Advertisement
Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236
Woke up a few times in the night, particularly when the person in the room above started clog dancing with hippos. All in all though, I did pretty well sleep-wise. The shower's fine, and — get this — the Worst Hairdryer in the World has gone high-tech! It's now only the Second Worst Hairdryer in the World.
I filled up at breakfast. I even had three (half) pieces of toast! Toast that's so cold, butter won't even melt on it. Still, I have a soft spot for toast racks.
After breakfast and a futile attempt to keep my hair from looking like a tumbleweed (Seriously, why does my hair get so frizzy now? It's crazy-making. I blame my genes. (Hi, Mary!)), I took the Tube to Liverpool Street Station and promptly got lost. Asked a polite policemen to direct me to Bishopsgate, and I was on my way to the bus stop. I don't generally take city buses when I'm on vacation because (a) you never know if they're going to turn suddenly and go off in a confusing direction, and (b) I take a flipping bus every day and I'd rather not do that on holiday (and, yes, I realize
that I've signed up for what amounts to a bus tour of Scotland; let's not quibble, shall we?), but I figured the whole bus thing out online several weeks ago. A little girl of about six sat next to me with her pink scooter (scooters seem to be
de rigueur amongst the primary school set) and proceeded to show me her Beanie Baby giraffe, which was purple and black ("Just like your eye makeup," she pointed out; I really need to learn how to use under-eye concealer.) and called Pumpkin, even though his tag said his name was Sky High. She asked if I wanted to play I Spy, but I told her I was getting off in a stop or two. "Okay, just a quick game then," she said. So she spied with her little eye something beginning with L, and I couldn't guess so she had to tell me it was "letters" just as I got off the bus. Only 9:45 and already I was exhausted!
Where I bused to was the Geffrye Museum, which bills itself as a "Museum of the Home." The building it's in was an almshouse built in 1714, then converted to a museum in 1914. There are 11 rooms decorated in various period styles, beginning in the 1600s and going up to the 1990s. The rooms are all living rooms (or parlours or front rooms or whatever you want to call them) as they would have been used and decorated by the "middling" class. It was interesting to see the progression of furnishings; for example, draperies were green for the most part for more than a century, then suddenly the fashion changed to red. Then white festoon drapes were the style, followed by drapes of a color that was more harmonious with the furniture, carpets, and wallpaper. Even wallpaper was preceded by various forms of paneling, while bare floors were often considered better than carpets.
The first seven rooms were all older styles (1600 - late Victorian era), while the final four rooms were all 20th century. My favorite was the 1930s serviced flat. The 1960s flat was pretty convincing, causing someone in the group of French people in front of me to exclaim, "C'est 'Mad Men'!"
Running concurrently in each room is an exhibit about domestic servants. At first, servants were thought of as members of the family, to be raised as one's own
Drawing room of 1830
Beautiful Wedgwood blue.child. Employers were expected to look after a servant's moral health and, of course, to feed, clothe and even educate them (to a point). As the decades and centuries went by, domestic servants became a necessary evil: a maid was to be neither seen nor heard, but her work must be impeccable. Servants were often mistreated, sexually assaulted, and dismissed for very little reason and without a character (reference). "Ah," I thought, "Just like 'Downton Abbey'!" Service eventually became a bit of an embarrassment, to both employers and servants. There was a quote from a woman in the 1920s or '30s, by which she made it very clear that wearing a uniform and having no personal life would be like living in a jail to her.
The Geffrye also has some period herb gardens that weren't quite in bloom yet, but still pleasant. They even have beehives.
I had lunch in the little cafe, which was filled with tiny children (an odd choice for a day out, I would think). None of them was old enough to have an obligatory scooter yet. Serenaded by the screams and cries of the little ones, I had a nice chicken and couscous salad and
Drawing room of 1870
Very Victorian: clutter everywhere and scarcely a bare space a lemonade.
I had planned it out earlier that I would take a bus back into central London (I know! I'm so brave!), and the number 242 came along after a five-minute wait. I sat up top and entertained myself by trying to figure out what language a lady across the aisle was speaking to her friends who were sitting in front of me. I finally realized she was speaking English. I literally hadn't understood a word she said for three or four minutes. And then the bus failed me. For whatever reason, the driver announced that he was terminating at the next stop, which was I don't even know where and definitely far from where I wanted to be. He gave me a transfer, and I waited till another bus came along that appeared to be bound for Holborn, my destination. I'm glad I didn't give up and walk, because the second ride took another eight or nine minutes.
My next stop was at the Cartoon Museum, something I didn't even know existed till I started doing research for this trip. It's a block from the British Museum and not nearly as grand. It has around 200 original cartoons, comic
strips/pages, and caricatures from the likes of Gillray, Cruikshank, Heath Robinson, and Ronald Searle. It made for an entertaining hour, even though nearly all of the comics were British (i.e., completely unfamiliar). The shop was very tempting — especially the stuffed "Simon's Cat" — but I restrained myself.
And it's a good thing I did because then I walked to Lamb's Conduit Street (Don't you just love English street names?) to visit the Persephone Books shop. It's small and cramped, and I never did figure out the organizational system, as the books didn't seem to be shelved by author or by title. In the end, I bought two books by Mollie Panter-Downes and asked the very nice shopgirl to mail them home for me. While I was there, she fielded at least three calls asking for books to be set aside or sent, and the shop had plenty of in-person customers too.
After that little bout of retail therapy I walked over to the Brunswick Centre, a new shopping/living space just down the street from the Russell Square Tube station. I studiously ignored the Starbucks and just window shopped. It was roughly 4:00 now, and I was getting a little hungry. I
had theatre tickets for tonight, so I knew I'd have to eat dinner a little early. I went to La Bardigiana next to the Tube station, but it wasn't going to open till 5:30, so I walked to the British Museum to kill some time. Visited with my favorite lion and browsed in the rooms that used to be the British Library. Ran into Voldemort in the exhibit on Mexico. Avoided many selfies and selfie sticks. Also, if anyone wants to take over France, now's the time to do it. I swear every single French citizen is currently in London.
Around 5:30, I walked back to La Bardigiana. Mom and I ate there a couple of times when we visited London in 1990, and I've always wanted to go back. I don't know why really because it's not like it was the greatest Italian food in the world, but I just have fond memories of it. When I discovered earlier that it was closed for another 90 minutes, I thought about just going back to the hotel and grabbing a sandwich along the way. But I decided not to do that, and I'm glad.
I was the only diner in the restaurant
the entire time I was there (an hour or so). I listened to the barman (who turned out to be part of the family that owns the place) and the waiter converse in Italian. For several seconds I had the impression that they were just listing cheeses. I ordered gnocchi with gorgonzola and walnuts and a Peroni. When the waiter brought it, I asked him how long he had been working there. He laughed and showed me his hairline, which meant he'd been working there forever. I told him I hadn't been there in 26 years, and he admitted he'd only worked there for 15. I enjoyed my gnocchi and beer, and the waiter brought me a dessert menu. They didn't have profiteroles anymore (pity) so I asked for a hazelnut tartufo. They didn't have that either. "You see, signora," said the barman, "Tonight is the last night before we close. Forever." What? No! Awww … I asked the waiter what he would do now. "What do I do now? I relax!" So I had to order lemon gelato. (Yum!) I wished them buona fortuna as I left. I'm glad I didn't decide to put off having dinner there.
After dinner
Voldemort
Or is this technically Nagini? it was time to head to Leicester Square and find the Garrick Theatre, where I had a last-minute, restricted-view ticket for "The Painkiller," a reworking of a French farce starring Welsh comedian Rob Brydon and none other than Sir Kenneth Branagh. When the ticket website said "restricted view," it was not kidding. I could see pretty much everything stage right, but only maybe 20 percent of stage left. Fortunately, most of the action took place either upstage or stage right, so I felt I got my money's worth. The show was hilarious, and I didn't know that Branagh is such a good physical comedian. He spent a large portion of the play being the victim of a ketamine injection, so his speech and legs were all over the place. Both he and Brydon also spent some time in their underpants. But they both nearly had the show stolen out from under them by the actor playing the hotel porter. I wish I hadn't been too cheap to buy a program 'cause I'd like to know his name. It might be Mark Hadfield.
Ninety minutes later I was heading back to the Tube and my hotel. It's far too late for me
to be awake and typing this, but tomorrow's Sunday so I'll get to sleep in a little.
(P.S. This hasn't been proofread.)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.215s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0658s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mary
non-member comment
Why does one need to proofread perfection? And are you channeling Bill Bryson? Or maybe he's been channeling you. By the way, it was Mark Hadfield.