London

Arrived in London late in the afternoon of Sep 2nd, breezed through immigration, waited forever for my luggage to arrive, and sorted out an Oyster Card (electronic travel card thingie, didn’t have them back in my day…).  The plan was to take the tube to meet Tony at Hammersmith.  In typical London Underground fashion, the timetable suggested a faint possibility that trains might arrive perhaps possibly maybe every 5-8 minutes.  No surprises, then, that the overhead signs said that the next one was due 15 minutes later.

Still, a train did turn up, and I had no hassles finding Tony and catching a bus with him back to the place that he and Pris are living in Putney.  Had dinner and a couple of pints at Wetherspoons that night, and after going for a run around the common the next morning the theory was to meet Dean around 8.30am once he made it in from Heathrow.  Which would have worked well, except that he’d managed to misread his itinerary and turn up to check in for his Bangkok – London flight a day late.  Bugger.

Long story short, he managed to get a standby seat on the  equivalent flight that day, so no real issues.  I took the opportunity for a day of doing random tourist stuff in London – the kind of thing I hadn’t done in probably a decade – and wandered round Canary Wharf for a while, doing a bit of shopping and having lunch in the square beside my old work in Cabot Square, before picking a random stop to get off at in the city (Westminster) and just following my nose, various signs and a vague recollection from several years ago.  Which worked astonishingly well – so much so that I was even able to give directions to two different sets of  European girls who were somewhat lost and for some reason seemed to think that I’d be able to change that fact.  I haven’t heard any missing persons reports since, so there’s a decent chance they made it to Waterloo happily enough.  Took in Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Downing St, Trafalgar Square and St James’s Park before heading back to Putney for curry and a pint night.

Next morning I met up with Dean (and Pete, who had just happened to be wandering round Earl’s Court looking lost when Dean changed trains there.  Ahh, another great backpacking moment).  After boring stuff like showers and washing, the three of us went for a brief look around the Tate Modern before taking in a couple of pints at the nearby Founders Arms, overlooking the Thames and the City, and talked general guy shit as well as figuring out a few bits and pieces for the impending yacht trip.  I’m sure we had much grander plans, but time got away on us, so we headed back to Putney, met Tony for a beer, had haircuts (thanks Pris!) and then the 5 of us, plus Scott and Nat (another couple of mates from NZ) and Pris’s brother Luke all went to a ‘stuff food down your throat until you explode’ Chinese buffet in Hammersmith.  Which was surprisingly good given that I don’t usually care much for (a) Chinese or (b) buffets.

Following day I went for another run then Dean & I went to catch up with Andy, the English guy we’d met in Vietnam.  Obviously the English weather played its part here and it started pissing down while we were on the tube, to ensure we were suitably damp by the time we caught up with Andy outside Bank station.  He took us to a great old traditional English pub tucked down an alleyway where it looked like it had been for centuries (and it probably had…) and we caught up over lunch and a pint.  A bit of shopping, drinking and wandering around Soho later, we headed back to dirty ol’ Wetherspoons for dinner and drinks, then back to the house to nail a few more beers and duty free vodkas.

Saturday was my last full day in London, so I did a bit of shopping and stuff in the morning, then headed out to Tower Hill station.  Where I ran into Pete for the second time that day.  Honestly, you fly 12,000 miles to get away from New Zealand……   Anyway, the reason I was there was to meet Patrick and go back to his and Rachel’s place to catch up with them and their very new daughter Lauren.  And how extremely cute she is.  It’s only been 18 months since my nephew Jake was born but I’d already forgotten just how tiny newborns are.  Still, I didn’t break her, and she slept beautifully while I held her and chatted away to the happy (albeit slightly sleep deprived) parents.  Everything is going well in their world and it seems like they are adapting very well to the shock of being new parents, especially such a long way from ‘home’ – wherever that is for any of us.

Back to Putney for a very good Indian (well, supposedly Nepalese…) meal, then just to mix it up, we went to a different Wetherspoons, this time in Hammersmith.  Much more of a bar/club feel than a typical Wetherspoons pub, we spent a good few hours there and got home much later than we should have given the plans for the next day – flying to the Greek Islands!

If you enjoyed this post please share it with your friends - it only takes a second but it makes a huge difference to me!