All photographs © Elizabeth West unless otherwise indicated

5 October

Sunday.  I don’t have much time left–baww!  We spent today with my step-cousin, who lives in Hammersmith (a London borough).  We took a lovely walk along the Thames to her son’s school, where they were having a car boot sale to raise money for the school.  It’s like a huge swap meet where people park their vehicles in and use them as booths.

Here is a funny sign above a pub tucked into an alley we passed on the way.

The Dove has been here since the seventeenth century.  I’m a bit sorry we had a drink at a different pub.

Here’s a picture of the car boot sale.  I bought a pretty sparkly bracelet from a funny man who waved an American flag with 48 stars at me and tried to tell me the bracelet was real diamonds. I also got a cute purple plaid satchel for three pounds. I’m such a sucker for tote bags–it’s awful.

After we walked back, we went across the Hammersmith Bridge to see my cousin’s allotment.  These are community garden spaces you can apply for in the city.  You can grow things, if you don’t have a space of your own.  This site, though not London, explains how they work–you pay a bit of rent and keep up your bit of land.  My cousin grows lovely vegetables and flowers on hers.

She’s also a fabulous cook. Some of this is from the allotment.  That’s vegetarian lasagna, with spelt pasta and soy.  The flowers are nasturtiums–they are edible and kind of peppery, like watercress.  It was delicious.

I think allotments are a splendid idea.  The English take their gardening rather seriously, and this is a fantastic way to have one if you don’t have any yard space.  It allows people to grow their own food as well.  And they foster a sense of community, as everyone gets to know everyone else.  That’s hard to do in a city the size of London sometimes.

We walked over Hammersmith Bridge to reach it.  It’s quite a pretty structure, though I have a phobia of high bridges over water and the trek across it was nerve-wracking for me.

Don’t look down…

It was a beautiful day, though a bit nippy in the shade.  The sun shone, runners and cyclists were everywhere, and many flowers were still blooming in private gardens along our route.

———-

6 October

HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR!

Okay, first, let me say this and get it out of the way.  This attraction at Warner Bros. Studios, which contains actual sets, props, and costumes from the Harry Potter films, is a HUGE tourist trap.  But if you are a Potternerd such as myself, it is worth every penny.

You catch a train from London Euston station to Watford Junction (about twenty minutes north), and a shuttle picks you up outside the station and takes you right to the attraction.  Both the train ticket and the shuttle are fairly cheap.

At rush hour, or just before, Euston is NOT this empty.  Trust me. 

Image: Sunil060902 / Wikimedia Commons

Today, the holiday gremlins were strong.  I got a late start catching the bus to the train station.  A small delay on the District tube line did not help matters, and by the time I had transferred twice to the Picadilly and Victoria lines, I had resigned myself to missing my train at Euston.

I tried to get another ticket for the next train or print mine and see if I could use them again (I could), but the machine wouldn’t cooperate.  The ticket agent told me to print them at Watford, so I did.  It was also raining today and cold.  Like see-your-breath cold.  I didn’t wear a scarf because I wanted to buy one at the attraction, so I nearly froze.

The items at the attraction are the actual ones used in the films.  You can take pictures.  And I did.  Here are some of them (I might get in trouble for posting them, so I’m going to only post a few.  If you want to see it and you’re going to be in London, go here to book tickets.  You must book in advance

Gryffindor costumes in the Great Hall.

Assorted small props that every Potternerd will recognize.

The gates of Hogwarts!

GASP!  No seriously, when I walked in and saw this large model, I actually gasped.

Do your wizard shopping here.

After a hot dog the size of my arm (a sausage, really), some crisps, and a cold butterbeer (which tasted like cream soda with whipped cream in it–everyone was saying it was awful) about halfway through the tour, I hit the gift shop.  Everything in there is overpriced–seriously, £7.95 for a chocolate frog? Yeah it was huge, but still.  Okay, yes, I bought one!  And a Gryffindor scarf and some Hogwarts gloves, because still freezing.

Going back, I just managed to hit the edge of rush hour on the Underground–masses of people moving through narrow tiled corridors and down tight staircases, crammed close to strangers on the train, sitting next to them on the bus.  The reason people ignore everyone on the tube is because it’s weird to have them so close.  But that’s how public transport is, so you just have to deal with it.  I tend to stare at the tube map above the windows or at the floor.  I see a lot of interesting shoes that way.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try and get downtown and to a couple of art exhibits.  I had so much stuff on my itinerary and I’ve been so sidetracked I haven’t made it to any of them.  I need another week.  Wonder if my boss will mind?

Well, a girl can dream, I guess.  Come on, Bardarbunga.  Cough some ash up into the air and postpone my flight.

Back from Scotland!

I’m sorry I didn’t post sooner–there was no internet on the train, nor was the internet at the station worth a crap, and I was too tired to even write the post.  I apologize for the length.

I began this leg of my journey at London’s Euston Station.  My train was the Caledonian Sleeper, which I discovered at The Man in Seat 61’s website (see link).  I collected my tickets at the station.

AAAAAALL ABOOOOOOAARRRD! Okay, they don’t really yell that.

All photographs in this post © Elizabeth West 

A word about trains in the UK:

• A train car is a carriage.  On the sleeper, your bed is a berth.  Your berth is located in a compartment.   A rail company employee is handy all night to help you if you need your door unlocked or if you have a problem.  He/she is known as an attendant.  He has a little office on the carriage so if you need him, just knock and he will help you.

• When you get the ticket, you NEED to keep it until you are completely done with your trip. Why? Because you need it to both enter and exit the platform.  There is a little machine with a gate, not unlike the tube station barriers I remember from London in 1983.  You feed your ticket through the slot and it comes out the top and opens the gate.  Without it, you can’t get in or out.

• Keep your ticket handy on trains where you are in a seat. They will come round and check your ticket.  If you get on a train without one, you can get fined.  Sometimes you can buy a ticket ON a train if you mess up.  But they want to see that you are holding a valid ticket.

• You can buy a ticket online and collect it from a machine at the station. This is what I did for both Inverness and Cardiff.  All you need is the credit card you bought the ticket with and your confirmation number.  MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THAT CONFIRMATION NUMBER.

On the Caledonian Sleeper, if you are in standard class, you may use the first class lounge to sit and charge your device, buy a drink, or buy dinner and eat.

The First Class Lounge on the sleeper.  Only train in Britain with real leather sofas.

If it’s full of first-class passengers, however, you will have to go back to your compartment and wait until the lounge is less busy.  My advice–there is only the one lounge car, so get your butt up there as fast as possible if you want to eat.  You can purchase food to take back to your compartment if you like or if you’d rather not wait, but the to-go stuff is limited.

Eating on the train.  Tomato pasta and the bread was delicious.  Tennant’s lager.  The food is heated up, but it was pretty good.  Real cutlery, real dishes.  Sorry it’s blurry.

ScotRail is supposed to refurbish the sleeper.  They actually almost did away with it altogether, but there was a huge outcry because so many people used it to commute, and it was a sort of traditional thing.

The train doesn’t leave until eight or nine o’clock, so you’ll be tired by the time you get on.  The bed is okay; it’s just narrow.  You get two pillows and a thick duvet, and you can control the temperature in the compartment.  I was nice and warm.

The corridor is extremely narrow and the compartments tiny.  First class is just standard class with more frills and the extra berth (upper) folded up into the wall (single occupancy).  If you’re traveling standard class, you will be sharing with someone of the same sex.  They’ve been doing it this way for years with very little problem and you’ll probably be fine.  Or you can spring for first class –if you buy your ticket far enough in advance, you can save money.

Compartment on the sleeper.  The sink is beneath the counter top under the window. You lift it up and it does have hot and cold water.  You get a tiny plastic-wrapped towel and a little bitty soap.  Whee!

WARNING!  The walls are very thin!  You can hear everything.  If you’re planning to shag your sweetie, good luck not bumping your head, and keep it silent.

Someone coughing kept me from sleeping the first night and I was freaking exhausted the next day.  The second night, I had the compartment to myself (yay!) because of a double booking, but my neighbor was playing a video and I could hear every word.  I knocked and politely asked him to turn it down, and he obliged.

———-

LOCH NESS

I met up with Inverness Tours at the station.  What I did was a share-a-tour deal, where someone purchases the tour and they sell off the unoccupied seats.  You then get to go on the tour without having to get a huge group of people together.  A very nice American couple had booked the tour–it was just the three of us.  Our guide was George Munro, who is a retired local and a delightful storyteller with a lovely Highland accent.  He was hilarious and we loved him.

A shot of Inverness. This is the River Ness, which flows out of Loch Ness, through Loch Dochfour, and through Inverness.

Here is a video I took of Loch Ness from Urquhart Castle. I wanted you to see and hear the sound of the wind and the lapping of the water.  It’s an absolutely lovely place.

The wind is very strong there.  I had a scarf wound loosely round my neck, and when I went to the top of the castle citadel, I had to knot it because the wind actually unwound it and almost removed it!

Loch Ness is almost 24 miles long and contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.  At its deepest point, it is 875 feet down.  Sadly, expeditions found mostly fish and little plankton-type things.  There is not enough food there to support a large monster, and all the sightings are explainable by other means.  But Nessie or no Nessie, you can’t deny its beauty.

See? :)

The presentation at the Loch Ness Centre at Drumnadrochit (pronounced Drum na DROCH it, with the ch pronounced like in loch) acknowledged that the monster probably doesn’t exist.  It left enough ambiguity that you could choose to believe if you wanted to.

Nessie?  What’s happened to your pond, girl?  Driest September in history? Aww, well hump on back to the loch then, lassie.

Before we went to the Centre, we crawled all over Urquhart Castle.

I told you that next time you saw this, it would be a picture by me.  Here ya go! This is Urquhart Castle from the citadel with the loch in the background.

A stronghold during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, the castle was partially blown up by the Clan Grant in 1692 to prevent the Jacobites from taking it over and it was never rebuilt.  In 1715, a storm caused further damage to Grant Tower.  The remains have been preserved and the castle’s ruins are now a huge tourist attraction.

I’ve wanted to see this place since I was a kid.  Despite the gimmicky atmosphere of a short, eight-minute historical documentary before we went to the castle, and a huge gift shop, it did not disappoint.  I loved walking around and reading the informational plaques. I climbed to the top of Grant Tower and only stayed long enough to take a couple of shots, because it too open and the wind too strong for me to feel comfortable with the height.

Shots of the castle:

Urquhart Castle–Grant Tower from a small grassy area. You can see the hole where Clan Grant blew up the tower to keep the Jacobites from taking it.

Urquhart Castle–this is where the stables would have been, close to the gatehouse.

The citadel at Urquhart. This is Scottish weather–sunny in some shots, cloudy and dark and rainy in others.

On the way back, we stopped by the side of the road to get a shot of a house with some sheep in front of it and I broke off a sprig of heather.  I’m pressing it to keep; I hope I can get it home without it falling apart.

This house.  These sheep.  Right after this, it started pouring, though the sun kept shining.

Because I hadn’t slept well on the train going up, I was far too exhausted to explore much of Inverness after George dropped us off.  We went to Leakey’s Bookshop, a converted church on Church Street near the city centre.  Sadly, the café there had shut for good, but the bookstore was still open. I bought a cookery book full of historical photographs of Scottish people and full of traditional recipes.  I can hardly wait to try some of them–if I can find ingredients.

Haggis (the national dish of Scotland), neeps (swede turnips), and tatties (potatoes). Haggis is very rich, very meaty and spicy. It’s not bad, if you forget what it’s made of (sheep offal).

Coming back, I lucked out and though I got the same berth in the same compartment, I didn’t have to share this time.  I slept hard (with the aid of two glasses of wine, ha ha), on the way back to London.  In fact, I was still sleeping when the attendant knocked the next morning with my tea, only to tell me “We’ll be arriving in forty minutes.”  GAH!

Things it’s hard to do on a moving train:

• Use the loo (again, much bigger than on airplanes, and you should see the first class train loo).  It’s hard to stand up without losing your balance if the train lurches.  Just be careful.
• Get dressed.
• Make a cup of tea.
• Drink a cup of tea whilst getting dressed and packing at the same time.
• Put on makeup–especially eyeliner.  I skipped it.
• Walk.
• Take pictures out the window.

Things to know about the tube:

• Lots of stairs; no lifts (elevators) in many stations, though there are escalators in some.  So don’t overload your bags.

• Most people just want to get where they’re going, but if you’re polite, they will answer a question or help you if needed.  I was trying to drag my borrowed roller bag up a particularly evil set of stairs at Paddington when coming back from Cardiff.  When I got nearly to the top, my bag suddenly levitated as a man behind assisted me up the last few steps.  He probably just wanted me out of his way, but I thanked him politely anyway.

• People do talk, but mostly to each other, if they’re sitting with people they know (and on the phone sometimes). There are exceptions–I was at the head of a queue with some people and it suddenly shifted so the front was at the other end.  He joked to me, “Of course, now we’re at the END of the line!”  I said, “I know, right!”

• On the London Underground, the ticket-operated gates have been replaced by automated barriers that you touch your Oyster card on. Just hold your card over the big yellow button until the light turns green and the gate will open.  Do it when you enter and when you leave to go up to the street.

• Transport for London will put you on a bus (railway replacement service) if the tube is shut for some reason. I had to do this today–they were doing engineering work on the District line from Turnham Green to Richmond Station, where I had to pick up the bus.  They don’t charge extra for this service either.  I asked the underground attendant who was in charge if we had to use Oyster for the replacement bus, and he said no.  Thank you, TfL!  The bus stops as close to where the affected tube stations are as possible.

I shouldn’t have any problem with the buses, either, though I didn’t ride them last time.  They’re practically idiot-proof now, with stop announcements and Oyster on them as well.  All you have to do is know what your stop is.

It’s almost time for a lovely dinner, so I’ll go now.  Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting with my step-cousin and we’re going to a car boot sale (garage sale) for her kid’s school.  On Monday:

HARRY POTTER STUDIOS!!!

Back to the insanity that is Euston Station!

25 September

It’s 11:30 pm here in England.  I’m sitting here watching a British version of Hoarders on TLC (yes really) after a lovely afternoon being shown around the centre of Kingston-upon-Thames and how to get to the train station, etc.

We hit up Primark (super cheap Walmart-level clothing) where I found a cute tote bag that my computer fits in and also has 1) a cross-body strap and 2) closes with a zipper completely.  What is up with bag manufacturers who leave the tops open–have they never heard of pickpockets!?

And why do we not have Primark in the U.S.?  I’m loading up, people!

We also went to Boots so I could get some toiletries. Though I packed far too much crap (I should not be allowed to start packing until a week before I leave–I do much better that way), I didn’t want to drag that kind of stuff here when I can just buy it.  I will try some British brands, but for now, I stuck with my familiar Olay moisturizer to avoid breakouts.

A visit to a place called Carphone Warehouse netted me a British pay-as-you-go mobile (a prepaid cellphone in American).  I got a cute little Samsung smartphone made for the kiddies and a talk/text/data card.  My PAYG won’t work over here.  Now I can get hold of my Welsh buddy and make calls, etc.  It’s as much for safety as information and keeping in touch.

Although I’ve been here before, it was a long time ago, and I wanted to note some impressions for you.

• The stalls in the toilets at Heathrow go almost all the way down to the floor. I LOVE this. Near total privacy; no one can nick your carry-on out from under the stall.

• Queuing. Yes, I forgot how great at that people are over here.

• All the lovely red buses. J  I’ll be riding them a lot, most likely; Kingston-upon-Thames is a suburb, and it’s a bit cheaper for me to go further afield than taking the tube every time.  Plus, I have to go into town on the train to even get to the tube.

• I have my own Oyster card! Though Transport for London (TfL) is phasing these out in favor of contactless debit/credit options, there are still a lot of people who will use them.  Visitors and people who don’t have cards come to mind.

I can go anywhere now. It’s a thing of beauty.

Photo:  Elizabeth West

• Okay, London, I know I don’t have a chip and PIN card, but if you run my card as credit, it will work, I promise. It’s not my fault the U.S. can’t get its damn ducks in a row and upgrade.

—————

26 September

Today, my auntie and her friend and I had lunch at a lovely pub and went to Richmond Park, one of eight Royal Parks and the largest enclosed green space in London. This was on my list anyway.

If you find a place with good fish and chips, you’ve found heaven.

Photo:  Elizabeth West

Richmond Park is full of deer–they have been there since before the days of Tudor kings, when the land was set aside as royal parkland/hunting areas.  Because so many people wander around the park, they’re kind of used to them, and they don’t run away when you get close to them (mostly).  They roam around freely in the park.

This is the part the tourists want to see.

This is the part nobody tells you about.

Photos: Elizabeth West

There’s an ornamental park within the park called the Isabella Plantation.  Find out more at the link.  I did not know this existed, but it was absolutely one of the loveliest places I’ve ever seen.

See?

Photo: Elizabeth West

On the way back, we heard what sounded like a cow bellowing.  We looked under a tree and there was a huge stag, at least 12 to 14-point, who apparently was none too happy we’d disturbed his nap.

Another stag in a meadow was wandering around, occasionally calling out and just looking cool.  We’re approaching the rutting season for these animals, so the boyz are strutting their stuff.

At King Henry’s mound, there is a maintained unobstructed view of the city.  It’s quite far, but if you look through the gap in the center, you can see the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The slit in the center is the view. You can’t see it in the picture because I took this with a smartphone. You’ll have to come see it for yourself.

Photo:  Elizabeth West

Tomorrow I go to Cardiff, Wales on the train.  My B&B has internet, so I will post when I can.  This holiday is going by much too quickly.  I’ll just have to come back.  Oh darn.  :)

The holiday begins later today.  I so wish the flying were over–we all know how much fun trying to sleep on a plane can be.  I tried like hell to get an upgrade, to no avail.  But it’s okay.

Getting ready for a holiday upsets your routine tremendously.  Some people are anxious when they travel.  I get anxious beforehand.

–Did I pack everything?

–Did I pack too much?

–Did I pack the wrong clothes and oh my God will I look like an idiot?  (Seriously, I don’t know how to dress; this is a real concern for me.)

–Will my suitcase get lost?  (Shush, Rick Steves; I’m not going carry-on only because I don’t want to do laundry every damn night.)

–Will I be able to sleep on the plane?

–Where’s my passport/confirmation/lip balm/phone/water bottle/tablet?  No really– I NEED MY LIP BALM!

–Will I miss my plane?

–Will there be a delay?

–WILL I GET BUMPED AND HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE AIRPORT????

The Universe gremlins have sensed impending fun, and they’ve ramped up their efforts to try and spoil things.  I haven’t slept.  I’ve been eating crap for the last two days because I cleaned the house on Sunday, and I didn’t want to cook anything and dirty up dishes.  I couldn’t buy any fresh food.  And the trash man did not empty my *full* can yesterday so I had to call them.  AAAAUUUGGGHHH.

But really, it should be fine.  I’m much more prepared than Bilbo was.  And I’ll try not to forget my handkerchief.

See you soon!