Christmas Day 2010

We didn’t have a white Christmas in London but it was certainly cold enough! Today was to be all about food and family, from a distance via skype!!!

 Breakfast saw us eating croissants with Scottish smoked Salmon and brie from Normandy washed down with Yorkshire tea. It was delicious. Throughout the day we snacked on the chocolate covered fruit and nuts we’d bought at Whiteleys and a selection of fig, date and apricot delights. We chatted to the family via the internet which was interesting, as they were at the other end of their Christmas celebrations! We even worked out how to link up and have a three way conversation on skype so at one stage we were able to talk to Holly at her place Kate from across the road at our home and us in London, my goodness I am becoming so good at this stuff!!!!!

Our Christmas breakfast table

Smoked Scottish salmon and brie from Normandy

Chocolate covered fruit and nuts

dates, apricots and figs.

We decided to forgo lunch as our breakfast was sufficient to carry us through to tea.  We spent a lazy day looking over some of the booklets we’ve bought and getting organised for our trip to Paris on the 27^th.

Michael and Elaine Christmas in our London apartment, was a quiet affair.

the traditional chocolate coins.

There is a good little oven in our room and we were able to prepare a very nice Christmas dinner that consisted of a small Pork crackling joint basted with Pork stock; Parmentier potatoes tumbled in shallot and garlic butter; Christmas root vegies: carrot, onion, parsnip and swede and gravy made from poultry stock flavoured with Oloroso Sherry and Deglet Nour dates. It was very successful, the crackling was a little tough but that’s nothing new for me!! All of this was in prepared packs, we only had to add oil to the root vegies, I didn’t have any so substituted melted margarine, it worked well.

the vegies, ready for the oven

Our christmas dinner

Desert was a scrumptious Christmas pudding with a mix of plump vine fruits, juicy glacé cherries and walnuts laced with brandy, rum and port served with Marks and Spencer thick and creamy custard, made with (quoting from the pack here) luxuriously creamy Channel Island milk and Madagascan vanilla, it was the richest pudding and creamiest custard ever! We topped it with some raspberries to add some Christmas colour.

served with the creamiest custard our pudding was sensational.

A Stroll In The Park

Today we’d planned an expedition to The Victoria and Albert Museum and maybe either the Science Museum or the National History Museum. Michael suggested we could probably walk as they are all only a few blocks the other side of Hyde Park, in South Kensington. The problem with walking there is that the amount of walking you then have to do to see the exhibits is phenomenal. The Victoria and Albert alone has 11 kilometres of display area spread over 6 levels, I would be pooped by the time we got there! Michael plotted our trip on the underground and we set off.

A couple of errands down the street on the way and we would be off. The cold bit into my hips almost as soon as we hit the street and by the time we’d done our errands my hips were telling me there was no way they would carry me up and down the obligatory underground stair system! Now, although it was cold, the sun was actually shining, ever so weakly, but it was there. Seeing as how we hadn’t ventured into Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens yet and they are, after all at the end of our street and across the road, maybe it was time we took a look. I reckoned if my hips gave me too much trouble we were close to home and at least I wouldn’t have to contend with stairs, they hurt the most. Often walking actually helps and today that seemed to be the case.

The Park is immense, there was still snow left on the grass in some areas and on the paths it had turned to ice. The main paths were mostly clear and there were big balls of ice/snow on the grass here and there that looked like the start of snowmen, but gathering by the amount of leaves and debris rolled into them I reckoned it was the product of path clearing.

This fine fellow has just run past one of the giant snowballs that dot the park.

Some of the paths were icy and there was snow stillsnow on the grass in places

Even in winter the park is beautiful and there were a lot of people using the park. Some were tourists but the majority were locals out walking their dogs or exercising or putting down food for the wildlife.

We headed across the park, snapping photos of bare trees and frolicking dogs as we went. Visible from half way across the park was what looked like a highly gilded church spire shining in the sun. As we got closer signs told us that it was, in fact the Albert Memorial. A huge structure dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert. A gilded fence surrounds the central spire. At each corner there is a group of figures sculpted in what looks like marble. As you approach the large golden figure in the centre is easily mistaken for Buddha, but on closer inspection turns out to be Prince Albert. The tall golden and lapis blue ornate cross-topped spire shelter the golden Albert. Directly behind the monument on Kensington/Knightsbridge Road, the domed roof of The Royal Albert Hall is clearly visible. We would have walked through here and out to have a look around but the paths leading to the monument were like an ice rink and we dared go no closer.

There were countless dogs of all shapes and sizes in the park.

From a distance we couldn't make out what the golden statue was, a saint or perhaps Buddha?

The structure certainly looked like a church.

The path near the Albert Memorial was very icy.

Besides we had just made the acquaintance of some of the parks resident squirrels and when I stopped to take photos one cheeky fellow ran straight up to within a metre of where I stood. I thought “What a little poser” I think he had expected a feed, but we had nothing to offer, he stayed around performing for several minutes before scurrying up a tree. Squirrels are smaller than I had expected and ever so sweet. I expected them to be about the same size as a possum, they are less than half as big as our common old garden possums. Although their tails appear bushy, they are actually flat and feathery. They dart around on the ground and go up a tree at lightning speed then transfer from tree to tree via the closest branches.

Our new found friend.

We met a lady with two cute, curious black pugs rugged up against the cold. She was putting down food on the garden beds and the fences, Michael asked if it was for the squirrels and she said it was for the birds that forage for their food in the garden beds. It had been an early and savage start to winter she said and the birds, especially the smaller ones like robins, whose options for food in the frozen ground were very limited, would starve without some help. A little further on another woman was tossing down food to some crows.

Michael saying hello to a couple of friendly pugs.

a local feeding the crows.

Dogs are everywhere and most of the park is off leash, except by the round pond near Kensington Palace. This pond is full of birds: swans, ducks even seagulls and in this weather the centre of the pond is frozen with only about two metres from the shore available to the aquatic birds for swimming. The swans are elegant and glide serenely by with an array of avian escorts in tow. While from the frozen centre birds stand and from the surrounding paths, which are treacherous with ice in this part of the park, the human park users all stand watching the procession float by. It was really slippery here but I was determined to get some photos! We really did have to watch our step and be prepared to ‘skate’ if you started to slide!!!

swans glide by accompanied by assorted water fowl and the seagulls watch from the iced over centre of the Round Pond.

The temperature in the park seems to vary. In some areas it was really very cold while in others it was just cold! It was sort of in pockets where the ground was icier or the cold really grabbed you, like near the Albert Memorial and the Round Pond. We approached the main gates of Kensington Palace with the intention of going in. The signs all told us that parts were closed for major works but parts were still open to the public and there was a display of historical and court ceremonial dress which interested me. The entry was not the front gates but back the way we’d come opposite the pond. We made our way around to that side of the grounds only to find the gates locked and no explanation.

Kensington Palace

Never mind we’d had a nice walk and now felt justified in making for the nearest pub for lunch! We continued along the Broadwalk passed the Princess Dianna Memorial Playground and out onto Bayswater Road, just a stroll from our local pub, The Black Lion.  Lunch was roast beef with horseradish sauce, vegies and Yorkshire pudding, a pint shandy and desert, for me treacle tart, for Michael, Bramley apple pie. It was warm and comfortable in the pub and the walk had done us good, my hips didn’t give me any trouble while we were moving. Once we left the pub my hips started to complain, damn it! We still had some last minute shopping for tomorrows Christmas feast, so I just had to bite the bullet and toughen up. We bought our cheese, salmon and some chocolate nuts and fruit at Whiteleys a shopping centre in Queensway, the next street from Inverness Terrace where we are staying. We made for home collecting desert for tonight’s tea and croissants for our Christmas breakfast on the way.  It had been an enjoyable morning.

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding

Treakle Tart

Bramley Apple Pie

Finding Our Way Around London, episode 2

Michael at the entrance to Churchill's War Rooms

From Westminster Abbey the plan was to head for Churchill’s underground War Rooms and that’s where we headed next, realising that that would put an end to our sightseeing for the day. You really have to be prepared to spend 3 or 4 hours in most of these places as there really is a lot to see!

Prior to and during WWII, the building was the Office of Works and The board of Trade, chosen for its central position and the uncommonly strong structure of the building the basement storage rooms were reinforced with 2 metres of concrete overhead and converted to the Cabinet War rooms. Entered from inside the building during the war, Churchill and his cabinet directed Britain’s war effort from these underground rooms.

Today, the building at street level is HM Treasury, the war rooms are entered along King Charles Street and down Clive Steps, this entry did not exist during the war. Once inside there is a rabbit’s warren of rooms used for specific purposes, all set up now as they were over 70 years ago. The cabinet room where cabinet discussed the war and made decisions that affected the world, there are bedroom/offices for key staff, a map room, a Transatlantic Telephone room Churchill’s bedroom with desk and maps on the wall and easy chairs, spacious by comparison to the other quarters, Clementine Churchill’s room is there too. The kitchen small but very well set up to cater for Churchill’s legendary appetite. You get a real feel for how it must have felt, a little claustrophobic and bristling with the seriousness of the business carried out there.

The Cabinet Room

One of the Bedroom/studies

Chief of Staff's Conference room

Transatlantic Telephone Rooms

There is also education rooms and the Churchill Museum, full of mementoes, tracing his early life and his rise to become the wartime leader of Britain, his fall from favour after the war and his many accomplishments. He wasn’t particularly well educated, but interested in many things, he painted and was a published author winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.

This museum had the same set up with audio guides as Westminster Abby, there was so much to see and photography was allowed in here so I was able to get some shots but subdued lighting and glassed in exhibits meant not all were successful, I took them anyway!!

The museum was brilliantly staged with lots of interactive exhibits to draw the viewer in, I would highly recommend a visit to anyone travelling to London  who has an interest in the history of the war years.

London, Finding our Way Around episode 1

The decision was made, it was time for us to start exploring some of the great attractions that London has to offer. We had to find out how to purchase and use an Oyster Card, the public travel card that offers cheap travel around inner London. Together we decided our route for the day, heavily influenced by yours truly!! Underground to Westminster where we would find Big Ben and the Houses or Parliament, Westminster Abbey is just across the road so that would be our starting point. From there it’s just a hop, step and jump to Churchill’s War Rooms. A 5 – 10 minute walk along Parliament Street, which changes names to become Whitehall, would take us past the Banqueting Hall on the right and the Horse Guards and the Admiralty on the left and finally to Trafalgar Square, St Martin in the Field and The National Gallery. That ought to do us for the day! What an optimist!

First stop was the local post office to rid ourselves of some of our luggage, booklets pamphlets and a few bits and pieces that we didn’t want to lug all over the place. That stop cost several quid and about an hour! Next back the way we’d come to Queensway underground to purchase our Oyster cards and find out how to use them, all this mucking around took us to around 11am and we hadn’t even left our local neighbourhood! Michael had worked out where to change trains and where to get off. We set off confidently through the gates. Validate the Oyster Card, hmm, now that was easy! We were on our way. Change trains at Bond Street and through to Westminster, navigating lifts, the longest steepest escalators I’ve ever seen (keep to the right!) and those bloody stairs, the trip took about 20 minutes. Probably not much different time-wise as walking if we were fitter.

We alighted at Westminster, once outside we stood for a few minutes gawping at Big Ben. It was like walking into a travel brochure, we needed a few minutes to soak it in and absorb where we were and which way to walk, a bit like being country kids in the big city!! There was a living statue at the subway exit, I got Michael to pay a few coins so I could take his photo (it’s bad etiquette to snap without a donation!) the guy grabbed Michael to be in the photo, then motioned to me too!

We stepped out of the station and there was Big Ben!!

The Living Sculpture that posed with each of us for photos then returned to his original  pose!

Across the road to St Margaret’s church and Westminster Abbey. Photos are allowed of the outside only, as you are not permitted to take them inside. As if you’d have time, there is so much to see. As part of the entrance fee you are presented with an audio guide that works a bit like a telephone. You press the numbers on the key pad that correspond to the numbers on the wall and hold the gadget to your ear like a phone to get the corresponding information. This gadget is very easy to use, you can go at your own pace, skip forward or back with ease and start where ever you wish.

St Margaret's Church, stands alongside Westminster Abbey.

Approaching Westminster Abbey, North Transept and Ambulatory

a grotesque that houses spouting over the North Transept doors

 The fan vaulting in Henry VII’s Lady’s Chapel is beyond description, absolutely awe-inspiring. There is a small mirrored table in the centre that allows you to view it without straining your neck. Along the sides of this chapel are two rows of stalls each side with small stalls on which the occupant can perch. This is also where the Most Honourable Order of Bath, an ancient order of knighthood still observed today, is installed. Only 36 members of the order are installed here at any one time, usually a vacancy is created by the death of a sitting Knight. At such time his banner and carved crest, which overhang his stall, are removed and presented to his family. His occupancy however, is marked for all time by an enamelled plate of his crest fixed to the wall of his stall. Lord Nelson’s stall plate, among others’ can be found here. The effigies of Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of York are also here, in an elaborate caged mausoleum.

There are inscriptions on the flag stones underfoot that either commemorate the passing or mark the burial spot of important people from centuries gone by. Some are almost walked smooth and are difficult if not impossible to read. Caskets hundreds of years old hold the remains of royalty that we know from stories and history lessons.

We visited Poet’s corner where the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer, it is said, started the tradition of commemorating men of letters here. There is an elaborate monument to Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas is remembered with a few lines of his poetry. There is a bust of Australian, Adam Lindsay Gordon an on a pillar inscribed on an elaborate cartouche a memorial to poet laureate Sir John Betjeman who died in 1984, I love his verse. There are too many to mention but names that we all know from our school books or our adult preferences.

The Cloisters, Westminster Abbey

The Cloisters

Aged columns, the Cloisters

Outside in the cloisters, where it was freezing, I was once again allowed to run riot with my camera and of course I did. There is, out in the cloisters, a souvenir kiosk and a Coffee Club refreshment stand. We decided hot soup was the order of the day. Spicy squash, mmm, just the thing to warm us up. There is also an Abbey museum and gift shop at one end of the cloisters. We had entered the Abbey through the North Trancept near St Margaret’s Church. The end of the ‘tour’ ushers you from the cloisters back inside to the Nave, where you can look back through the length of the Abbey to the High Alter. The grave to the Unknown Soldier commands the central position and to the side, the Union Jack that covered the coffin of the Unknown soldier hangs from a pillar. The coronation chair is also here, at the moment, behind glass where it is going through a restoration process. This piece was made in1297 and is the oldest piece of furniture in Britain still used for its intended purpose. History really looks you in the face in this hallowed place.

Release from the Abbey is into an outside fenced in area that shepherds you through the Gift Shop. Damn it! We just replaced all the weight we had shed at the post office this morning!!!

An Interesting Bus Trip

Michael needed to get a blood test, so we had to find a hospital. We found out that St Mary’s Hospital was just a short bus trip and headed off. We are a bit bumbling with the English coins, they are more logical than ours but we are unused to them and regularly mix them up. Most people are very patient, especially the bus drivers! The driver today was no exception, one of the passengers however was not amused and she let us know it. “There’s no hurry!” she snapped “Don’t rush yourself.” She said half to herself but certainly loud enough to be heard the length of the bus. She was quite young, mid to late 20’s I reckon, tall, slender and stylishly dressed. Dark skinned, she wore her hair in silver blonde thin draped braids. She may have been a bloke, Michael doesn’t think so but there was something very ‘Les Girls’ about her, in looks and mannerisms. She stood close to the front of the bus and for most of the journey shuffled her parcels and assorted bags on the bag shelf near the front of the bus, she munched on an apple and talked to herself. Until, as the bus was stopped at traffic lights, I got up and asked the driver if the bus stop was actually at St Mary’s Hospital. He nodded but she let me have a mouthful! “Excuse me! Don’t talk to the driver while the bus is in motion! Can’t you read? Look that sign says don’t talk to the driver while the bus is in motion.”                                                                                                                                                                   It was bizarre, she just went on and on.

 I said “The bus was stopped at the traffic lights!”                                                  

 She said. “He was at a cross road, not a bus stop, do you want him to have an accident? It would be your fault!! Read the sign, it’s right there! Don't talk to the driver!                                                                                                      

  I said “Thank you for pointing that out to me.” Thinking that would be an end to it, but she continued on and I just couldn’t resist, “You’d make a good tour guide, you’re so welcoming to strangers!”                                                                                                                                                                      

  “Excuse me?! The sign is right there! Do you want him to have an accident?” she said gesticulating wildly at the sign.                                                                                                                                                        

   “Thank you for pointing it out to me again, I’ll take it on board and it won’t happen again.”                 

   She continued on and on and on. There was a bloke who sat across the aisle and behind us, he was stifling a chuckle. I rolled my eyes at him and he nodded acknowledgment. The bus stopped at a bus stop and passengers started to board, while this weird woman was ‘telling on me’ to the driver!  impeding the embarkation of the incoming passengers as she did. “She, that passenger, was talking to you and you weren’t stopped at a bus stop, there’s a sign, I told her blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!!” Then to me, (as if to say it’s ok for me to talk to him) “He was stopped at the bus stop!!” and made a face at me. “So I see, Thank you for pointing that out.” I said.

She kept on mumbling.  When the bus stopped at St Mary’s we got off through the back door as she was gathering her belongings and making a rude sigh type sound aimed in our direction. We walked past the front of the bus and I called “thank you” to the bus driver, who gave me a wry smile and sort of shrugged his shoulders. I think we were the entertainment for the morning! We read the sign on the wall of the hospital complex and found we had to walk back in the direction we’d just come, which meant passing ‘the bus police,’ who had just got all her bags organised and was heading towards us. I couldn’t help myself, “See ya!”   I thought Michael was going to faint, “You probably could have just ignored her and said nothing you know, that probably would have been a better way to handle it!”                                                                                                                                                   

“Yeah, I know, but I just didn’t want to!!!!” 

 “There was a sign……………”we heard her voice fading off into the distance as she struggled in off in the opposite direction.

London…. Stairs bloody stairs!

I don’t know who decided they were such a good idea. Judging by the age of some of them perhaps it was the Romans, I’m talking about stairs! They are everywhere you turn in London. The buses, for instance, the front lowers to lure the unsuspecting traveller on board, however once aboard the front of the bus returns to its normal height and you are faced with a climb to the top deck unless you can find a seat on the lower deck. One of our local underground rail stations, Queens Way, lulls the unsuspecting traveller into a false sense of security by offering lifts down to the underground platform, they spill the passengers out to a short corridor that rounds a corner to, you guessed it folks, a flight of stairs that take you deeper into the bowels of the underground rail system. At the other end more stairs to reach freedom!

Going Up! Stairs on a double decker bus.

Michal heading downstairs, after getting off the li.ft at our local undergroundstation, Queensway

Stairs up to the Medi Centre at Paddington Station.

Paddington Station, maybe, they all start to look the same!!!

Escalators at Bond Street Underground, where we changed for Westminster.

The building we are staying in has 9 steps up to the front door, once inside there are 4 flights of stairs to take us to our second floor apartment! The first flight is the worst, 19 steps, the next is the easiest with only 6 of the buggers! The next two flights each have 13, but who’s counting? Actually I do, every time I go up! It’s usually at the end of a day out exploring when my hips and lower back are already complaining about the biting cold and all I want to do is flop down in a chair with a nice hot cuppa, but not before the stair challenge!!  I found the laundry in our building, it’s in the basement, another steep flight of stairs to reach this outdoor glorified cupboard they call the laundry.

Michael at the bottom of the first of 4 sets of stairs that lead to our apartment.

The outside steps that lead to our building.

This is the first steps leading to the basement laundry......

and the stairs that take you to the outside laundry, brrrrr, it's cold out there. Puff, puff, puff. Up and down these plus the 4 flights that lead to our apartment a few times, ah that warms you up!!

The galleries and museums all seem to have impressive staircases, things of architectural beauty until you realise that it’s the only way you are going to get inside! We went to the New London Theatre to see War Horse. Our seats were in the dress circle. Thank God, there was an escalator to take us upstairs, to the first level! We still faced 4 or 5 flights of varying heights, none less than eight steps. Oh, I beg your pardon! The very last few steps that took us to our seats numbered only 5!  

Michael at the entrance of Winston Churchill's underground War Rooms. We'd just come downthe stairs on the left of the photo!

The staircase leading out of the War Rooms.

This blog has been sponsored by My Aching Hips, campaigning to change the name London to Stairdon.