Back in the Big Smoke

Peggotty said, "I’ll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in." (David Copperfield) Well, a pandemic, global economic collapse, Brexit, two Tory twat PMs and the death of the Queen couldn't stop me from going to Blighty and London has taken me in. It's been far too long.

The journey over was a bit of a nightmare that started before I'd even boarded my plane in Hartford. In the years B.C. (Before Covid), Aer Lingus offered a brilliant route from Hartford to London via Dublin, but that was suspended in 2020 and hasn't resumed. So, I booked myself on a really cheap flight on American Airlines with a tight connection in Philadelphia -- a mistake, apparently. I was one of the last people to board the first flight. The gate staff came around saying there was no more room in the overhead compartments and they seized the bags of the last three of us in the queue for stowage in the hold. I had a really bad feeling about this. I had been so careful about packing light in the smallest roll-aboard possible (it even meets the stringent size limitations on Ryan Air). I begged and pleaded to no avail. The guy in back of me said not to bother complaining as the AA gate staff are always assholes. When I got to my seat, there was indeed a space right above it, perfectly sized for my wee bag. I stuffed my backpack with all my electronics, etc. under the seat in front of me and buckled up. The plane had barely moved away from the gate when it stopped ... and stayed for over an hour because, we were told, of bad weather in Philly. I talked to a nice cabin steward who told me that everything in Philly was delayed and odds were that my connecting flight would be leaving late. Well, it left without me. Fortunately, AA rebooked me onto a later flight that night to LHR, where I had an entire row of three seats to myself and got some kip, but unfortunately my bag stayed in Philly, which I only discovered after all the bags from our flight had come off the carousel at Heathrow. That meant going to the customer service desk, filing all the relevant details, and hoping I could believe that my bag would be put on that night's AA flight and would be delivered to me the next day. Long story short, the bag did arrive on my doorstep at 8 pm Thursday, by which time I could have used some good drugs to bring my anxiety level down.

What to do on my first day without my luggage? Go to a charity shop! There must be six or eight of them within easy walking distance and I lucked out. At the first one I went to, I got a t-shirt and leggings for 11 quid, then made it back to my AirBnB in time to unroll the yoga mat I had ordered from Amazon, log onto the wifi network, and be ready for the 3 pm livestream mat class (10 am EST) from my local Pilates studio. Feeling a bit more human afterwards, I went out again to go to the shops for food items. And I got caught in my first (brief) torrential downpour.

Day two started with the weekly walk around the Primrose Hill area, sponsored by the Primrose Hill Community Association. Some of the walks are social rambles and others are guided with a theme. For this walk, local resident Martin Sheppard, who has written a history of the area, walked us around the park for an hour and told us about how it was used during and impacted by World War Two. There were anti-aircraft guns on the hill, various shelters for the troops, and part of the park was used as allotments. He was full of interesting factoids, including some about how London Zoo dealt with the war. Fearing that a bomb strike would result in animal carnage and escape, they moved many of the animals to other locations outside London and euthanized some. Others remained in the zoo, and some were really freaked out by the noise of the shelling (this area sustained a lot of bomb damage due to proximity to the rail lines, a prime target), including a zebra who got out and had to be rounded up and returned. 

Mid day was consumed with errands. I ordered a burner phone from Argos and needed to schlep up the Finchley Road to Sainsbury's at the O2 (an even more dreadful place than it was the last time I was there in 2004). On the way back, I stopped into another charity shop and bought a scarf (I had forgotten to bring one) for 3 quid -- a bit scratchy, but it matches my plum raincoat perfectly. I might be cheap, but I aim to be well turned out. Back at the flat, I faffed around with the phone to great frustration.

Finally, in late afternoon I set out for a tour of the Islamic gardens at the Aga Khan Centre in King's Cross. I had wanted to see the inside of the building when I was here in 2019 -- it was featured during Open House weekend, but when I got there the queue was so long that I didn't try for it. The garden tours are announced on the website every three months, and I had pounced when they opened up dates for autumn tours. We had a knowledgeable and funny guide and the six gardens are beautiful -- scattered on various balconies and roofs throughout the nine-storey building. And the views over Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square were great.

Friday was my day to mooch around in Bloomsbury. It started with a trip to the EE phone store in the Brunswick Centre to see if they could get my burner phone working properly. They couldn't, but helped me to connect by phone to customer service tech people. After 45 minutes sat in the store while on the phone, the problem finally seemed sorted and I was on my way. The next stop was the Wellcome Collection to see a small exhibition about air -- not the best exhibition I've seen there, but there's a new one coming in a couple weeks so I'll be sure to come back. This is one of my favourite places in London -- the library is a fantastic place to chill out in comfy chairs and the caff is lovely. Unfortunately, they shuttered their wonderful bookshop for Covid and haven't reopened it.

I grabbed a sandwich in a convenience store and walked over to Tavistock Square, where I sat on a bench next to Gandhi and ate my lunch.

Next up, a walking tour of the UCL campus, led by a marvelous student guide -- a second-year undergraduate from Singapore who is studying geography and data science. He walked us around some of the historic and modern buildings on campus (alas, not Senate House) and brought us to the brand new Student Centre to see Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon in a glass case. Jeremy looked fantastic for his age and very happy to be in the midst of the activity of the campus. 

My final stop before heading back to Belsize Park was the Crypt Gallery below St Pancras Parish Church. This, too, is a favourite stop for me. The current exhibition is Beyond Nature by Jeff Robb -- holograms of flowers, hung singly in the arched niches in the crypt. Art meets horticulture meets technology. 

Sorry about the poor photo quality. The burner phone is naff. My next post will be shorter -- my weekend adventures and perhaps a bit about my accommodations.

Wednesday, October 5th

£10 to top up Oyster card

£26 groceries and wine

£11 t-shirt and leggings from charity shop

13,871 steps

5.71 miles

Thursday, October 6th

£47 mobile phone and SD card

£10 EE top up for phone

£3 scarf from charity shop

£7 Rescue Remedy pastilles -- I REALLY needed to de-stress

£3.35 Kevin pie (Waitrose was out of my favourite Heidi pies)

22,072 steps

8.99 miles

Friday, October 7th

£147.50 one-month travel card

£2.20 sandwich

£10.20 apples and wine

15,700 steps

6.43 miles

Last day: I stretch, buy art and pack

At home, I always start Saturday with an early morning Pilates reformer class. Here, to stretch me out and get my body prepared for the long journey home, I signed up for another mat class at the studio up the hill from where I'm staying. This class was taught by a tall, lean German woman who was very serious and scared me a bit. I struggle with mat class because of my scoliosis and the exercises being different to the ones I do on the reformer or other apparatus. In my Saturday class at home, there's always chatter and laughing and here I couldn't help myself trying to crack jokes. I did get a couple of chuckles out of the other participants and even one from the German. 

Wonder of wonders, it was not raining on Saturday morning. As I walked out of Pilates, I decided to head over to Parliament Hill for a last visit to the farmers' market. Be still my heart! I saw a sign at the entry that Sire Hill Bakery was there this week. They are the makers of my second favourite savory pie, made of sweet potato, red onion and goat's cheese. I reckoned one of these pies would make the perfect last meal in London, and I got a small cobbler as a gift to my hosts as well. 

After dropping my tasty treats back at my gaff, I headed over to Chelsea for the Moniker Art Fair. Roger and I have been going to Moniker for many years, back to (I think) the second one when it was in the Village Underground space in Holywell Lane. After a few years, the fair outgrew that space and moved into the Old Truman Brewery. This year is the first that they've been in the old sorting office in Chelsea. Moniker is comprised of various galleries who represent young, up-and-coming artists as well as some more established ones. Many of the artists started out doing street art and have now begun making works on paper or canvas to sell. 

Most of what was on offer was way out of my price range, but I yielded to temptation and bought a small print. It's of Tony Blair and George Bush with Special Relationship painted over their images, by Alex Bucklee.

Then it was an evening of organizing and packing. I just got up, before the sun, and am putting the finishing touches on that. I'll be out the door in an hour. It's pouring, of course.

Stats:
£10 to top up me Oyster card
£15 Pilates
£9.65 Moniker entry fee
£££ for art
£7 farmers' market purchases
16,522 steps
7.26 miles

Friday: I return to the East End

Getting back into London from Arundel around noon on Friday gave me an opportunity to cram in a few more things that I'd been meaning to do, two of which fell nicely on the tube/overground route I was taking back to Tufnell Park. Janie dropped me off at the station in Sydenham, with a very nice packed lunch, and I got on the overground, disembarking four stations later in New Cross Gate to walk the short distance to the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. Goldsmiths is the art college of the University of London. They recently converted the boiler house and laundry rooms of a Grade II listed Victorian bath house into their gallery and performance space, retaining a lot of the industrial elements of the building in the same way that Tate Modern and Mass MoCA do. The exhibition I saw was videos by Tony Cokes, an American artist mounting his first exhibition in the UK. I usually don't have a lot of patience for video art, but I sat through three of the five(?): one about Morrisey (of the Smiths) and the dichotomy between his often poetic lyrics and his racist personal views, one about Aretha Franklin, her music, her support of Angela Davis and of the black community (I thought this was really powerful), and a very heavy one about US and UK use of the five techniques of torture, particularly that of incredibly loud heavy metal music. I then found the empty caff in the building, which turned out to be a perfect place for a sit down to eat my packed lunch of tuna and sweet corn sandwich. 

Back on the train, I alighted at Southwark and walked up to Tate Modern. I'd already been there to see a couple of exhibitions, but I had been too early to see Kara Walker's installation Fons Americanus in the Turbine Hall, which opened on 2 October. This is a difficult work to look at, particularly as a white American, and is both frivolous and incredibly serious at the same time. It was hard for me to see all the children and adults sitting on the side of the fountain, sticking their hands in the water, and lounging around with their backs to the main piece, seemingly not seeing it or taking it in other than as being something for their relaxation and enjoyment. I admit that I, too, sat on the edge of the fountain when my camera told me I needed to change batteries, but I quickly got back up. 

After I dumped my stuff back at my gaff, I saw that there were no rain clouds in the sky and decided to get in a visit to the East End. It had been two years since I'd last roamed around Shoreditch and Spitalfields. It always delights me to see the things that haven't changed and to visit old friends, like Thierry Noir's faces in Holywell Lane and Mighty Mo looking down on the car park in Sclater Street. 

So many new buildings have sprung up and the area has become much more commercial in the 15 years I've roamed around here. I was utterly confused around the Old Street roundabout and had to consult my map many times when I found myself surrounded by tower blocks I didn't recognize. But I found some new street art along the way. 

I'm not sure if this statement is apocryphal or if it's already come to pass. 

Stats:
£7.85 for food and wine at the Sainsbury's in Tufnell Park
20,261 steps
8.58 miles

Arundel: A castle, cathedral, sculpture and pumpkins!

My friends David and Janie took me down to Arundel to their family's cozy cottage for two days and it was marvelous. We drove from their home in Syndenham through Sussex to another part of England where I'd never been. Arundel is a market town, perched on the side of a steep hill, with a ginormous castle and a Catholic cathedral stuck on the top. The Dukes of Norfolk have owned everything for miles around for hundreds of years, despite being Catholic and at least one of them having his head cut off. 

We stopped on the way down at the Cass Sculpture Foundation, a fantastic wooded sculpture park with about 40 or so excellent pieces of sculpture tucked in amongst the trees. A couple of the sculptors were known to me, including Robert Montgomery (whose gallery show I'd just been to in Mayfair) and these Gormley bollards. 

But mostly I was seeing these sculptors for the first time. The walk through the well-maintained woodland property, with lots of ivy on the ground and growing up the trees, was totally enjoyable, as was our packed lunch that my hosts brought along. Though the temps were a bit brisk, the skies were blue, the sun was out and we occasionally saw expansive views across fields of sheep and down to the sea through breaks in the trees. 

From there, we made one more stop before Arundel — Slindon Pumpkins, where we saw the annual pumpkin mural made of numerous pumpkins and squashes from the farm. This year's mural is called Octopus's Garden to honor of the 50th anniversary of the Abbey Road album and to call attention to marine conservation. The Upton family has been creating these annual murals since 1968, originally overseen by Mr. Upton the Elder and now by the Younger, who himself is getting up in years. That's him in the white Panama hat in the second photo below.

We ended the day with a walk around the Arundel town centre, full of charming shops and Grade II listed buildings. The town was pretty quiet on this mid-week afternoon, but is bustling at the weekend and during the summer months with visitors and seasonal residents. 

The next day started with a long, brisk walk along paths and across fields on the Norfolk Estate, where we saw a folly, used in the filming of The Madness of King George, built by one of the Dukes.

We passed fields of sheep, a hillside where the dukes and their mates go pheasant hunting, and a picturesque lake filled with ducks, swans, coots and other water fowl chasing, snapping and honking at each other. The walk brought us back into town at the entrance to Arundel Castle and the gardens.

Needing stamina for visiting the castle, we fortified ourselves with another tasty packed lunch in the amazing gardens, containing various formal garden "rooms" with fountains, as well as a glass house for tender plants, an impressive kitchen garden that grows food used on the estate in the cafe, and beds of dahlias still in bloom. I forgot to take photos of the gardens with my phone, so you'll just have to wait until I get them up on ipernity to see them. 

The original castle dates to medieval times, but it was largely re-built in the 18th and 19th centuries. The tickets are priced on a tier basis, with each tier giving access to additional parts of the complex. I opted for the gold level ticket, which enabled me to see the garden, chapel, keep and main castle rooms. The highest level gives access to the bedrooms. The castle is just full to the brim with impressive stuff — paintings, silver, furniture, you name it. Though narrow passages and up steep, winding stairs, I managed to make it almost to the top of the keep, but the top bit looked just too scary. I'm sure the views are grand from up there, but I was content to look through arrow slits and pretty windows. 

We ended the day with a fantastic tapas meal at a charming little restaurant in the town. On Friday morning we headed back to London. Huge thanks to David and Janie for their hospitality and for showing me this wonderful part of Britain. 

Stats for Wednesday:
£6.25 for Cass Sculpture Foundation (half off the concession price with Art Pass)
17,442 steps
7.44 miles

Stats for Thursday:
£17.50 gold ticket (concession) to the castle and gardens
21,693 steps
8.92

Rain and food and more rain

Sorry to keep whinging about the weather, but it's really been dreadful. I've never seen it like this in all the time I've been coming here this time of year. And Tuesday was the worst of the worst — several absolutely torrential downpours of Biblical proportions, flooding streets and pavement. I waited out one stonking shower inside the Tufnell Park station, but didn't get the brunt of it. My host, however, did and came home soaked to the skin. 

It was a pretty low-key day for me, after all the adventures of my two day trips. I took the tube to South Ken and walked up to the V&A, which is my usual go-to place when the weather looks foul. I saw a large exhibition called FOOD: Bigger than the Plate, all about where our food comes from, who produces it and how it's produced, food waste, human waste, as well as innovative products that are being made with waste. I learned a lot and am never, ever going back to eating meat. 

Not knowing what my next destination would be or what the weather had in store for me, I ate lunch in the bright, cheery caff by the new entrance on Exhibition Road. 

Sandwich consumed and still no rain, so I took the tube to Green Park, still not certain if I was going to the Royal Academy for the Gormley exhibition or if I'd potter around a bit. I consulted the Art Rabbit app and saw that there were two interesting gallery exhibitions in easy walking distance: Shiny Colourful Amusements for the Walls of the Bourgeoisie (Robert Montgomery, at the JD Malat gallery in Davies Street) and Super Rich Interior Decoration (new works by Grayson Perry at the Victoria Miro Mayfair in St George's Street). I enjoyed both a lot. This was the third time I'd seen an exhibition of Grayson Perry (the huge retrospective at the British Museum several years ago and his 2017 show at the Serpentine Gallery). I must say that the Mayfair crowd was a humourless lot — not much talking amongst the punters about the work, few smiles and no chuckles. Perhaps they realized how much the work was poking fun at them, their greed, conspicuous consumption and Tory politics and they were not amused. But I certainly was. 

Back home mid-afternoon to Tufnell Park to start packing for my trip to Arundel. In the evening, I dodged the puddles, caught the 390 bus and headed to the British Library to meet up with Judy for an evening about Asylum: Fact, Fiction, Truth, curated by Juliet Stevenson and featuring four women who incorporate stories of asylum and refugee experiences in their fiction, poetry and music. The panel was a bit uneven, with the women who spoke from their own experiences the most interesting and compelling. I'd like to read Dina Nayeri's book, The Ungrateful Refugee.

I'll be down in Arundel with friends David and Janie from Wednesday to Friday morning, so no blog post until I return. It looks like there's no rain in the forecast.

Stats:
£5 to top up Oyster for my upcoming journey into zone 3
£8.50 Food exhibition at the V&A (half price with my Art Pass)
£6.25 for lunch
£14 for Asylum at the British Library
£2.58 yogurt and ginger nuts from the convenience store in Tufnell Park
16,803 steps
7.14 miles