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UK Beckons Anew

September 2023 - April 2024
An open-ended adventure by Stuart & Christopher Read more
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  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 1

    Leaving Home

    September 1, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    Hi there dear reader. Another travelogue. "Good grief", I hear you say. There is nothing more tiresomely tedious as reading about someone else's travel adventures. Yawn. Well, allow me to let you off the hook.

    This little adventure of ours, my dear husby and me, is only for those so inclined. And you may only be inlcined on certain days and not on others. It's okay. Truly it is. If you do want to dip in from time to time, or even follow along, please feel free. There is no quiz at the end.

    Ultimately, these jottings are my memories and will serve me well when I reach my dotage and look over to Chris and say, "didn't we once go through Westminster Abbey"? And he'll pull up this very Find Penguins and respond lovingly, "here read this, now eat your soup".

    In truth, today and this evening, we are in Sydney, the day before we fly out to go back to the UK. Ever since we left, it has been beckoning us. So after a stressful year that I'd rather forget, we decided to bring this trip forward and go again this September.

    Just getting to Sydney has been a feat in itself. I have been so busy at work with one new thing coming after another in waves, along with a full caseload. Leaving for abroad for five weeks takes a lot of logistical thinking, but I think I've managed it. My thanks go out to my wonderful admin staff and my Psychs working alongside me.

    Both Chris and I are a bit frazzled. We need this break. After a number of stressful events over the ocurse of 2023, we are a bit tired, a bit vulnerable, a bit raw. We typically do not turn on each other when things are like this, thank God, and we try to be a strong support for one another. So we are now. We are ready to breathe some different air and to see some different sights.

    Our train trip down to Sydney felt mercifully quick. The carriage was quiet and we both fell off to sleep for a short while. Arriving at Rydges Central Hotel, we checked in and headed straight to the bar. The Sydney Brewery is on the same premises and its beers are very familiar to us as we drink them at the Rydges on Newcastle Harbour regularly. Some dipping breads and some chips along with the beers helped a lot. Chips always help.

    Tonight, we attended the final of four concerts that we have subscribed to, the Brandenburg Orchestra, a baroque ensemble that we have fallen in love with. Tonight they had a gorgeous young French violin virtuoso who played mostly early English music. The concert was themed the Lover and performed by, wait for it, Théotime Langlois de Swarte. We figured he was in his late twenties.

    It was a bravura performance and the crowd cheered uproariously at the end of some of the pieces. As an encore, he played the third movement of Vivaldi's Summer (you'd all recognise it immediately) from the Four Seasons. The performance wasn't only music. It brought in theatre as well, as our hero played the role of a lover left alone after a party of some sort. It was captivating.

    Tomorrow, we are going to head to the shops to do a bit of last minute shopping, then we'll head out to the airport, have some dinner at Rydges at the International Terminal (lots of Rydges in our lives), fly out at 9.05pm to do the thirteen hour leg first, to Dubai, five and half hour pause there where we've booked a day room so we can shower and sleep, then do the final seven hours to London, arriving around 4ish in the afternoon. So many hours ahead of us.

    We are already feeling the energy and vitality beginning to return and even dare I say it, some joie de vivre.    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 4

    Getting Here

    September 4, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    JRR Tolkien gave his The Hobbit a sub-title, There and Back Again. It's a great title, concentrating as it does on the journey. There is no doubt that Australians travelling abroad, ie to the Northern Hemishere destinations of the UK, Europe, and the US really have their work cut out for them. Australia is a LONG way from any of these major world centres. You really get to understand this when you travel there.

    I won't bore you with the travails of long-haul flying, but honestly Northern Hemisphericals just have no idea what we are talking about or what we have to go through to visit their auspicious climes. They can flit across from here to there in no time at all, whereas Aussies have to go through 14 hour flights to the US and up to 22 hour flilghts to the UK and Europe. If you fly Economy, that means you are sitting in a cramped narrow seat with not much leg room if you have a bag under your feet, and you may be sitting next to a less-than-optimal traveller who is grunting, sneezing or all over the shop.

    Chris and I flew Emirates this time. I must say, it was a better experience than Qantas. The seats were more comfortable and the screens were bigger and brighter. We stopped off in Dubai and rented a day room for five hours where we had a nap, showered and changed, ready for the final seven hours.

    Dubai airport is gliltz and gold. It is huge, as you would expect from an oil rich country in the Middle East. It seems to be a long massive cylinder squished down on top so that it looks a bit like one of Frank Herbert's giant sand worms.

    Chris and I had splashed out on new state of the art neck cushions made of memory foam, manufactured by Cabeau. We used our Cabeaux, as we like to call them, on both legs of the journey, and I must say, they were very good. We both got a little sleep, which is way better than last year, and that does make a difference in the end result. We both felt that, on arrival, our jetlag has been far less than last time we came, due to the Dubai hotel room and our Cabeaux.

    We are staying in Farringdon, a Central London area, a stone's throw from the Tube station, in a sixth floor apartment. It is very comfortable and gets us right into the centre of things here. Farringdon itself, is the jewellery centre of London, and, on the new Elizabth line, it affords us easy access to any part of the city.

    We settled into our aprartment nicely and set out for a walk around the neighbourhood, ending up tired and thirsty at the pub across the street from us, the Sir John Oldcastle. My first meal in the UK ended up being a basic burger and a few chips washed down with a Camden lager. Nothing fancy, but oh yes, after aeorplane food, it was truly yum. We slept well, waking at 3am briefly and going straight back to sleep. Out attempts at sleeping the first leg of our journey paid off.

    So, we're here. We're tired. We're safe. And we're ready to discover more of this amazing city.    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 5

    First Full Day

    September 5, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    After a sleep that included a 3am wake-up, we started our adventure with of course, a trip to the barber's for Chris. He had purposely let his hair and beard grow out a tad so he could enjoy the luxury of a skilled barber wiyh his special razors, shavers, perfumes and assorted creams and soft-brstled brushes. I sat and watched not only his transformation but his delectation. It was worth it. He came out looking so handsome and sexy, I thought, I should spend some time with this dude.

    The mandatory coffee came next. There will be no doubt, our intrepid trip around the the Old Dart will be peppered with cafes and pubs. We could doubtless write a travel book called Pubs, Piss-ups, Cafes and Croissants, Edser, S. J., & May, C. G. (2023). AussieQueers Press, Waratah.

    Having revictualed, we headed out to a new spot for us, Notting Hill. We both wanted to explore this area without the bother of thinking about Julia Roberts or Hugh Grant. We managed this quite well I think, although unsurprisingly, we did end up in the Notting Hill Waterstones bookstore where Chris purchased a small book of poetry and I purchased some Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus) and a small novel set in Ireland.

    We discovered Waterstones last year and fell in love with its wide open spaces and well-organised shelves. As a side note, Dymocks in Sydney seems to have taken a leaf out of their book (pun intended) with its new renovation complete. Looking and feeling very user-friendly.

    Notting Hill is a wealthy district, full of white stucco mansions in crescents. Black iron-wrought gates and private gardens adorn the streets. Portobello Road runs its length north to south and is full of antique, retro clothing and bric-a-brac stores. Fun to browse through, but this time, we were not for buying.

    Notting Hill is adjacent Kensington Gardens and Palace which are adjacent to Hyde Park. We had a leisurely stroll from the high street down through the park and made our way to a gentle hillside where we sat overlooking the Italian Gardens, a series of pools and fountains and the odd classical temple. We had a jolly good sit down under the trees after all that bookshopping and walking and enjoyed the breeze and some quiet.

    We had both been looking for the odd bit of new clothing, so we Tubed it through to Soho, London's LGBTQ centre and its theatre and jazz scenes. There are plenty of shops and we made good use of them. Both of us bought clothes and shoes and are feelilng all the better for it. Who says that acquistiveness does not bring happiness? Oh that's right, that was me. Shh, don't tell my clients.

    Parched and dehydrated, there was nothing else for it but for to head to the nearest pub. The Coach and Horses did the trick with its IPA and Lager beers (our usuals) and its green tiled walls and cherry-coloured pressed metal ceiling.

    The day rounded out with a trip back home to Farringdon, a stop in for Chris at the Waitrose for some provender and a read. We tuned the television on for the first time too and watched an episode of the Wheel of Time.

    All in all, I would say, a very successful and happy first day.    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 5

    Let's Get This Show on the Road

    September 5, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    Well, I confess, I thought my circadian cycle would have adapted by now, but no, I awoke again at 3am and this time, unlike the night before, I could not go back to sleep. I spent the few hours till 5am solving problems and imaginaing scenarios; scenarios that did not need imagining at any time let alone in the wee small hours of the morning. Fingers crossed for tonight.

    This morning we headed back to our old haunt from last year, Vauxhall, there for Chris to have a massage, and me to wait for him. I sat happily in the Kenington Lane Cafe - they don't pronounce the e in cafe here - had two lattes and a cherry muffin and wrote some stuff and read the papers back home. I am disgusted with the No campaign on the Voice referendum and I see in today's SMH that Warren Mundine, the most compromised man in Australia, will probably be preselected to replace Marise Payne in the Senate. I have a visceral reaction to that man's treachery.

    In due course, Chris arrived and we had coffee together and planned our day. We decided we would go into the city centre and go to the National Portrait Gallery which was closed when we were here last September. Like its cousin across the street, the National Gallery, the NPG is huge. We covered only a small part of it, but chose the 19th century portraits of famous people, the Tudors, some famous 20th century people, some WWII portraits and colonialism. That was enough. It was educative and fascinating to see famous portraitists of the time paint the Kings and Queens of England which gives us as close to a photograph of them as we might get. I snapped a few pics but they don't do the subject or the portrait itself justice.

    Time for a beverage, so we returned to last year's watering hole, the Chandos, where we sat upstairs in the Opera Bar and cooled ourselves with a beer. It's really hot here right now. The sun beats down and the fair skinned will easily burn.

    A quick look for me through the St Martin in the Fields Church which was open. Stunning low hanging simple chandeliers down a centre aisle, surrounded by dark wooden panneling, and an ornately decorated white ceiling with a giant Dieu et Mon Droit arms at the front. I think the famous classical music Academy of St Martin in the Fields must perform there as their home base? Not sure of that. Anyway, very glad I saw it.

    The church overlooks Trafalgar Square, so it's hard for two Australians not to wander over and look at Nelson's Column and the fountains and lions. It's pretty splendid to be sure. From there, we hightailed it back home to rest and then head out to Brewdog, a local where we ate burgers and a small enamel cup of chips washed down with craft beer served to us by a young guy from Melbourne. Very nice.

    So full were we that a post-prandial stroll around the district inevitably took us to the brutalist Barbican. I did not know what to expect, but seriously, this is something I have never seen before. The Barbican is a huge living complex of towers and rectangles and circuses and crescents, floor after floor. It is dark and ominous and it looks like it would be right at home in Gormenghast or Soviet Russia. Yet, it has a long common with pools and fountains and eateries, people milling and lolling about drinking champagne and wine and full of discussion. I still can't make the whole thing out.

    A lovely walk home and a relaxed evening awaits us.    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    11
    Day 5

    The Barbican

    September 5, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

    Some pics of the Barbican. Its sheer size (it is a city unto itself) makes it majestic, but it shows no majesty in its aesthetic.

  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 6

    Tower of London - Part 1

    September 6, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    A good night last night. Woke up once but went back to sleep. I did wake however at about 5am so got up at 5.30 after realising I was not going to go back to sleep.

    Breakfast today at Prufrock, a local upbeat cafe up the street from us in Leather Lane. Run by a couple of gorgeous guys, it had plenty of nice looking people in there alongside us and excellent coffee.

    Off to the tower. Like the Barbican, I did not realise just how big the Tower of London really is. It could be a city unto itself. We purchased our tickets and led ourselves through rather than a guided tour by a Beefeater or a self-guided tour with head phones and device.

    It was a gentle tour for us I must say. We were not in a hurry and we had already deided that the Tower would be our one big thing for the day, so we just took it easy and moseyed through the various cavernous halls of the various buildings, reading some of the plaques, leaving others, following the laid out path, taking some pics on the way and making the occasional observation to each other.

    A highlight for me was not the Jewel Room where are kept the Crown Jewels, but the beautiful Norman Chapel St John's Chapel in the White Tower. Streaming with sunlight through its front windows and enlivening the sandy coloured stone walls, it was just beautiful. I could have sat there for ten minutes and just soaked in the atmosphere. I can perfectly understand that the early Kings and Queens who used it might have been transported in reflection, prayer or even transcendence. There was a serenity in that space that touched me.

    Given that I've mentioned the Crown Jewels, I should say something about seeing them. A small line-up in front of us shuffled slowly into the first room where we came upon a small throng of folk looking at various earlier crowns. It was difficult to get a good look as they were three and four packed in tight up against the glass. An occasional space would open and I would dart in to take a closer gander.

    Eventually, we did get to see the late Queen's coronation implements and clothing, the crowns and sceptre and orb. Being thorough-going republicans, both of us were underwhelmed by the fabulous wealth and power these items of regalia were meant to evoke. They felt like they were for another time, not the 21st century. We did not linger, but left fairly quickly and left the gooing and gahing to the Americans who love monarchy. The memory did come back to me while in that darkened royal jewel tomb of the old maxim, "all that glitters is not gold" and I thought, "well, not in this room".

    A coffee at the Raven Cafe in the Tower precinct. We heard a beefeater say that should the ravens disappear from the Tower, the White Tower will fall and crumble. The ravens are still there all right. They are huge and their caw is lower than our crow call. It sounds rather ominous actually.

    Leaving the Tower, we hopped on a bus for the first time and rode through to Covent Garden where we went to the same Perfumery as we visited last year. Chris bought himself something very nice indeed with some birthday money.

    A trip then to the laneway treasure that is the Nell Gwynn pub, a free house, a term used to describe historically an Englilsh public house that was not owned by the breweries and which could therefore sell any beer it wanted. A half pint for us each and a read of the the story that says there is a secret passage in the pub that leads to the Druy Lane theatres where Charles II would secretly meet up with the actress Nell.

    Then a walk around Covent Garden, peering in the shops and looking at the beautful people and ultimately, lunch. We headed in to one of the pubs, The Prince of Wales, where we ate lightly. A trip to Foyles bookstore followed where I bought two small anthologies of W. H. Auden whom I decided on the plane over here, I would like to re-read, and Chris some historical fiction about Catherine Parr, one of Henry VIII's six wives..

    So there you have it. A most enjoyable day. As a side note, the weather was sunny all day and the temperature reached 30°. Little breeze, so bloody hot 🥵    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    1
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    Day 6

    Tower of London - Part 2

    September 6, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C
  • UK Beckons Anew
    1
    Day 7

    A Day of Heights

    September 7, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Today has been a big day despite the fact that we tried to make it a little easier on ourselves. After a brekky of eggs and coffee at Prufrocks, we tubed into the city to see St Paul's Cathedral.

    I saw this the Cathedral myself last year and actually did a 45 minute tour, but I wanted to experience the majesty and interest of this building with Chris, so was more than happy to look through again.

    I think St Paul's is Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. He was in his seventies when the dome, the final structure was beiing built. A little too old to walking up the scaffolds and steps to get up there, he would have himself hailed up there in a basket.

    We had a very good look around the cathedral floor, taking in the various sights like the modern 3D cross, the font, and sitting looking up at the ceiling and dome. St Paul's is the only domed cathedral in all of Britain. It is majestic but not gaudy. Its blue and gold colour pallette for the ceilings is something Ihave not seen before.

    After, we climbed the spiral staircase up to the main gallery at the base of the dome. This is inside the cathedral and is known as the Whispering Gallery due to its incredible acoustic properties where you can hear a whisper on the other side of the gallery. It is very high up, and once again and not unexpectedly, I became acrophobic up there. I needed time for my parasympathietic nervous system to kick in and settle me down, so I just sat quietly and watched Chris make his way around the circle and back to me. At that point, I felt calm enough to try myself, so I gingerly walked around the circumference myself. I was pleased with the effort.

    Then, up to the dome on the outside of the building. I had been up here last year and knew what to expect. I did quite well and my nervous system calmed me down after only a few minutes. There are unparalleled views of London from the dome of St Paul's and it really is worth the climb of 528 steps up there.

    After the retracing of all the steps back down again, we took a dive down into the crypt under the cathedral floor where lots of famous people are buried, including Wellington, Nelson, Florence Nightingale, John Donne and Christopher Wren. A lovely surprise for me was when Chris found the floor plaque over the grave of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Savoy Operas fame.

    A coffee ensued and a walk to the Guildhall, London's original seat of power for the city. It is still used today for that purpose. It is a medieval grand hall started in 1411 and finished 29 years later. In recent decades, the city has built a dedicated Art Gallery to house its over 4000 item collection. This runs perpendicular to the old hall. It is a wonderul collection, but is also the custodian of London's Roman amphitheatre which hosted brutal gladiatorial games. Its remains are carefully preserved underneath the gallery.

    A brazen question by myself to the authorities to see if they would let us into see the Guildhall itself turned up a yes, and we made our way through a modern wing adjacent and into the Hall. There were Court proceedings about to start in there, but they let us go in regardless. It is vast and cavernous, has its own fascinating history and is well worth a visit.

    This evening we had tickets to the theatre. At the Barbican Centre we saw a musical called A Strange Loop, an American black gay production that looked at identity, culture and religion. It was powerful, funny and wonderfully performed by a small ensemble cast of actors/singers. A two hour performance without intermission.

    We were pereched way up high in the front row, so I became acropobic again. However, after everybody who needed to get past us moving to their seats had passed, I settled right down to enjoy the show.

    We bought some touristy bits n pieces today, and did a fair bit of walking, although we did go and sit with the lunch crowd in a park in the middle of a circus which was lovely.

    Another great day. What a wondeful time we are having.    Read more

  • UK Beckons Anew
    Day 8

    Discovery Day

    September 8, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Today was a day to try to slow things down a bit and not to have anything too planned. We still wanted wanted to head into the city, but we were happy to just discover London's treasures as we came upon them.

    Chtis thought it might be good to check out the Shard, the tall weird looking building shaped like a shard of glass. We got ourselves to the base of it and checked out the prices of going up to the viewing platform. Unsirprisingly, we baulked at the price, given that it would have cost us about $130 Australian dollars. Also, given that we'd seen comparable views from the dome of St Pauls for about £14, we didn't feel like we had missed out on all that much.

    We took a stroll up the street and came upon Kings College, now part of London University and therfore part of the Golden Triangle: Oxford, Cambridge, University of London. It is very prestigious and its campus in the city had parks and ivy covered buildings. A coffee and lemon drizzle cake at one of its cafes did just the trick.

    We may recall that London is very hot and steamy this week, so walking anywhere in the open sun is trying and even walking in the shade is sticky. But, we had a walk around and ended up on Bermondsey Street, a vibrant district full of arty places, pubs, bars, cafes and plenty of people who frequent such places. This was the traditional home of leather and tanneries, but we were hot and tired, so were really looking for somewhere cool and less packed-in for a sit down and a drink.

    Enter Leadenhall Market. This is a famous covered market in Central London painted up in burgundy and ornamentation, with shops, cafes, bars, restaurants and up market wares. It is lovely to look at, and though bustling with people, did not feel crowded or oppressive. We stopped off at Old Tom's pub and had a half in the cool of the upstairs area.

    A little bit of walking around followed by checking out the amazing architecture in this city led us home to relax, and to meet our friend Wayne, just off the plane, for dinner at a local Farringdon Italian, which as the weather would have it, was oppressively hot without air-conditioning and a lot of people packed in. I'm really not sure that the UK is ready for the effects of climate change. We ate and left and found a beer garden where we shared G&Ts all round and said our goodnights.

    A slower day, but a necessary one. We are feeling the effects of going out every day, which is wonderful - don't get me wrong - to see different wonders and in this oppressive humidity. Neither of us is twenty five anymore.    Read more

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