A Quick Weekend in London - Sunday

If you have read any of my previous posts, not in this current blog but other ones, you will know that a trip to London is not considered complete by my husband unless we visit Horse Guards!  He almost gave that up this time, but then discovered that their Changing of the Guard on Sundays starts at 9:30, which is an hour earlier than other days. This is not the Changing of the Guard most people are familiar with - that one is at Buckingham Palace on certain days and is exceptionally crowded.  I have only been to it once, in the '60s and the crowd against the fence is one of my strongest memories of that event.  I can only imagine how it must be now with so many more people travelling!

Due to the early start, we decided to postpone breakfast and jump on an early train to get there to ensure a good location.  Silly! There were virtually no people there at that hour!

After leaving the station, we walked in the direction of Horse Guards and stumbled upon a new tv series being filmed! In fact, this will be the first episode of "Pennyworth"!

I looked up who he was and, apparently, this is sort of a prequel to Batman. Pennyworth was his butler....who knows if that is what this is about or just coincidence? We will have to wait until next year to see since they don't plan to finish filming until March!

This road had to be watered down by a tanker truck because it was too dry for what the producers wanted!  That tickled me, imagine being too dry in London!  It was still a bit damp when we returned on the other side and looked at what this street looks like normally.  I am not sure if traffic is normally permitted here...the end we are on is a dead end.  Next time in London, I will have a peak at what this street normally looks like!

We got to Horse Guards in plenty of time and walked down the Mall to see where would be a good spot to watch the Guards turn the corner from Buckingham Palace and begin their march to the parade grounds.  I know I tease Alan quite a bit about his obsession with this event, but it was me that tried to keep up with them as they trotted down the mall and arrived at the parade grounds!  Oh well, lost that street cred!

I do wish the police car and people in the high vis jackets could keep a distance to allow nicer photos though.

After running alongside the horses, and then standing and waiting for the officers to have their conversation about changeover (which we have seen many times), time just went on and on.  Eventually, Alan found out they stand and look at each other for 30 minutes before changing! I guess we have been lucky in the past and just seen that part.  We had already waited 15 minutes and had other things to do before meeting our son for the rest of the day.  So we gave up!

Another thing Alan really enjoys is going to St James Park after Horse Guards to photograph the birds there.  This is not my thing so I usually find myself a coffee and a nice bench and wait for him, reading a book if I remember to bring one. Not this time though.  This time, I asked to go there! Why you might ask.... because of a photo competition in our local camera club that has a section on Natural World.

This is not a thing I do and I realised nothing I had was going to work.  So it was my request to do this!  And I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge!

Then we finally permitted ourselves to find something to eat!  We barely made it in time for the pastry and coffee special offer and were limited in our choice but it was worth the wait!

Headed back to meet our son and decided to try to visit one of the villages in my book. This one was Queen's Park and is relatively close to where we were staying.  We really didn't do much more there than visit the Farmer's Market since, again, we were hungry!  No real lunch, but my son bought a lovely black olive loaf which we ate while we walked and then he got us coffee as we sat down for a while.  Busy yesterday and today's morning were catching up with me and I knew we had plans that evening. So that was it for Queen's Park, which means I need to go back and do it right!  What a shame!!!

That evening, we headed off to another village in the book, but only coincidentally since we had planned on going there anyway!  This is Camden Passage, where the Angel Comedy Club is.  I have been told it is the number one stand up comedy club in London and I believe it!  Our son had taken his sister and me there one time and I was delighted Alan was going to see this.

Technically, this is really a street not even a neighbourhood, but it is pretty and interesting to visit. The restaurants all look amazing but I have only experienced two.  A fabulous Japanese one where we got the best sushi - on my first visit there. And the best Italian one this time.  Dilemma - what do I do next time?  Try another new one or return for a wonderful dinner at La Divina?

We had a great night at Angel Comedy Club, which is at the Camden Head Pub. This pub is also well worth a visit since it is just so beautiful and Victorian!  But that is not what we came for....The comedy club is upstairs and easy to miss if you don't know about it.  There is also no entry fee, but if you attend, they do request donations at the end because they do have expenses.  I can't describe it as well as it should be described. Suffice it to say, the talent there is tremendous and you just might see someone starting out in what will become a great career!

And so ends another trip to London. Can't wait for the next time.

A Quick Weekend in London - Saturday

Greenwich and Cutty Sark

We are very fortunate to "have" to go to London every so often to see our son.  I believe we don't go often enough - but maybe then it wouldn't feel like such a great adventure!

For the past 3 or 4 trips, we have stayed at a very interesting hotel called the Black Lion.  The rooms are fairly basic and there are quite a few stairs you have to deal with, but the cost of the rooms is so much less than you would expect to find in London.  However, after this last time, we have decided to up our game for the next visit and try a new place to stay.

After travelling over 5 hours on two trains, we arrived in London just after 6 and were able to meet our son for dinner at Spicy Basil - this is a required meal for us any time we are in the area.  We all just got Pad Thai and there are no pictures of this.  Just believe me when I say, it is a great meal!

Having 2 full days in London is unusual for us. We have mainly just come for weekends and this was stretched out to 3 nights - makes all the difference!  Saturday morning ended up being quite relaxed. We found breakfast at McDonald's since my husband enjoys that. Then met our son to head down to Grey's of Westminster so I could replace a lens for my husband's camera since I did break his!  Thankfully, he found a secondhand one that appeared to be a good enough replacement.

Years ago, when I realised we would be visiting London regularly, I purchased an interesting book called "London's Villages" by Zena Alkayat.  I would describe these more as neighbourhoods, but whatever they are called, it is fun to use it as a guide to see different parts of this area.  Grey's of Westminster is actually located in what this book would describe as Lower Belgravia in central London.  Since this is something we regularly do, I had not thought of referring to the Villages book to see if this is mentioned. Now that I am home and reviewing the book, I realise I will have to return to this area, not just for the camera shop, but to see things such as a bronze statue commemorating the brief time Mozart lived in the area!

After this quick visit to Grey's we headed off to Greenwich, with a minor detour to Baker Street since we have seen fabulous photos of that station recently.  Here is my attempt at this -

Greenwich had not been in our plans for the weekend at all, but we saw a leaflet describing the cable car, O2 Arena, Meridian itself, Observatory and the Queen's House (not our current Queen though) and we thought it would be fun to do something completely different.  Turned out we saw none of the above but we had a lovely few hours there anyway.  (Next time, we will get off at North Greenwich and see those!) I believe you really need to factor in an entire day to do this location right.

Our first stop was the Greenwich Market, which we had to hurry to since it was getting late in the day. We hurried through the market to get to the food area and buy our lunches.  There were so many to choose from that the three of us separated to get our own.

I got a Sicilian Rice Ball, Alan got roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and I don't remember what our son got... but he liked the look of my rice ball, he went back to get one after he finished the first part of his lunch. We did all this standing up since there was no place to sit at the time we needed to.  This is quite often the way we travel though. Too many things to see and do to worry about sitting down formally!

After our delicious lunch, we headed to see the Cutty Sark. It is a stunning looking ship and so nice to see it on such a beautiful day.  The area was buzzing with visitors and I expect it is like that all the time. There are so many places to eat and sit and watch the world go by, maybe one day we will factor that sort of thing in. Even my discovery of Starbucks virtually across the street from the Cutty Sark did not cause us to sit down.  I rarely get their coffee but always check in a new area in case they have a mug in the style I collect, the "you are here" range - and they did! So now I have an England one to add to my collection.  We did get coffee at a stand outside the Cutty Sark, which was more fun than buying something predictable and franchised!

As we walked through Greenwich Park, we happened to pass the Maritime Museum and this ship in a bottle was so pretty against the lovely sky -





We got near the hill to the Observatory and Meridian Line, but I had injured my foot a few weeks earlier and had walked too much already, so I called time on this trip and we headed back to our hotel.  But what a fabulous day we had!

"No amount of money or success can take the place of time spent with your family."  

unknown - found on Wiseoldsayings.com