shirt from the Camden Markets, and a book of Bletchley Park cryptographic brainteasers. More on Bletchley later. For the sake of modesty, some fine woollen underpants to get me through Ireland aren't on display.
Well - that wraps up my birthday. A Southall having his 70th in Southall is going to be memorable for more reasons than one. It's been a great stay in London.
Tomorrow we pick up our hire car and head north for three weeks of driving around England. Stay tuned!
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