London 2023: The First Week

 

What a difference a year makes! Here I am back in Belsize Park. After a relatively uneventful flight, with minor weather delays en route and moderate turbulence across the Atlantic, my plane arrived at Heathrow a mere one minute late and, best of all, my luggage came on the flight with me. Thank you, Aer Lingus.

Now I'm well settled into the flat in Lambolle Road and am dusting the cobwebs off of the UK folder in my brain, reacquainting myself with the coinage (I still confuse the 10 cent US dime with the 5p UK coin), awakening the muscle memory for walking on uneven cobbles, revisiting all the grocery stores in the immediate area to get my favourite foods, refreshing my mental inventory of toilet locations, and learning the hard way that I need to add 10 minutes to any transit time estimates that I get on the Citymapper app, especially the walking bits. My legs are short and getting older, so I just have to reconcile myself to the fact that I can't walk at a London pace. To my #1 travel rule ("If you are nearby to an acceptable public loo, use it"), I've added a complimentary rule #2 ("If a bus comes along that's going in your direction, take it"). In both instances, you never know when the next one -- loo or bus -- will materialize.

Things in Belsize Park are essentially the same with a few minor changes. The Budgens grocery store has reopened since extensive renovations that began days after my 2022 arrival. It's a very nice store (check out the photos in the link above), though is now pricier than before. But I happily discovered that they still carry the Yeo rhubarb yoghurt that I love. In England's Lane, the French bakery still sells pastel de nata (priced at £1.90 each, which isn't much of a change if any) and there's a new convenience store that seems so-so. Best of all, right across from the tube station is a new charity shop that's fabulous. It supports the mental health charity Mind, which has shops in other parts of London but only just opened this one in the past six months or so. The shop is bright and cheerful, the staff and volunteers couldn't be nicer, and -- a lovely surprise -- the clothing is grouped first by type (shirts, skirts, dresses, etc) and then by SIZE, rather than colour like every other charity shop I've entered in the UK. 

A number of small and medium art exhibitions were ending during my first week so I darted about to catch a bunch of them:

• Art and Artifice: Fakes from the Collection at the Courtauld. I'm a huge fan of the programme Fake or Fortune, in which Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould are always bringing works to the Courtauld Institute for analysis, so this was right up my alley. I kept expecting Fiona and Philip to pop their heads around a corner to offer more info, but no such luck. 
• Black Venus at Somerset House -- Black women artists confronting and reclaiming images and representation in art since the infamous Hottentot Venus. 
• Brian Clarke at Newport Street Gallery. Big, colourful, splashy, sometimes dark stained glass windows and screens:

• Excess of Desire by keita miyazaki at Gallery Rosenfeld. Sculptural pieces made of car parts. Very cool. 

• Evelyn Hofer at the Photographers' Gallery. I absolutely loved this retrospective exhibition of a relatively unknown woman photographer (I'd not heard of her, though much of her work was done in America). I particularly liked the symmetry within her photographs.  

• Grandma's Land by Alvaro Barrington at Sadie Coles HQ in Kingly Street. Installation about his growing up in Grenada. 

There's some new temporary public art around the Strand. This is an installation that's part of the London Design Festival, called Spirit of Place by Simone Brewster. There are five pieces, all made of cork.

And there's also a new installation on the low rooftop of Temple Station, called Slackwater by Holly Hendry. It references the movements of the nearby Thames.

On Thursday, I went on one of the weekly walks with the Primrose Hill Community Association. Loyal readers will remember how much I enjoyed participating in PHCA activities last year. This walk included stops at the blue plaques of three local residents who are less known than the usual blue plaque set: Agnes Arber (a botanist), Henry Wood (musician and conductor of the Proms) and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, an Indian economist, social reformer and political leader. It was lovely to reconnect with the group and to learn about these three fascinating, accomplished individuals. 

Thursday evening, I saw the first of several theatre performances I've booked. This one was of "Indecent" by Paula Vogel at JW3, a Jewish community cultural centre about a 25 minute walk up the Finchley Road from my gaff. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance -- the staging, the acting, the music and the story. It's a play within a play within a play (a bit confusing at times), about the controversial performances in eastern Europe, New York City, ultimately the Lodz ghetto of a play by Sholem Asch called "God of Vengeance." I managed to miss the number 13/113 bus up and back down the Finchley Road by a minute or two. I watched them both pull away from across the busy road, which I didn't dare dart across. Hence the new rule about adding minutes to Citymapper's estimates. 

I did a house tour at the Cosmic House in Holland Park on Friday. I'd been wanting to see the inside of the building ever since it opened for public tours in 2021. This was the brainchild and home of post-Modern architect Charles Jencks and his family until his death in 2019. In 2018 it was given Grade I listing. My friend Simon, himself an architect, told me about the ticketing process. As soon as July, August and September tix became available, I was persistently on the website until I scored myself a ticket. By that evening, they were gone. Admittedly, I had neglected to do much reading about the house before my visit. I was delightfully surprised to find how whimsical the place is, with various humorous motifs (faces, action figures) throughout. If you want to book for future open days, you'll need to get on the mailing list and be ready to pounce when you are notified that it's time to book. 

I rounded out the week with a shopping trip to the Parliament Hill Farmers' Market on Saturday and a guided walk around the old Eton Estate part of Belsize Park on Sunday. Oh, and I got a covid jab on Sunday morning. I was hoping for the new formulation, but it will not be available in the UK for another two months. Meanwhile, there's a big push on to get the over-65s vaccinated with the old bivalent jab, which they told me has been just as effective as the new one in the clinical trials. Since I couldn't get the new formulation before I left the US, and I've been horrified by the lack of covid precautions here in the UK (nary a mask in sight), I decided I may as well get boosted with the bivalent formulation. I was able to get it at UCL Hospital in the Euston Road, without question about immigration status and without a NHS number. 

Here are the stats:

Tuesday (arrival day):
£10 to top up my Oyster card

£20 mobile phone package for 30 days

£1.90 pastel de nata

£22.98 groceries and wine

12,694 steps

5.14 miles

Wednesday

£156.30 one-month travel card

£6.50 shirt from charity shop

17,026 steps

6.92 miles

Thursday

£2.30 sandwich

£7.33 groceries

£15 ticket for Indecent at JW3

27,844 steps

11.35 miles

Friday

£5 Cosmic House tour

£1 veggie samosa in Portobello Road Market

£1.85 pastel de nata from Lisboa in Golborne Road

£8.50 wine

18,008 steps

7.41 miles

Saturday

£11 bread & veg from farmers' market

£4 Photographers' Gallery (Art Pass price)

18,702 steps

7.62 miles

Sunday

£2.27 groceries

13,299 steps

5.45 miles

Recap and Reflections

After nearly 21 hours of travel from the time I exited the flat in Belsize Park, I opened my own door in Massachusetts, thus cementing the firmest resolution to emerge from this trip: I will never take a connecting flight to LHR again (unless Aer Lingus resumes its Hartford>Dublin>London route, which has worked so well for me in the past). And I will never book on Expedia again. While they did offer me the best fare I could find, I figured out that the cheap fare I got resulted in the carriers putting me in the last group to board and/or the worst seat. Lesson learned. 

When I set about back in February to plan this trip, I had two very clear aims in mind: to soak up as much history and culture as possible, making up for not being able to travel in 2020 and 2021, and to experience London as a Londoner, albeit a temporary one. The means of accomplishing this was by doing tons of research, scouring event listings and subscribing to various listservs whose target audience is residents rather than tourists. Secondarily, I hoped to meet new people and have genuine conversations, though I wasn't exactly sure how I'd go about that. But I knew that I didn't want to be perceived as a daft American whenever I opened my mouth. I found that the Londoners I encountered were open to chatting with visitors who are knowledgeable, engaged and who ask intelligent questions about their city and their lives. My curiosity about All Things London knows no bounds. As a result, I had many pleasant conversations with strangers on buses, in shops, at exhibitions, and on walks, all of which made my visit much richer. 

I've put together some other observations, travel tips and general reflections to share with you all.

• Location: I stayed in Lambolle Road NW3, which is in Belsize Park, a brilliant place to be. I was near to the Hampstead Theatre, several small museums and art galleries in Hampstead, and the wonderful greenery and open space of Primrose Hill, Regent's Park and Hampstead Heath. One of the best things I did was to get on the email list for the Primrose Hill Community Association and learn of their weekly walks and other programmes. I thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to socialize and chat with people who live locally while walking across Primrose Hill or down to Regent's Park and back. The people I met were warm and welcoming, and I felt less like an alien each time I saw them. I regret that I didn't make time to participate in any of the other PHCA activities, such as their weekly lectures, movies, or the bar. I will do next time I visit. 
• Food: The fridge in my flat was very small, so I did grocery shopping frequently. The price of food has definitely increased since I was last in the UK (my previous visit was pre-Brexit), but it is still much cheaper to eat in London than at home in Massachusetts. As I almost never eat meals in restaurants, I'm basing this observation on what I paid in supermarkets, greengrocers' shops and farmer's markets. That said, sticker shock greeted me when I bought my first packets of HobNobs and Ginger Nuts. I used to pay 99p per packet for them; they now cost £1.35. But produce and staples on the whole were very reasonably priced. A 500gr package of whole wheat penne (Tesco brand) costs 99p. I pay $2.79 for a similarly-sized box at my local co-op. Tesco or Waitrose brand pasta sauce was around £1 for a 500gr jar; a 16oz jar of Field Day sauce is $3-4 at the co-op. When I went to the Saturday farmer's market at Parliament Hill, I could buy non-organic carrots (6-7 to a bag), two red peppers, a large head of broccoli or cauliflower, or a bunch of scallions for £1 each. All the supermarkets stock fresh baked goods (rolls, baguettes, croissants, pain au raisin) daily for very cheap prices, e.g. 45-65p for a whole wheat roll or mini baguette. Bread from the local bakers, either at the farmer's market or in a bakery, was comparably priced to home but the selection was much greater. I couldn't get enough of the walnut raisin bread and olive bread sticks, neither of which I can get at home. And I could bang on about my love of pastel de nata (Portuguese custard tarts)! I must have eaten a dozen while I was in London, paying between £1.50 and £2.50 each. 
• Transport: I had easy access to two tube lines -- the Northern Line at Belsize Park station, an eight minute walk from my AirBnB, or the Jubilee Line at Swiss Cottage, a 12 minute walk from my door. The nearest Overground station was about 20 minutes away at Hampstead Heath. Plus, numerous north-south and east-west bus routes crossed the area. It definitely paid off to purchase a one-month, zones 1-2 travel card. Only once did I inadvertently take the tube to a zone 3 station (Golders Green), using my cash balance, when I just as easily could have taken the bus (travel cards cover zones 1-6 on the bus). I did PAYG for the final 12 days, as I had three journeys beyond zone 2 that required loading money onto my Oyster card, and I think it worked out to cost about the same as it would have had I covered those days with a one-week travel card and five days PAYG. Note: You cannot load travel cards onto a Visitor Oyster card (purchased at Heathrow or ordered pre-travel from Visit Britain), but only onto a standard Oyster purchased at any station or from a newsagent. I've had my standard Oyster card for 16 years now.
• Currency: The exchange rate was really good while I was in the UK, varying between $1.13 and $1.19 to the pound. I took £500 from a cash point (ATM) at Paddington Station on the day I arrived and I came home with a few notes in my pocket. For museum, theatre, walking tour and transport tickets, I used my credit card, generally booking online. Britain has fully embraced contactless payment. Many restaurants, cafes and cultural venues no longer take cash. This irked me no end. Even the toilets in the Royal Parks, which cost 20p to use, have replaced the coin slots in their turnstiles with contactless payment pads. I usually walk around with four or five pounds worth of coins in the pocket of my coat or slacks. One- and two-pound coins can pile up if you don't spend them, and they are heavy, so I like to use them for minor purchases like my Meal Deal sandwiches or a sweet treat from a caff. I keep my credit card deep in the recesses of my bag, inside a RFID blocking sleeve, so it's a PITA to dig around to pull it out, especially when I need to use the loo.
• Culture: I made a real effort to seek out an array of cultural activities -- exhibitions, museums, walks, theatre, music -- that I could do on the cheap. My National Art Pass (~$82) was my key to exhibitions and museums, as it allowed me free entry to many venues and up to 50% off tickets to the pricier exhibitions. I ordered it a few days before I flew to London, and it arrived at my AirBnB (you need a UK mailing address to purchase) two days after I did. I thought that it would run for 12 months, but it actually doesn't expire until 31 Oct 2023! I'll be going back to London next autumn and putting it to further use. Most of the big museums offer free entry for their permanent collections and many venues, such as local libraries and archives, put on a host of talks that are free. At venues not participating in the National Art Fund scheme, I took advantage of concession price (i.e. discount for old people) whenever available. Some theatres offer discounted matinee performances for seniors. The events listing from ianvisits is a great resource for finding free and low-cost offerings. I subscribe to both his weekly events guide and the weekly news roundup. All in, I spent roughly $350 on ticketed entry. 
• Budget: I didn't set out a particular budget for the trip, rather just aimed to do it as affordably as possible while still cramming in a ton of activities. The total for my 42-day stay in London (after using the reward points I'd accumulated during the pandemic) was $4,100, including airfare, transport in the UK, lodging, food and culture. I'd say I did pretty well. 

My readers have two questions for me. One asked if I now have a British accent. No, I don't, though I think my "a" sounds a bit softer (it's taken a long time to lose my Midwest twang). A lot of British slang and terminology has crept into my vocabulary over the past decade, however. Several people, when asking where I was from, told me that they couldn't place my accent, so I reckon it's mongrel. 

Another reader asked what surprised me the most. I was certainly pleased that everywhere I went people were friendly to me, once I made an effort to overcome my shyness to ask a question or just chat. Young people and those close to my own age were particularly convivial. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was very comfortable going to events on my own. 

I asked myself what I'd do differently next year. It would be great to be able to take a workshop or course, perhaps at the Bishopsgate Institute or City Lit, if the timing worked out. I'll watch for listings of course offerings as I start my next planning cycle. While I was in London, I really missed my weekly volunteer activities at home, so I'll be on the lookout for volunteer opportunities next autumn and will ask people at the Primrose Hill Community Association if they could use a hand with any of their projects. 

Finally, as promised, here are some photos of the neighbourhood where I stayed.

Belsize Village, with little shops and cafes, on the way to Hampstead:

Eton Avenue, probably the loveliest street in Belsize Park:

Along my favourite route from the flat to Swiss Cottage station:

And so, to sum it all up, it was marvelous and memorable. Thanks so much to my friends, hosts and to the people of London for accepting me as one of their own.

Sixth Weekend and Final Days

It's a wonder my legs still work and that you, my loyal readers, are keeping up with my blog posts. I hope you've been enjoying them and that I've sparked in you an interest in exploring London. Like that bloke who does the adverts for Viking River Cruises says, one of the tenets of life is to be curious. My curiosity about London knows no bounds and London always delivers.

My weekend took me to some far-flung parts of west London, but even before I got on the tube to head westward on Saturday I had another first-for-me experience: The Lord Mayor's Show. For hundreds of years (since the 12th century, I think), there has been some form of processing of the Lord Mayor of the City of London, initially to Westminster to pledge allegiance to the monarch. Now, the parade includes military units, bands (military, youth, community musicians), floats sponsored by various businesses and charitable organizations, and all the livery companies of London (the 110 guilds comprised of professions, trades and crafts). My friends Jane and Jen tipped me off that people they knew from the London Historians group would be lining up on Gresham Street, not part of the actual parade route but rather the pre-parade and every bit as good as the official thing. I had a blast standing there for two hours watching horses, dancing toothbrushes, women on stilts, Chinese dragons and a host of other groups march down the street.

The end of the parade was timed perfectly for me to hop on the tube at Mansion House and make my way to the London Transport Museum Depot in Acton. The depot is an enormous warehouse in which the Transport Museum stores, maintains and restores thousands of things related to public transportation in London. It contains historic buses and train carriages as well as everything you can image related to the operation and promotion of the system. Open Days are an infrequent occasion (generally three weekends per year) and I gather that they can be pretty crowded. Even rarer are their special tours. When I read, way back in April, that there would be a Design Icons tour during my time in London, I pounced on it and booked immediately. I've gotten a bit geeky about London transport over the years from watching Geoff Marshall's YouTube Channel and I have a long-standing interest in design, fabric, fonts, signage, etc., so this tour was right up my alley. There were six of us on the tour (ten had booked, but four were no-shows) and we spent two hours with our volunteer guide Eric. He pulled out numerous drawers containing the iconic 1916 hand-drawn Johnston font design, maps and dozens of swatches of moquette. We saw posters, signage and the original Routemaster buses (RM1 and RM2). It couldn't have been better. 

For the past five weeks, I'd been trying to find a good day (read: no rain, no other plans) to go to Twickenham. Sunday was my final opportunity. I took another trip down memory lane by starting my journey at the Finchley and Frognal overground station. Back in 2004, when Roger was living near South End Green in Hampstead and Molly and I were staying at the now-defunct hotel in Frognal, we used to catch the Silverlink train here as a way of getting to Roger's without having to climb up and over the huge hill. The train went through a tunnel under the hill, emerging again at Hampstead Health Station. There were no Oyster cards back then. Rather, a conductor walked through the carriages while the train was in motion, collecting fares as he worked his way down the train. Because it was only one stop from F&F to HH, we could often make the ride for free without the conductor catching us. The line has since become the Overground and is part of the Transport for London network, so there are now touchpads for Oyster cards. 

I rode the train to the end of the line in Richmond (going through South Acton where I'd been just the day before) and then began a leisurely stroll across the bridge over the Thames to the Twickenham side and down the Thames Path towards Marble Hill House. As I walked along the path, I could hear an Irish band busking on the Richmond side of the river and they weren't half bad. If I had done this walk earlier in my visit, I could have visited Turner's House along the way, but it was closed for the season so I didn't bother going past it. Sadly, Marble Hill House was also closed, but I did walk through the grounds that slope down to the Thames, past a black walnut tree (said to have been planted in 1720) and the grotto, and then the house itself. 

From there I continued away from the river, walking up Orleans Road with its charming cottages, until I reached the Richmond Road and, a few minutes later, the ultimate destination and reason for this whole journey to Twickenham. I'd come to the Eel Pie Island Museum to learn of the history of this epicenter of jazz, blues and rock music in the 1960s and 70s. Eel Pie Island is in the Thames, reachable via a narrow foot bridge. There had been a hotel there since the 1920s, popular with people looking to get out of London. In the 1960s, it became the home of a membership club, extremely popular with young people, where first trad jazz acts played and, a bit later, up-and-coming British pop and r&b acts like the Rolling Stones, Rod Steward, Eric Clapton and more. The museum contains a ton of interesting artifacts and ephemera, and the docent who showed me around was gregarious and informative. Well worth a trip from Massachusetts, I'd say.

Before making my way back towards Richmond, I briefly stopped into the Twickenham Museum (ho-hum) and had a butcher's at the rather over-the-top Italian sculpture and water feature in the York House Gardens. 

I also visited the Orleans House Gallery, with its elegant octagonal room (built 1720, newly restored and Grade I listed). 

The Irish band was still playing as I approached Richmond Bridge, ending their set with an instrumental version of Avicii's Wake Me Up, which wafted across the water:

So wake me up when it's all over

When I'm wiser and I'm older

All this time I was finding myself, and I

Didn't know I was lost

I love the song, but I'm not sure I'll adopt it as the anthem of my trip to Twickenham. It was a great day out though, probably the last warm, sunny day -- certainly of my visit to London if not of November as a whole. It was fun to revisit some streets I'd walked along years ago on the Richmond side of the river and to discover new places on the Twickenham side. 

And now for my final two days. On Monday, I spent the morning doing a Pilates class, publishing my previous blog post and experiencing extreme frustration as I attempted to top-up/add-on more data on my crappy EE mobile. I also worked in a 90 minute walk around bits of St John's Wood, on the other side of Primrose Hill from my gaff. I'd been meaning to do a whole proper walk there (another one of the Stephen Millar Hidden London Walks) but just hadn't gotten to it. The rest of the walk will have to wait until my next trip.

In the mid-afternoon, I headed into town to meet my friend Kathy in the cafe at Foyles Bookstore. She's a very talented artist and photographer, another person who I initially met through Guess Where London on Flickr. Kathy was the one mate I hadn't yet worked into my schedule, so I'm really glad we were able to do this. It was lovely just to sit and chat, catching up on the past three years. 

Knowing that Tuesday (my final day) would be taken up with packing and fretting with pre-travel anxiety, I opted to do only one last exhibition rather than run around trying to fit in as much as possible as I often have in the past. This exhibition -- Making Modernism at the Royal Academy -- had just opened on Saturday. It features the work of four German women who were trailblazers in modernism (post-impressionism, expressionism, etc.) in the early 20th century. 

OK, so I lied. On the way to the RA, I popped into Sotheby's to see Heads by Thierry Noir. 

And afterwards, since the torrential rain of earlier in the day had ceased, I got my last Meal Deal from Tesco -- a roasted veg and chestnut wrap, a bit more expensive than my usual egg mayo or tuna sweet corn, but possibly my best Meal Deal yet -- and sat on a relatively dry bench in St James's Park to eat it. Then I walked over to the National Gallery to look at the two Turner paintings, not seen in Britain for over 100 years, on loan from the Frick Collection in NYC. And then, I took my final ride of this visit on the number 168 bus back to Belsize Park. Since TfL are proposing to merge the 168 route with that of the number 1, sadly this may have been my last ride on the 168 ever.

Now it really and truly has come to an end. Once I get home and sleep for a day or so, I'll post some photos of the area where I stayed and will share some of my reflections on the whole adventure. Please leave any questions or thoughts in the comments section below and I'll try to get to them from the other side of the pond.

As always, I'm so grateful to all my mates in London who helped make this a fabulous visit. And thanks to my lovely AirBnB hosts who allowed me to make their flat my home from home. See you in 2023.

Stats: 

Saturday, Nov 12

£10 Transport Museum Depot tour

55p cookie

58p Lockets (like Hall's cough drops -- it's my allergies, not covid)

15,831 steps

6.77 miles

Sunday, Nov 13

£10 top up Oyster (I've been in Zone 4 twice in two days)

£2.50 rum raisin gelato 

25,937 steps

10.8 miles

Monday, Nov 14

£5 top up EE data (highway robbery!)

£20 top up Oyster card (so I have some left on it for my next visit)

£1.55 Boots

£7.70 tea and flapjack at Foyles

17,371 steps

7.21 miles

Tuesday, Nov 15

£14 Making Modernism ticket (£6 discount with Art Pass)

£2.75 sandwich

18,024 steps

7.58 miles