LONDON: Tuesday 28th August – Friday 1st September

Tuesday

How wonderful is London! Oozing with history, culture, gorgeous gardens and terrific food… what’s not to love!

I remember when England had a terrible food reputation. English food was known to be stodgy, tasteless and boring. But no more! The UK in general seems to have got with the program, and are now serving up food worth travelling for 🙂 .

We said goodbye to Bingham at around 8am on Tuesday, catching the train to London from nearby Nottingham. Will and Emma had decided to come to London for a few days as well, so thankfully I didn’t have to say goodbye to them yet. Trains in the UK are outrageously expensive, especially if you book at the last minute, hence Will and Emma caught a different train (direct from Bingham) into London. The trip is less than an hour and a half, but even our prepaid, prebooked tickets were nearly $100 each.

In typical fashion, we started our visit to London with a great meal. After alighting the train at Kings Cross Station (at platform 4, rather than platform 9+3/4, so we didn’t see Harry P) we caught the underground to nearby Covent Garden where we met my dear friend Helen and her mum, Cheryl, who had arrived at Heathrow a couple of hours earlier.

Even though Helen only lives a couple of hundred kilometres from Wagga, when she and I realised we were going to be in London at the same time, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch up and in fact shared a lovely Paddington Airbnb together for the three nights we spent in London.

Helen is also a keen foodie, and our lunch location in Covent Garden was chosen by her. La Goccia was a delightful restaurant that is part of Petersham Nursery, in the middle of an arcade quite close to the Covent Garden market. My pea risotto was excellent!

After checking in (yet another accommodation with lots of stairs!), we unpacked and then let Helen and Cheryl rest after their long flight while Will, Emma and I took the tube across to Camden to see its famous markets and then later had dinner at Kateh, a nearby Michelin recommended Persian Restaurant. The food was scrumptious, especially the slow cooked lamb and the spiced, nutty saffron rice. Helen and her Mum did manage to stay up until dark, enjoying a quick dinner at the local pub while Dave met up with a couple of Army Newspaper friends who are currently based in London.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was action-packed and included a full morning black-cab James Bond tour, a visit to the Natural History Museum, shopping at Harrods and lots and lots of walking. Somewhere amongst all that we did have lunch at the famous Borough Markets, which I now regard as one of my favourite places. The farmers’ market-style stalls, bursting with summer fruit and vegetables and the many (many) street-food style vendors selling all kinds of delicious local food was definitely my kind of place.

Here are some pics of the day (and a couple are from Tuesday):

Wednesday ended with a fabulous French dinner at the local Paddington restaurant ‘Paulette’s’ for the six of us. A great way to end a wonderful Wednesday!

THURSDAY

Another action (and food) packed day!

Thursday started with breakfast on a canal boat with Will and Emma, while Dave caught up with some very old friends from Africa (now living near London). Will, Emma and I spent the morning looking around the central Piccadilly Circus area and its fabulous shops, including the amazing six-story toy shop, Hamley’s. It’s been a while since I took Will to a toy shop, and true to form, I still didn’t let him buy anything 😉

Dave, Helen, Cheryl and I then headed to Kensington Gardens where Helen had booked a walking tour, complete with an afternoon tea at the palace! What an experience this was, the rain holding off long enough for us to see lots of the magnificent, manicured gardens, then starting just as we ordered our tea, once under cover 🙂 . The afternoon tea was one of the better ones I’ve had, with a beautiful assortment of savoury and sweet delights, alongside soft warm scones served with jam and clotted cream 🙂

My watch let me know that Thursday included more than 22,000 steps, with many of those coming after the afternoon tea… in an attempt to try to walk the calories off before dinner 😉

A delicious breakfast, a truly memorable afternoon tea and then to top it off we headed to the County Hall to see Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. What a great way to spend our last evening in London! The show was terrific, with the backdrop of the ex-London-council building adding to the amazing show’s theatre.

FRIDAY

Having managed to catch up on washing in between eating on Thursday, the only thing left to do on Friday morning was to pack and then catch an Uber to Heathrow for our flight to Copenhagen.

Oh yes, and to say goodbye.

Saying goodbye is never easy, and after having an unbelievably wonderful three weeks with Will and Emma it was particularly hard. Dave will see them again next week in Latvia, but I won’t see them until they are back in Australia, which I am hoping won’t be too far away. I nearly cried… but didn’t!

Dave and I headed to Heathrow; Helen and Cheryl to the station for their train to York; and Will and Emma to the bus station to go back to Bingham. The bus takes four hours (rather than about 70 mins on the train), but the trains in that direction were on strike, so there wasn’t a lot of options for them.

See you next time London, I’m definitely planning to come back!