Skip to main content

Monday April 25th — another boat trip

 Just as I had finally stopped feeling I was on a rocking horse, I decided to take another boat trip. This one was from Kew Pier to Westminster, a trip I did back in 1977 when I moved to England, to Richmond. So it was a “for old time’s sake” in a way although so much has changed on the River, so many skyscrapers! 

Before we went, though, we took an early morning walk around Canizzaro Park, next to our hotel. And that’s what decided me that I needed a warmer jacket; I covered that story in my post about Sunday I think. The park was so beautiful, azaleas and rhododendrons and magnolias. The garden at the back of the hotel full of tulips. As we emerged from the park we passed allotment gardens and chatted with an 80-something lady whose small front garden was bursting with spring flowers. Wish I had taken a photo but here are some park photos anyway:










We ate a wonderful breakfast at Ivy’s Cafe in Wimbledon Village and then I did the charity shop circuit. No luck, I walked down the hill to Elys Department Store in the town of Wimbledon but the one puffy jacket they had was an Esprit and was too expensive. I figured I could last until we found something else.

We caught the train to Kew but I had misjudged how long it would take to walk from Kew Station to Kew Pier, especially as R’s knee was bothering him, and we barely made the boat. In fact I think if we hadn’t booked tickets they might have left without us, although it was only us and another couple and their dog on board. What a lovely relaxing trip. It took an hour and 15 minutes, R was able to rest his knee. My how London’s skyline has changed! The Rutgers professor that gave lectures on the Queen Mary said that cities just plain evolve and if we long for the “old days” we are holding onto something that doesn’t fit with a new world. Hah, that’s probably something I would have said to my father!

Anyway, my photos were a mix of the old and the new on the river:








By the time we reached Westminster Pier and made our way through the hordes of tourists there and around Westminster Abbey, R was getting testy again. He hates crowds. So we found a quiet side street and a hole in the wall Sicilian pizza place with the best pizza (for me, just like the pizza I remember in Montreal growing up) and a tuna baguette for R. We were the only customers; fun to chat with the owner. 

After that we went to Westminster Cathedral. While Westminster Abbey had lines waiting to go in, the Cathedral was quiet and almost deserted. Lovely. We then headed over to M & S for chocolate biscuits (no jacket,) and afterward took the Underground back to Wimbledon. Hallelujah we got a direct train and when we arrived in Wimbledon found Mountain Warehouse and a jacket.

A shared cashew chicken and rice dinner at one of the four Thai restaurants in Wimbledon and then back to the hotel, 8.8 miles since we started off in the morning.

Westminster Cathedral:










Comments

  1. OneKidsMomApril 25, 2022 at 4:01 PM

    Loving your photos. Don't you just love the English gardens, so orderly and well-tended. And the hush of the cathedral sounds like just the needed break.

    Sure glad you found that coat. Comfort is essential, and it will double as a memory keepsake.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 2024 and blogging

  I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most ...
12 comments
Read more

It’s just another day

  Yesterday was the final day of my 8-day assignment in a 4th grade class; I’ve written something about that assignment in a previous post, “Revolt of the Guinea Pig,” It’s been a challenging 8 days which, as Dickens might have said, brought out the best in me and probably the worst in me as well. But yesterday morning I had that experience that every teacher dreads—shelter in place, also known as possible shooter situation. I had arrived at the school at 7:20 thinking how wonderful it was that our heat had broken a bit. The skies were overcast, we’d had rain the day before, there was a cool breeze. As I walked to my classroom (photos below of what the buildings look like), I waved to the students already gathered on the other side of the gate, who were waiting to rush in, some to the cafeteria for their breakfast, some to the playground to run and hopefully get some of that energy out before the bell rang at 7:55. I unlocked the outside door to our building, walked down the corrid...
2 comments
Read more

Journeying to Helsinki

Sheila and I got up quite early in our hotel room, were packed and ready to go by 7:30. Had some buffet breakfast (a couple of mini croissants, double Gloucester cheese, fruit and a latte), brushed teeth, out of room by 8:30 am. At train station before 9, picked up my tickets and realized I wasn’t going directly to Heathrow on the train but was going to King’s Cross first and then would have to transfer to the Tube. Ugh. Still the first class carriage York to King’s Cross was very nice. I was served a ham sandwich and a brownie. (If I had realized that would be the last food I’d get until 3:00 pm, I would have eaten the whole sandwich. This is becoming a theme with me, long waits between meals.) As first class also means free WiFi, I began to dismantle my arrangements for Edinburgh although I couldn’t fix the Ryanair part of it yet—what a surprise. I have over a week to do that, if I’m not too tired when I get to the hotel in Helsinki tonight, I will get that done. It was difficult to ...
2 comments
Read more