Of Parks and Markets

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It's the weekend!Not that that makes an awful lot of difference in our luxurious lifestyle at present - it just means breakfast starts later, and it's our day to check out of Luxury Towers and trundle our suitcases around the corner to the Bayswater Youth Hostel. No more morning TV news from bed, own bathroom complete with bath (ah! Bliss) and turning up at will to gorge on the breakfast buffet. It's been lovely.

This morning's news is full of Thursday's local governmnt elections, which you may have heard was a real upset for the Labour government - they're still in power, but the Conservatives got more than 40% of the primary vote, and most town halls actually changed hands. Blair was obliged to completely reshuffle his cabinet to appease the masses, but it may not save him. Apparently it's Mr Blair's birthday today, and he's not set to enjoy it.

But to things my readers will actually be interested in - what have we been up to? We woke up far too early yesterday (thankyou jet lag), but took a late start and trekked into town to sort out our bank account. Regent street is a fairly surreal spot - 10-storey, 150-year-old buildings lining the street (some currently swathed in scaffolding), and buses and lorries bumper-to-bumper all along its length, half of them tourist buses. We decided to be cheap, and see if we could walk it (answer: yes), and saw all sorts of spectacular things. The tulips are out, Mum, you'd love it. Brett's been photographing it pretty comprehensively, we've got lovely photos to show you. Hyde Park has a riding track - haven't got quite as far as Hyde Park Corner and Rotten Row, but we did see a few livery carriages (quietly clogging up the traffic) and a kids' riding class (where on earth do you stable a horse in central London?). We've also been to visit another of the London landmarks in a traffic island - Marble Arch, specially provided with it's own pedestrian subway system. Did you know it's situated at the intersection of two old Roman Roads? And that for more than two hundred years the site was previously occupied by the Tyburne Gallows Tree, capital punishment and spectacle blood sport for the age?

From there we went on to walk along Oxford St, and my god there's some shopping opportunities. We walked past Selfridges (don't worry, we went back later), fruit stalls just setting up (and for some reason we salivated over the fruit - it must have been longer than we thought since we had fresh fruit) department and specialty stores without end. This was the "green strip", and if you remember your Monopoly board, you'll know what I mean. We also had a snack in Hanover Square Gardens - Mum, was there an Austen character whose town house was in Hanover Square? I can see it; there's some beautiful old houses, now probably insurance agencies.

Banking successfully carried out (we now have access to an English bank account, with money in it), we wandered back towards Marble Arch via Selfridges (lots of stuff we can't afford and don't need, and a bewildering array of machines that go "bing" - looked at mobile phones, but decided not at this point) and Marks and Spencers across the road, their food hall particularly. Catherine was right - not a lot of fresh fruit, what there is was very expensive (half a pound of hermetically-sealed grapes for 2.50 pounds anyone?) and a ready-made meal section that stretched half-way to Wales, I'm sure. Brett and I grabbed a salad to share for lunch, and a couple of bread rolls. This must be a very common thing to do (ready-made food, I suppose) because there are big buckets of plastic cutlery by the checkouts. Which are nowhere near the exit of the building, and once you've paid for your stuff you have to go back through the shop, with lots of opportunities of picking up but not paying for anything else you might have forgotten. We ate by Marble Arch, in the full sun again - have I mentioned it was another blissfully warm, sunny day? We Aussies must really be sun worshippers, because we were sitting on the next bench to an elderly couple, also eating lunch, who were wrapped in full May uniform of anorak and sensible trousers and skirt / stockings, I gather just because it was May.

We broke out the map and determined that Portobello Rd was just a couple of tube stops away, so we moved on to Notting Hill Gate. (A word on molluscs - For some reason, London has this system called the Oyster card which acts as a universal city transport pass at discounted rates, so you can pay as little as half the standard fare each time, and caps your travel at about 4.90 for the day no matter how much you travel. I'm not sure if this applies to buses as well, but I'll let you know. Brilliant.) We didn't even make it to Portobello Rd, and there's a lot of it before you get anywhere near market territory, before I'd found a shop with Retro (aka Second-hand) clothes that had a coat that would get me through a London winter, I think. It's a rich brown corduroy trench coat, and is much nicer than that description implies. Brett found himself an unused three-quarter length Drizabone (yep, he's an Aussie). It was an expensive afternoon, but hey, we're warm, and we're not likely to do this too often. We made it to the market, too, and nibbled on raspberries and perused jewellery and antiques, fabrics and old maps. We called it a day around 4 and went back to the hotel (on foot, past Kensington Palace, although it's not seen to its best advantage from Bayswater Rd - did you know there's a public car- and bus-park right next door to it?) to rest our weary feet and tot up our budget. I think we walked about 10 kms overall.

There was a knock at the door around 6 and the beaming fairy godmothers Alex and Toni appeared, bestowing impulse buys of tickets to St Martins in the Fields to hear Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi (all four seasons) played by candle-light. We were washed, dressed and at Charing Cross station within the hour. Thank you, thankyou, Toni! It was spectacular, although my body clock started complaining and trying to send me to sleep fairly early through it. Do not be alarmed, I heard every lovely note. We'll have to get back to that part of town. I don't know how long ago St Martin's was actually in the fields, but now it's in Trafalgar Square, which I didn't know before; British Museum, the statue of Nelson, Cleopatra's needle (currently scaffolded up for a face-lift, we presume), a whole lot of stuff I have yet to identify as there let alone visit.

This is a pretty spectacular city, with some lovely things to see and do. And we've barely moved beyond walking distance from the hotel yet. I could tolerate more of this, I think.

This morning we again gorged on the hotel breakfast, then went to a lovely patisserie across the park (again, walking past Kensington Palace, but this time from the front - lovely). I restrained myself to pain chocolat and coffee, but I swear, next time I have something to celebrate (finding a job or a share-house) I'm coming back for eggs Benedict. This was Alex's choice, and looked bloody lovely. We poked about a bit, put our noses in at St Mary and Something church, and ambled back to the hotel via the Round Pond and swan-snapping to complete our re-pack, check out and stow our bags with the Concierge at the hotel. We bade Toni and Alex a fond farewell, although there's talk of a beer festival in Cambridge in three weeks' time - I figure there's still Cambridge, even if there'll be beer. Brett and I went back to Portobello Rd in the continuing search for a Tescos that would sell us a SIM card for the phone we brought - failure, but we bought fruit and veg for dinner, and some goat cheese for lunch (I'm going to enjoy markets) to go with yesterday's bread rolls. I was tired, cranky and sore by this point - you know my body-clock is messed up when it's approaching three o'clock and I haven't eaten yet. We checked in to the youth-hostel, ate, and trekked off to retrieve our baggage, and cart it up 6 floors. Yes, 6 floors. You'll be happy to know there's a baggage room on the third floor. I then crashed for three hours, while Brett went off and did our laundry, lovely man. He's presently flaked out in the bunk above me, and I'd better wake him up and go out to forage for a snack (neither of us is hungry enough for stir-fry tonight after all, so it's keeping for tomorrow) and a phone call to Harry, as it's now 6:15 in the Brisbane morning. Ciao!

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Photos

St Martins in the Fields
This is a better view of the ceiling that I'm guessing is the reason for the awesome sound that makes this such a sucessful venue. (Well that and the skill of the players obviously)

Comments

[Ailsa]

Editorial note
Cleopatra's needle is of course Nelson's Column. And no, it's still not on view from behind the scaffolding.