The Streets of London

Elaine recently got an invite to a reunion lunch with Boots staff that she used to work with in Croydon twenty-odd years ago. The meal was to happen on a Sunday in central London and originally she had thought about commuting there and back on the same day, something she had done for the first of these reunions around a year ago. However, after a bit of research into hotel and train costs (need to be a little more parsimonious as a pensioner!), we decided to make a weekend of it and both travel down on Saturday morning, stay overnight and return on Sunday evening. We booked a hotel and a table at a restaurant for Saturday night with the intention that we could get around and see a few things on Saturday and Sunday morning, after which Elaine could go to her reunion meal and I could...well, do whatever for a few hours.

Travelling down was great: the 8:35 train from Piccadilly is a good option - not too early, yet early enough to leave most of Saturday available to sightsee/shop/watch the world go by. After dropping off the bags at the hotel, we set off to do touristy stuff. However, such touristy stuff normally happens in central London or the West End. This time, we were heading east and trying out Docklands and the area around the O2.

There is still much building and remodelling going on in Docklands. Certainly, the chill wind of austerity seems to be blowing rather warmer over this part of London. After traveling on the Docklands Light Railway (a first for us) to Canary Wharf and negotiating a building site, we managed to work our way down amongst the offices and shops that fill the area. There is definitely another world going on down in London! We came a cross a large subterranean shopping mall which was populated, in the main, by very upmarket brands. In fact, when I saw a branch of River Island I thought it seemed completely out of place, a retail pony amongst a paddock full of sleek, expensive thoroughbreds. As Elaine noted, the branch of Boots (hey, even bankers need cold remedies and prescriptions dispensed) carried franchises for Chanel and Clarins, something that a Boots of this size would never normally be granted. There was definitely money down here beneath the London streets.

Returning to the street level, we took a river taxi to North Greenwich, site of the O2. “River taxi” makes it sound quaint - a small boat that ambles politely along the Thames perhaps? No, this is a huge catamaran that seats more than 100 passengers and it provides a fabulously different way of looking at the capital. The ticket we had bought also included a ‘flight’ on the Emirates Airline, a cablecar across the Thames. After a nostalgic look round the O2 site (we were last there 15 years ago when it was still the Milennium Dome), we walked across to the the cablecar station. The ride across is fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to all visitors to London. At to top of the ‘flight’, you are 93 meters above the river and the view is wonderful (especially with the great weather that we had that day). Again, it gives a different view of a city that you think you know well. We rounded off the flight with a couple of beers on a converted lighter boat moored on one of the old docks where we watched water skiers practice using a pulley system rather than the traditional speedboat to drag them back and forth along the dock.

That evening, we explored Tower Bridge and environs (wow! I’d forgotten how many overseas visitors London gets - and quite how many are from Italy!) before heading to a pub for a preprandial libation in a very trendy pub. It is a strange fact of getting older. I recall being in a hotel in the Lake District on the day before Diana’s funeral in 1997 and looking around the dining room, realising that we were the youngest couple there by some way. Now, in that pub near to Tower Bridge, we were probably the oldest couple by 15-20 years! Sic transit gloria mundi - hey ho...

The meal that evening was a game of two halves: good cocktails (when they got them right), good food (when they got it right) and great customer service (which we fully tested!). The cocktails: Elaine’s arrived as ordered and was delish. I had ordered a London Gin Martini - basically a classic martini made with London dry gin. What I received was, in fact, just a glass of vermouth. And to make matters worse, not even a dry vermouth! I eventually managed to point this out to the waiter (“You have a martini - this is not what you ordered?” “No - a martini has gin in it, lots of gin”) and my martini, as ordered, duly arrived albeit as I was part-way through the starter. When the mains were brought, mine was fine but Elaine’s consisted of a medium steak (she’d ordered rare) and cold Lyonnaise potatoes. Again, to give them their due, the meal was taken away and replaced with a perfectly cooked version and the manager agreed to comp the wine. When the bill came, however, it featured not only the supposedly free wine but also a completely extraneous pint of lager! Things were not going well. The mistake was pointed out (we were starting to feel bad about calling the waiter over) and the bill revised accordingly. Just as we were getting ready to settle the bill, the second-in-command of the front of house came across with a rather nice bottle of wine, poured two very decent measures and gave them to us with his apologies for the problems we had experienced. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pull some kind of victory from the jaws of a customer service defeat: quickly correct your mistakes and be genuine in your apologies - it goes a mighty long way. Anyhow, I’d like to think the two very large parties the restaurant was dealing with (it was packed) went some way to explaining the problems we encountered and I would still reccommend the Perkin Reveller to anyone staying in the Tower Bridge area.

On Sunday, not wanting to pay £20 (!!!) for the hotel’s version of a full English, we headed to Dishoom in Covent Garden, an eaterie modelled on a Bombay cafe. There were so many intriguing things on the menu for breakfast and I wanted to try them all. What we had was excellent and, judging by the numbers eating there, it is popular because the food is good and reasonably-priced. We then found that the restaurant where Elaine was attend the reunion was three doors down from Dishoom! So, with time to kill, we wandered around. Went to Covent Garden to see the street performers (only two automatons), check if any of the shops that we used to know are still there (one or two are) and generally waste some time. We also had a look around Seven Dials and the streets that radiate from it (still love that area!). Eventually, I left Elaine at her reunion and I headed to sit in a small square in Neal’s Yard to read whilst soaking up the sun. It felt really relaxing - chilling amongst the crowds, a world rushing by as I remained motionless.

I had promised to take a selfie outside the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street so, off I set. I believe that, as part of the ongoing social cleansing of London which is removing all traces of the ‘true’ capital, Denmark Street is to be remodelled so it was probably a good time to see it before it goes the same way as the rest of Soho. Having walked up and down the street a couple of times (it’s not that long), I consulted t’internet as to where the 12 Bar is on Denmark Street only to find that, pre-empting the changes, it has moved to Harrow Road, so no selfie. However, I was able to drool all over the fabulous guitars in the windows all along that street! I didn’t dare enter any of the shops - I might not have been able to restrain my guitar-buying fetish (altough the prices were certainly a buzzkill - £22 grand for a ’67 Strat, anyone?)

17:37 train back from Euston - again, a good time as we were back home for half eight and we had had the whole of Sunday to do stuff. In all, a ‘proper’ two days, rather than the day-plus-a-bit that a weekend trip can sometimes yield. We know we can get the train tickets cheaper in future and we could also stay somewhere cheaper in town so we are thinking that, perhaps, trips to London might be a more regular thing and not just saved for when a Boots reunion is called!