Emma's Best Day, Ever

Some time ago, I scored a copy of the Illustrated Pepys, by Robert Latham (it was a JI cast-off when they shed books in Christchurch). I've had great fun reading Sam's diary over the last few months. He was an interesting character who recorded his life and thoughts solely for himself - as he wasn't writing to please others, and never expected his diary to take on the very public life that it has, I don't feel inclined to judge him for his peccadilloes. Anyway, yesterday, we did the first part of a "Pepys Walk" through the east City of London. See the photos here as you read.

Spot the bobby

After breakfast at Carluccio's, we tubed to the start of our walk (via a brief stop at Oxford Circus to discover that Liberty doesn't open until 10:00 am). First up, George and I climbed the Monument (a memorial to the great Fire in 1666) - all 311 steps of it - then we all went in search of the church St Magnus the Martyr, where I managed to find the London bobby on the model of Old London Bridge.

Next on the walk was No. 13 Philpot Lane. It was fenced off for health and safety and the street was filled with blokes in hard hats, so we were struggling to locate the "smallest public sculpture in London", of two brown mice nibbling a piece of cheese. One of the workers (the elder of the two who spoke to us) wanted to know what we were looking for, so I told him the story. During construction of the building for spice merchants in 1862, they were apparently plagued by mice, so the builders added the little sculpture. He got quite interested, and wanted to let us inside the cordon but another (younger) chap wasn't 'aving a bar of it. Anyway, our new friend spotted  the sculpture first and pointed it out to us, and was rather tickled I think, because he had discovered something from us. Simple pleasures for all concerned!

St Dunstan's - the ruined church

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the walk, although I definitely recommend visiting St Dunstan's in the East, which is the most gorgeous garden. Ever. We also visited All Hallows and the garden in Seething Lane. The last place I wanted to visit was St Olave's, where Mr and Mrs Pepys are buried, but it was bolted firmly shut, so that was that. We didn't feel very tempted to visit the Tower, which was possibly silly, but that can be a treat in store for another day. Or trip.

Incomparable Liberty

We tubed to Oxford Circus and parted company - ironically the lads went in search of shoes, although I'm the one that actually bought some. I really wanted freedom at Liberty's, pun intended. I spent a goodly amount of time there, wishing my mother was with me. I had lunch and then continued to wander, dazzled by the products but even more so by the building. Then I succumbed to the lure of a pair of Liberty "Strawberry Thief" Doc Martens. With both guilt and delight writ large on my face, I left Liberty to find that meanwhile the rain had started. I headed off with my purple parcels to Hanover Square, where I plodded around damply looking for Brook Street. Eventually I found it, but I walked straight past the Handel Museum, which is extremely missable, to Claridges and back again. The doorman at Claridges said as I passed the second time "I reckon I saw your twin a few minutes ago!". Ha ha, Cockney humour...

I finally found my way into the museum and spent a marvellous hour or so there. The house has very squeaky floors and wonky everything - I didn't feel entirely safe! But there's nothing wrong with a bit of adrenaline. It was incredible to be standing in Handel's composing room (where he wrote the Messiah) and bedroom. There were lots of paintings of his contemporaries, and several very old instruments too.Well worth the 6 quid, and another highlight in an already quite brightly lit day. On my way out, I asked the lovely chap at the desk where to find the nearest Tube station. I then followed his very clear instructions to the Bond Street station, went down the escalator, and then suddenly remembered this is the one we normally get out at - being the nearest station to our hotel, so there really wasn't much left to do but come back up the escalator and hope no-one was watching me blush!

After the day I've described, by the time we were all back at our room, you will understand when I say we were more than ready for a cup of tea and a lie-down. The only plans we had were very gentle ones, involving a simple assembled meal (Chicken Tonight - sorry Claudia) and a lot of lolling around.

While I was throwing said meal together, Ian got a text from cousin Katie saying that cousin James had tickets for us to the Paralympics opening ceremony! "We must GO!" said I, so we did. We gobbled down dinner and leapt on the Tube, meeting cousin James at Canary Wharf, then dashing back onto the Tube to Stratford. What an amazing experience. Some of our photos are here. George took so many that I have spent most of this evening culling them back. It seemed a little surreal to be seeing the Queen and fireworks and listening to Handel on a day when I had been visiting the Handel museum.

I am just very sorry that we left before Ian Dury's "Spasticus Autisticus" was performed - but we desperately wanted to beat the crowds to the Tube home. The fact that this music was chosen makes me very happy - how delighted Ian would have been - he was a Londoner, a punk, and a poet and "normal land" has taken a long time to hear his message. And as for the evening in general, "there ain't 'arf been some clever bastards" - simply unforgettable.

What a day!

The Times in London

Shaw's Corner

Goodness me, how time is flying by! I need to fast forward this blog, since I haven't been doing daily updates. On Sunday, EGI took the Tring Football to Verulanium Park and kicked it round. We were too early to view the Roman floor, but we walked and walked and ended up at the Courtyard cafe on George Street for lunch. In the afternoon, E went on an expedition with J and I to Shaw's Corner where we toured through GB's house and garden. We also visited the church and pub at Ayot St Laurence. Lovely! See the pics...

On Monday, J dropped EGI at the St Albans railway station with Immi's clear instructions to get off at Farringdon and take the Circle line to Piccadilly, then change to the Bakerloo line etc etc. Only problem was that we didn't know to press the button to open the train door at Farringdon, so on we were swept to whatever the next station is... Anyway, it wasn't too much of a drama - we made it to our hotel in the end, dropped our bags, and headed off in search of Sights. We are staying just off Baker St, and we wandered, all wide-eyed and innocent, down past Selfridges (I've labelled this "unknown building" in the photos, and am too lazy to change it) to Grosvenor Square.

By then I was starting to grizzle because I hate walking so much, so we decided to tackle the Boris Bikes. Three pounds for EGI for 24 hours, with no further charges if you dock your bike and take another within 30 minutes. We were a bit lucky because it was a bank 'oliday so there wasn't much traffic. The Boris Bikes are BRILLIANT! We zoomed off to Buckingham Palace, then stopped for a drink, then treddlied off to Westminster. I managed to make the lads wait while I nipped round the stunning Cathedral. Amazing how many RCs were in there actually praying or being reflective or whatever, not that I'm making comparisons with the C of E outfits, no certainly not.

Then we crossed the Thames at Vauxhall and I made the lads wait while touring the garden museum at Lambeth. I loved the 1719 plaque to the memory of Bryan Turbervile who "bequeath[ed]... a hundred pounds for ever to be laid out...for the putting out yearly two poor boys apprentices". There are a few conditions attached, including "none to be put to chimney-sweepers watermen or fishermen and no Roman Catholic to enjoy any benefit thereof".

After threading our way through the crowds near the London Eye we tubed back home and checked in to our little bedsit, where we are sharing a room. George has the most uncomfortable bed but we are doing our best to knacker him each day so he sleeps anyway.

On Tuesday, I didn't take many photos because my camera wasn't fully charged. We had a great day which included more Boris Bikes (although we had our troubles getting three, so Ian did a lot more walking than us - we biked slowly and he walked fast). We spent a lot of time in Hyde Park and Kensington, where GI had a second look at the Science and Natural History Museums while E went to the V&A and managed to scratch the surface. We lunched at L'Opera on Brompton Road and then spent a happy hour in Harrods, where we all discovered how the other 1% lives. That evening George stayed in - he longed for a little peace, a Tescos pizza, and time continuing his work learning C. So Ian and I scrubbed up slightly and walked to St Christopher's Place where we found a pleasant French bistro. Then we strolled through the Tuesday nightlife on Oxford Street, and wended our weary way home.

Coda: we had a little trouble operating the washing machine/dryer that evening, so when the fire alarm went off at 11:45 pm, waking the entire building, I dazedly thought it was my fault and ran around panicking and trying to figure out what to turn off. Someone finally made the siren stop, whereupon we all returned to our beds - Ian thinks it was probably set off by our hosts, smoking on the balcony...

A football? Try Tring!

Astute readers may remember that a certain person identified the need for a football in an earlier episode. Thus and therefore, on Saturday morning, after a coffee in town and the purchasing of some sublime olives from a local stallholder (the oily juice of which is being spread over Jeremy's laptop keyboard right now), there was a fruitless scouring of the St Albans shops for a football. Why cannot one buy a soccer ball in St A?

Later, after the usual milling around that always precedes expeditions involving more than one person, EGI and J set off for Waddesdon Manor, former home of Ferdinand de Rothschild. George was on a fact-finding mission, as he has been reading up about the Rothschilds; Ian and I were up for an adventure; and Jeremy was being a very gracious host. Unfortunately Immi wasn't feeling quite the thing, so she stayed home.

As we drove through the very pretty village of Tring en route to Waddeson, a terribly exciting thing happened. I saw a soccer ball in the window of a shop on the main street. We screamed to a halt and piled out, and sure enough the shop sold balls and there was a satisfactory result. Score! And on we went to Waddeson. Cop a load of this:

We descended through the woodland playground (5 stars, I wish I were a kid) to the Stables where we lunched and then visited the exhibition, which included works by Damien Hirst and Ai Wei Wei. See the Little Piggy here...

The front yard

Then we trudged back up to the house and admired the delightful prospect from the front before getting our free tickets (thanks NZHPT) to the inside. Words simply cannot describe the place. Or at least mine can't. I don't think the wealth of the Rothschilds can readily be understood by mere mortals. Unlike the landed gentry who have acquired treasures in various ways over the centuries, and also lost them, the family R had the fortune and the taste to set out and acquire treasures in a very deliberate way, and have had the good sense to keep 'em intact.

So... I don't think I can ever explain how it felt when, after exploring 45 rooms filled with the ultimate in prized objets, I was accosted by a very genteel volunteer who asked me if I would like to buy a raffle ticket. I'm still not sure if the funds being garnered by this enterprise are intended to pay the stamps for National Heritage in 2013 or purchase another Canaletto.

After the shock of the fundraising we went to the picturesque aviary and then shimmied back to the car for water and a sit-down. The village that Rothschild built is terribly cute, but for me the concept of building designer villages does grate a little. We headed off with the help of the Galaxy Note to Wing, where we visited the very special (yes, another very special) church of All Saints. I am such a sucker for very special Saxon churches.

I have to confess that by the time we arrived at the Ivanhoe Beacon I was dying for a pee and a vino. We looked at the lovely view, spared a brief thought for the Neolithic trudgers along the Ridgeway, and then scrambled back into the car and headed for home.

Back at B-'Ave (behave!!) we had another fab evening with sumptuous food and wine and intelligent company. Time is flitting by! Day 4 approacheth!

When you're jetlagged, go to Bedfordshire

So far, I have to say that we are having a dream trip, with minimal jetlag. Can I just take a second to give a hearty plug to the pedicure providers in the transit lounge at Changi? Their English was sketchy, and the DVD drama with real lions with dubbed-over voices was wrong in so many ways - but when you've been up for 20 hours and have the prospect of a 14 hour flight to go, the foot rub is bliss and the midnight-blue toenails very cheering. We all slept most of the second leg.

Jeremy picked us up at Heathrow and after second breakfast he departed for work. We (EGI - Emma, George, Ian) toddled into St Albans and prowled the high street in search of coffee and sights. The Boot is still there - anything with a roof that wonky at home would have been bowled for sure but England has no particular reason to worry about tottering brick parapets and undulating foundations.

Then we wandered on down through the heat to Verulam park, where George found all the open spaces overwhelmingly in need of a football. After a brief exploration, we met up with Jeremy again outside St Mike's and off we all went along classic English country lanes to the Holly Bush for a beaut lunch. Then J dropped us at Traffic where they foisted an A3 (4 door) Audi on us - it's a diesel that stalls in second if the revs are too low. This made for: a) fun at all the roundabouts on the way home, and b) a grumpy husband. However after a few turns about the Waitrose carpark Ian had fought the beast and established some kind of loose truce, while I bought the makings of this and that - Welsh lamb for tea (fairly bland, I thought) - but Ian crashed early and missed it.

Friday, EGI were up and off early to Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park is many things (think Seaview at Hokitika, or indeed any long-deserted mental asylum), but mainly it is a missed opportunity to offer decent coffee. No, actually I am being tremendously harsh; the coffee was unbelievable shite but it's a dead interesting place. The campus is large and spread out, and consists of many huts and bunkers in addition to the main, weird, Victorian building. Most of the outlying buildings are decaying - but the site retains a strong sense of the people who lived and worked there so intensely during the war.

Colossus Mark 2 - National Museum of Computing

We nearly left without seeing the Colossus; arguably the world's second general purpose programmable computer. Jeremy has just informed me, in sepulchral pseudo-Churchillian tones, that after WWII Churchill demanded the Colossus be destroyed. I have checked this on Wikipedia and apparently the great man commanded that the machine be broken down into pieces no bigger than a man's hand. However enough information survived in notebooks and heads for the machine to be rebuilt, and we saw it. I wish we had taken a photo of the hut that houses the National Museum of Computing - it's underwhelming in the extreme.

"Claudia" in bronze (15,000 pounds)

After lunch at the Old Green Man in Little Brickhill, we headed to Bedfordshire and Woburn Abbey, home to the Russells - D and D of Bedford. We shed the requisite 45 quid at the gate and drove in through the deer park. The house is lovely - millions of marble busts everywhere, and hundreds and hundreds of paintings. The vaults contained an astonishing collection of Sevres porcelain, silver, and gold, and a Rembrandt. After the house tour we wandered through the garden and goggled at the sculpture, some of which we liked.

Then home to Becketts Ave for dinner and the real business of this trip - spending time with our beloved family.

Jeremy introducing George to Linux

More photos here...