London

2nd Eurostar journey complete, I headed to my hotel near Kings Cross to drop off my bag before hitting the nearby streets for a stroll. I was looking for a bookshop and discovered Word on the Water, a bookshop on a barge moored on the canal. Purchase made, I headed back to the hotel to await the arrival of Sarah and Gerard who kindly made the trip over from Battersea to meet me for dinner. We decided it would have been wrong to skip the 2 for 1 cocktails on offer in the hotel lounge, and may have ordered our 6 at once in order to meet the happy hour closing deadline. Pina Coladas et al quaffed, we walked a few steps to the immensely popular pizza place on the corner, queueing for around 30 minutes for our table. We were all getting pretty antsy and a touch hangry by the time we were finally let inside. Fortunately the food on offer was delicious, and we talked about everything and nothing as we ate our fill. All too soon it was time to say goodbye and S&G decided it was a good night for a stroll to Trafalgar Square - it was all I could do to stagger the few metres back to the hotel and retire to my small but perfectly formed room.

The next day Linda and I had planned to rendezvous for a fancy lunch at Fortnum and Mason at the Royal Exchange to kick off the Screaming Sixties World Tour in fine fashion. It’s a glorious building, actually the third to stand on the site. The first two were destroyed by fire in 1666 and 1838. That makes the current building a veritable whippersnapper opened by Queen Victoria in 1844. Having dispatched the obligatory champagne and a scotch egg or two, we went our separate ways, meeting up again at Searcy’s Champagne Bar at St Pancras. Home to the Press for Champagne button, Searcy’s is just the spot for traditions to be created. I visited here prior to my first journey northwards on the Caledonian Sleeper, and then introduced Linda to it when we were heading to Aberdeen on our way to Shetland. It was therefore an automatic inclusion on the agenda prior to heading to Euston to await the sleeper’s departure.

This may be my first visit to London in many years where a jaunt to Liberty wasn’t on the agenda. I knew I’d be unlikely to get out of there without at least one purchase and figured I probably didn’t need to lug anything extra to Scotland and back. Besides, there’s still time for another visit (or two) to London before heading home!

Stay tuned next time for the introduction of some new characters…The Mayors of Smugtown!Read more