Earls Court

Getting to London from Bristol was more challenging then what we thought. I had not been looking forward to driving in London itself, as we had planned to drop off our rental car at Euston - St Pancras' Station, but that ended up not being too difficult at all, to my surprise. I thought I would be all sweat and tears, and dings, and bumps, and prangs and all things imagninable vehicularly horrific. Well, it wasn't. Between Chris and the GPS, we managed to get through the traffic, drop the car off with no dings, and catch our first black London cab to our hotel in Earl's Court/Kensington.

No, the challenge was on the M4 on the way to London. You see somewhere the London side of Swindon where we stopped for a coffee and bathroom break, we encountered the mother of all traffic snarles. We ground to a halt, and so did all the other traffic ahead of us, behind us and adjacent us, and we just sat there for about 30-40 minutes, as still as the Ancient Mariner's ship in his becalmed sea, not knowing what was going on. Eventaully, we did start crawling, starting and stopping, and learned that a lorrie had caught fire. When we passed it, there was nothing left of it at all.

Our hotel, although pokey as hell (I am writing this footprint with my keyboard on one corner of the bed, is located centrally, just around the corner from the Tube station and all the shops. It's lovely down there, epecially at night. We had a good pub meal at The Drayton Arms, a drink, and breathed in London air again, a treat we were not expecting to do again this trip. We watched another episode of the new season of Locke and Key and slept pretty well although we were both beset by lots of dreams.

Today, we set out late and headed over to St Pauls Cathedral. I took a tour while Chris coffee-ed in a nearby Cafe Nero and finished reading some poetry.

St Pauls is hard to describe without overdoing the superlatives. It is massive, cavernous, beautiful, airy, clean, ornate, ancient and welcoming. I paid 20 quid to do a half-hour highlights tour, but the old guy, Allan, was a bit garrulous and spent too long at the front door, so the half hour went for 45 minutes.

After the completion of the tour, I took myself around the inside, photographing here and there. Finally, given that other people, including old ladies and babies were going up to the outside of Christopher Wren's dome to the open elements, I thought I should go up too.

Readers of this travel blog may recall that I struggle with vertigo somewhat these days, but I spoke assertively to myself in the manner of, "oh come on Stuart, you can do this for goodness sake" and answered the lady at the doorway when she asked was I okay with stairs in the affirmative and up I trotted all 376 stairs. One wide-ish timber spiral stair-case later, one set of labyrinthine dungeon-like stone corridors, and then three or four very narrow stone spiral stair-cases later, I emerged to my great relief out into the air, high above London, my legs already a bit wobbly from the climb. The girl at the top of the stairs said, "you made it", to which I answered, "yes, and now I have to deal with a bit of a fear of heights'. She was immediately concerned.

I stepped out cautiously on to the deck and tried to look out rather than down. I slowed my breathing in order to slow my heart-rate and eventually began to settle. It was never really bad, just present enough to make me feel physically uncomfortable. I started my way around the dome, when all of a sudden, the girl at the top of the stairs came to me to make sure I was okay and to offer to take me to a "taster" of the even higher second tier of viewing platforms. She led me to a metal staircase with a small landing on top and led me up it and allowed me to hold on to the railings. I looked out and down, and although I felt the effects of stress on my body, I stayed there while she talked to me reassuringly, and took in the sights of London. Incredible!

After that, I went back down to the inital landing and waked around it and even out to the edge to touch the small columns and to take some pics. This was successful. Then it was time to go back down. I did not want to keep Chris waiting for too long. The only trouble was, the moment I descended abour three steps of the stone spiral-case, I felt wobbly and frightened. I scrambled back up, let some others go before me, and thought, "shit, how the hell am I going to get back down"? Well, all that castle work in other cities came in handy. I managed it by gripping the rail, never stopping and just turning my foot each step so that it fit on the stairs without hanging over the edge. And down I went. That's when I counted the steps.

Safely back on cathedra firma, I bolted down into the huge crypt in order to see a few famous graves: Horation Nelson, the Duke of wellington, Lord Montgomery of Africa. Florence Nightgale was down there too, but the Cathedral shop called and I did want to buy a souvenir and get to Chris, so I abandoned Florence for two fridge magnets, and set off to find Chris.

After another round of coffees, we headed for Covent Garden, there to have some lunch and to buy me a cologne from the very shop, Bloom Perfumery, where Chris bought his a month ago. Sarah remembered us and was once again, extremely helpful. I am quite proud of my self for getting up on to St Paul's Cathedral dome. And yes, I would do it again. A relaxing evening awaits and we can both say, this first day of a London coda was most pleasant.Read more