- Yesterday….
- Walk in the (Hyde) park
- Jermyn St. and Picadilly
- The Devonshire
- Harry Potter
- Southbank and home, frikking freezing
- Today….
- Nothin but blue sky….
- Search for warmth (never going to freeze again)
- St Pancras and bag drop
- Portabello Road and the Earl of Lonsdale
- Packin for Paris
This is just fun, day 3 of 180. Yesterday wasn’t. Five degrees, ‘feels like minus two’, raining, proper rain, not yesterday’s try-hard mizzle, blowing and that eternal darkness. We walked Hyde Park to Green Park, heads bent into the wind, the remaining functional part of my poxy nine-pound chemist umbrella keeping the left lens of my glasses dry. Di’s umbrella held firm at least, but it was bitter. By the time we’d walked Jermyn St and made Picadilly, we were looking for a pub.
Two blokes, jumping from foot to foot in the cold, steeling a moment for a fag, pronounced in unison, “The Devonshire” at our enquiry for somewhere to eat, and so we proceeded.
Bad news – not open yet (it was only 10:50). Good news – they opened shortly, and they were happy for us to take a seat out of the weather. Two hot bacon sandwiches and a couple of beers later, we felt sufficiently human to converse with Greg and Dianna from Croydon (‘dodgy’ Croyden apparently, but they lived in a nice part of it!), who run fifty Airbnbs around London. Dianna was Spanish, though she looked and spoke like Tia Dalma, the Sea Goddess Calypso in the Pirates of the Caribbean, and gave us some hot tips for Madrid (we photographed her phone-suggestions as the Haitian-style accent proved too much for our simple Australian comprehension). Greg was a good bloke, although his time in Kalgoolie had convinced him that all Australians were racists.
Back out in the rain and cold, we soldiered on to some random back street that we thought was part of Harry Potter but was actually just, well, a street (Cecil Court), then, after finding our bearings in a warm book shop with WiFi, discoverd where the Harry Potter thing actually was – Goodwin’s Court, reputed to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley (Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley I reckon). There’s also Leadendal Market (Ministry of Magic), another 47 minutes on, but in this weather, we thought that a bridge too far.
Instead, we headed for the Florence Nightingale Museum in South Bank, but by the time we’d walked down through Trafalgar Square and onto the Golden Jubilee Bridge, I was done.
They say jetlag can impact our ability to regulate temperature and make us feel colder – don’t know. But despite three thermals, a puffer and my lined motorcycle jacket, I was shivering. Di was holding up well and suggested I should stop making excuses, suck it up and reflect on my comment yesterday re squirrels with small gonads (that’s not true, Di was concerned – but I don’t think that comment would’ve been out of place).
We trudged on in the cold, both sick of my pissing and moaning, back across Westminster Bridge to some pub called The Clarence on the corner of Whitehall and Great Scotland Yard to regroup.
A quick decision to call it a day, and we caught the tube back from Westminster to Bayswater, picked up some dinner vitals from Marks and Spencer and cast the feeble remnants of my dodgy little umbrella back into the scabby little two bob store from whence it came.
Today, determined never to freeze (or wax so pathetically) again, we stepped out into the crisp, blue-skied sunny morning in search of some warm op-shop clothing and caffeine. Remembering the purpose of said purchase, I ditched the smart gentlman’s woollen duffle coat at “Traid Charity” for a double-ducked-downed heavy-duty hooded puffer with lots of silver dangly bits that’d look good on an eighteen-year-old rapper. At least I’ll be warm. Di found a lovely grey woollen tabard that sits perfectly under her black puffer. It was good fun.
Caught the tube to King’s Cross St Pancras, checked out our lodging for our return from Paris/Switzerland, and hit them up to mind our camino stuff. No go (fair enough, outside chance, worth a try), so we found a “bounce” luggage storage place nearby, stored our kit and enjoyed the sun for a moment at the Thornhill Arms. The “Bounce” here was a backstreet convenience store run by a shady-looking character continuously wheeling and dealing on his mobile as he smiled a flashy-tooth consent, zapped our credit card and dragged our packs past the out-of-date long-life milk cartons and dodgy magazines to the dusty, box-cluttered surplus produce room outback for, we hope, safekeeping.
Tube to Notting Hill Gate, where we whiled away the sunny afternoon in Portobello Road and surrounds before stopping at the Earl of Lonsdale for a feed. Nice Aussie fella from Melbourne ran the bar. He and his mate lived upstairs, tended the bar and lived the dream.
Early start tomorrow to catch the Eurostar to Paris.