The Big City 1

With the pound in free-fall against the Euro thanks to a certain event last year, we decided that, rather than have a long weekend in a city in Europe, we would take a break in London. It has been two or three years since we visited the city where we met so the time was right to reacquaint ourselves with the peculiar brand of madness that our capital boasts. Hipsters and homeless, bankers and criminals (possibly a tautology there), the weird and the wonderful - all are there in the great melting pot of the city. Whatever it may be, London is never dull.

Bransonomics
We travelled down by train, Virgin West Coast to be precise. Taking a car down with the congestion charge and exorbitant parking charges makes no economic sense if you can buy rail tickets cheaply. Having booked sufficiently in advance, the cost of the tickets was actually pretty reasonable. Now, don't get me wrong, economy class is not at all bad, but, if there is the option to upgrade for a small fee, we usually take it: there is more room to spread out a bit and get comfortable. No info on upgrading had been given when we bought the tickets and nothing was said on the train. When we got off, we saw that there were four first class carriages: four whole carriages for a 10:35 train, rather later than the average business user (the main consumers of first class seats) would be taking the train to London. On the evidence, it seemed likely that the majority of those seats had been empty. Now, am I wrong in thinking that Sir Richard is always portrayed as a canny businessman, not one to be missing out on making a bob or two wherever possible? Running practically empty carriages seems to be a trick being missed.

Faulty sat-nav (user)
We knew that the hotel was only a short walk from Euston, but we decided to rely on maps on the phone to get us there. Off we set following the little blue dot as we closed in on our accommodation. Finally, we arrived at our destination road...which had a completely different name to the road on which our hotel stood! That was when I realised that I had left out a crucial letter in the postcode entered into the nav: being all provincial these days, we are used to postcodes in the format 'LLN NLL' such as 'BL9 9BL'. I had forgotten that, London being such a large area, postcodes in the central area take the format 'LLNL NLL' and I had missed out that extra letter in the first part. Luckily, we had not gone too far out of our way, but it really is a bit dispiriting having to retrace one's steps while realising that, at one point, the door to you hotel was about ten yards away when you walked right past it!

When we checked in, the receptionist told us that our room was on the third floor, but there was no lift. On account of our extremely advanced years, he then asked if we wished that he might find a room on another floor i.e. closer to the ground. "No, no, no!" we chorused, "We'll be absolutely fine!". God, how things come back to bite one firmly on the bum...

Day 1: culture and pain
After offloading the bags, we decided to head out for something to eat. London sometimes feels like it is crammed wall-to-wall with places to eat, so we knew there would be plenty of places nearby (hell, we'd walked past some of them twice just an hour before). Amazingly, at 2:15pm, nearly every cafe in the area was heaving with not a free table in sight. After the third place we tried turned out to be full, I started wondering if anyone ever went back to work after lunch. Certainly in this area, no one seemed arsed that lunch hour had finished a while ago. Eventually, we found a table at a place that did felafel and shawarma and other middle eastern goodies. The food was great and, as a bonus, it was both filling and cheap. Appetite sated, we headed off to the British Museum. I think we might have visited the BM last time we were down in The Smoke, but the place is so stuffed with fascinating things that it can only ever be consumed in small chunks. Even a full day from doors open to shutting up shop would only scratch at the surface, so we had to be selective about where we headed. The opening gallery provided a great set of exhibits on the theme of similarities in concerns and beliefs, especially in relation to health, life and death and the way that they are handled in different cultures. The centre of the room was taken up by an exhibit called 'Cradle to Grave', a meditation on life, health and death told in medication and family photographs. It was by turns, fascinating, moving and beautiful. We also visited an exhibition on art and resistance in South Africa and had a look in on the Sutton Hoo treasures and Lewis chessmen. By this time, our dogs were decidedly barking and so we trudged back to the hotel via a supermarket. Arriving back at the hotel with full shopping bags (it was an apartment hotel, so we could self-cater breakfast, plus, of course, we needed gin and wine), the poor decision on accepting a room at the top of the building became apparent. Every step was painful in the extreme. Being able to sit down never felt better!

Day 2: family and beer
As we were due to meet my mum and Derek, her husband, at Victoria Station at midday and then go for some lunch, we just had some pain aux raisons and coffee - very French (except, without Gauloises...). When we arrived at Victoria, I found I had had a voicemail from mum. Listening to it, I could hear her and Derek discussing how to leave a voicemail over a period of a minute or so before...nothing. She hadn't actually left any clue as to what the call was about! As we had a bit of time before their train was due in, we went up to road to get some money out. As we approached the Lloyds Bank nearest to the station, we could see the flashing blue lights of police cars and ambulances on the corner. A middle-aged man, maybe my age, was on his back on the pavement, an oxygen mask covering his face and an auto-CPR machine pumping hard on his chest, a knot of ambulance staff and coppers surrounding him body. Five minutes later when we returned, the machine was still pumping. That night, I searched local news websites to see if anything had been reported, to find out if he had made it. I found nothing, and I'd like to think that was because he had eventually started breathing for himself and was now in hospital on the way to recovery. Small stories of death are reported: those that recover do not generate column inches.

I rang mum to ask that, as we were making our way back to the station, if they got there before we did, could she remain close to the entrance to the platform on which the train arrived as the station was really busy and the chance of missing them was quite high. She promised that would do that. We waited at the entrance to platforms 13 and 14, the designated ones for the Gatwick Express, the service they had caught. When it got to 12:15 with no sign of them, I rang again. "Yes, we are under the clock near the departures and arrivals board" came the answer i.e. nowhere near the entrance to the platform as requested. Having finally collected them, we set off for some food. Lunch over, we asked what they fancied doing while they were in London. We hadn't planned too rigid a day as Derek has on and off days as far as mobility goes and he had already shown some signs of being in pain. We decided we would try to get a ride on the London Eye. When we got there, we realised how deluded that idea was. The queues for tickets were huge and the queue to get on the damn thing was as bad. It wasn't going to happen. Instead, we headed down the south side of the Thames to the South Bank Centre for a coffee and a mooch. Not quite the same as the Eye, but it allowed a bit more time with mum I guess.

Having seen mum and Derek onto their train home, we decided to go to one of the pubs that we had considered taking them to for lunch. We had decided against it on the grounds that they only do burgers (albeit very good burgers apparently) but it did boast that it had the largest selection of craft beers in London. Cask in Pimlico turned out to be a wonderful find (thanks E!) with ten cask ales, 15 keg lines and 300 bottled ales. Needless to say, we only scratched the surface of the goodies on offer, but I enjoyed every ale I tried, even the £7.90 pint (Broken Dream breakfast stout by Siren)! I made a note to myself that a return visit was required. As it happened, the return happened sooner than I had anticipated.