Showing posts with label Miscellaneous outings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous outings. Show all posts

10 August 2023

Out and About

The best day of the summer so far - and according to the weather forecasters, it will be the only one - so we thought we had better make the most of it!

The Swan Whisperer wanted to visit the new Battersea Power Station, so we caught a P5 up there; to be honest, I didn't think much of it - it's just an expensive shopping mall with extortionate restaurants! 


(Not my photo, by the way!) We had a look round, but then came away and had lunch in Wagamama.  I had suggested having lunch there the other day, but the Boy said it wasn't nearly as nice as it used to be - and he's quite right, it isn't!  And about twice the price it used to be, too - but they still do free green tea, which I do like.  

After which, we went to catch a bus to Clapham Junction as the Swan Whisperer needed new sandals and trainers and that is now our nearest branch of Clark's.  Of course, the nearest bus stop was closed, so we had to walk to the next one, but that didn't matter.  

Shoe-shopping successfully accomplished - I saw a pair of good winter shoes I rather coveted, so I might go back tomorrow, especially as I have a £10 Asda voucher to spend, although I couldn't be bothered to go to Asda today - we walked down to the ice-cream shop and I treated us to a cone each.  And then a bus home!  Not a massively exciting day, but at least different!

27 July 2023

Young V&A and 10 Ages of London

The Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green is an old friend - we've taken the Boys at least twice.  But it has now reopened after having been closed for two years, now calling itself  Young V&A and I, for one, wanted to see what they had done to it.  The Boys are probably a bit old for it now - they are 13 and almost 10, but I thought, well, we can always snark....

We had originally been going to meet them at Liverpool Street Station at 11:20, but their mother said she'd gathered you really needed to be there before 11 if you weren't going to have to queue for hours, so we met them at 10:20 (the time their train comes in on the Overground) instead, and went straight to the Central Line for the one stop to Bethnal Green.  There was no queue to get in, but we were very glad we had gone so early, as on our way out, at nearly noon, the queue snaked about round the block!

The Swan Whisperer was desperate for coffee, so we went to the museum cafĂ© first of all, and he and the Boys all had coffee while I, adequately caffeinated for one day, had fizzy water.  Then we set off to explore - the first gallery we went to was aimed at children learning their letters and colours.  Round the other side of that floor, there were a lot of familiar exhibits, mostly with rather dumbed-down captions, inviting visitors to imagine they were doing thus and so.   The Rachel Whiteread dolls houses are still there, in a section called "Small Worlds", and I think the original ones - the ones that used to be in the V&A until the 1970s - were still there, but I didn't see them.  There were also Sindys and Barbys, and lots of other dolls and miniature things.



Then we went up to the second floor where they had the Design Galleries, aimed slightly more at people the Boys' age; this had a lot of seemingly random things, but grouped by type - shedloads of scooters, including a Microscooter that had a built-in suitcase!  Then all kinds of other design objects, from clothes to toothbrushes!  The Boys were beginning to flag by then and needing what they will insist on calling "the bathroom" - I enquired whether they planned to have a bath!  We eventually all used the facilities and came away, very glad that we had gone so relatively early.  

It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, and certainly looks fresh and new, with a more airy feel to it.  I think I should like to go back on my own one day in term time so that I can take as long as I want to look at things.

The Boy had asked if we could have lunch in Spitalfields Market, so we got a bus there, and spent awhile wandering around the market and deciding what to eat.  Finally we settled on the pasta restaurant that Boy Two said he'd been to before and really liked, and after filling up on pasta, we went to find the place where they were doing rolled ice-cream, which the Boy badly wanted to try (so did I!); I did a video of one being made which I'll post on Facebook.  It was fun to watch the ice cream being made, but really, when push came to shove, it was just rather good ice-cream, really!

We then had to decide how to spend the afternoon.  I had read about a walk called the 10 ages of London and we decided to do that.  A quick bus down to London Bridge started the walk in prehistory - only the Thames is left from then, and it was very different.  Then the Romans - we enjoyed seeing where the Roman bridge was, and a model of the mediaeval bridge in the church of St Magnus the Martyr - there was also a piece of wood that they think was part of the original bridge and whose tree would have been alive in Jesus' day!  We walked past the office building that contains the Roman baths - not available to visit today - and up to All-Hallows-by-the-Tower  where we admired the Saxon arch. 


On past St Olave's with its three skulls above the gateway (mediaeval),

and then to St Andrew Undershaft for the Tudors.  

A brisk walk then, past Fenchurch Street station (none of us had been there before, and I was gutted that my photo of it didn't come out) and across Eastcheap to Pudding Lane (both the Boy and I wanted to call it Pudding Mill Lane, but that is somewhere different!) where the Great Fire of London infamously broke out, and out the other end to Monument.  This, of course, was the Stuart era.  

The guided walk suggested going on down to find the only pub that is said to have survived the Great Fire (and, of course, the Blitz), but both Boy Too and I had Had Enough by then, so we decided Monument would have to Do for the Stuarts, and we ended up walking up King William Street to the Bank junction, where we could see the Mansion House (Georgian) and the Royal Exchange (Victorian), and we decided that we had seen more than enough 20th- and 21st-century buildings to count!  So we got on a bus back to Liverpool Street Station, where we got some refreshments and then met the Daughter for a quick cup of tea before she took the Boys home, and we wearily clambered on to the next homebound 35.  Both of us fell asleep on the bus, and how the Swan Whisperer thinks he'll have the energy to go to dance club, I do not know!

Meanwhile, I have never put quite so many links in one blog post before!  There will be more photos on Facebook.

29 April 2023

On the Buses

Today, 29 April, was All Change on many of London's bus routes.  Three of the routes involved went through Brixton, so it was a no-brainer to travel on them and see what had changed.  The Swan Whisperer did a parkrun, and I did tai chi, and we met up outside Brixton Library at 10:30 to catch our first bus of the day, the no 3.

Now, the 3 used to go to Horse Guards (back in the day, it went further, up Regent Street, I think, but can't really remember), but from today it goes to Victoria Station.  It really wouldn't be the sensible option normally, as it is a lot longer than the 2, which is the main bus between Brixton and Victoria; however I can see that it does provide useful links once you are in Kennington.  Instead of turning left after crossing Lambeth Bridge, it goes straight on up Horseferry Road and Artillery Row before turning left into Victoria Street, and so to Victoria Station.

Our next bus was a no 11.  This used to be the best bus in London, running from Chelsea all the way over to Liverpool Street Station, and it was the route you recommended to tourists as a great way of seeing many of the sights without having to take an expensive tour.  I believe much of its former route - up Whitehall, along  Fleet Street to St Paul's Cathedral, and so on, has been taken over by the 26, which we need to explore sometime.  Anyway, its new route after Victoria was very dull - straight down Victoria Street, over Westminster Bridge, and so to Waterloo.

The next bus that interests us is the 59, on which I used to commute to Russell Square when I was working in the area.  Alas, no more - if I want to go to that area by bus in future, I'll have to change at Waterloo on to a 68.  However, the bus does now go over to Smithfield and St Bartholomew's Hospital, turning right at Holborn and going along High Holborn, Chancery Lane and Newgate Street to get there.  Our journey was slightly spoiled by the driver's forgetting that the bus stop at Waterloo had changed, so we had to run to catch it, and then the driver, presumably annoyed with himself, was grumpy.

By the time we got to Smithfield, it was about 12:00, so we decided to walk back along the route to Red Lion Square where the rerouted 133 now starts.  It, too, used to go to Liverpool Street, but now goes to Holborn instead.  It was a lovely walk along a part of London we really don't know at all.  With distant views of St Paul's Cathedral

north from Holborn Viaduct
and distant views of the Post Office tower (now, I believe, known as Telecom Tower):
When we were nearly there, we stopped and got some lunch in a nearby Prets, and then found the first stop for the 133.  Unlike the 3 and the 11, not all the bus stops have been updated to reflect the new routes.  This one had, though: 
but in fact, the 59 and the 133, which both start in Streatham and go through Brixton, are going in opposite directions along the route!  The 133 now goes past St Paul's Cathedral, which will be useful as and when we want to go to that area.

We had great fun this morning, but in many ways I'm not impressed with TfL's route changes.  So often now one has to change buses instead of a route going directly.  TfL will say it's not a big deal since you don't have to pay another fare, but that's not really an issue for people with passes, etc, which I think a majority of  people have, except tourists and those who no longer commute regularly.  But really, it means that one will have to allow a good ten minutes longer for a given journey, and what about those with mobility issues, heavy luggage, or small children?  What if it's raining?   Fares are not the only issue!  

Still, we had fun, and maybe one day we'll do the trip in reverse - starting with the 133, walking back to Smithfield and taking the 59 as far as Waterloo, then the 11 back to Victoria and the 3 back to Brixton!

03 April 2023

Another day on the river

 My family have developed a very nice habit of giving the Swan Whisperer Experience vouchers for Christmas, which we then like to redeem around the time of our wedding anniversary.  This year, my sister gave us tickets to the Abba Voyage concert, which we went to last week and both thoroughly enjoyed. It was amazing, and I do recommend it if you ever get a chance.



Meanwhile, my mother gave us the treat of a champagne afternoon tea at the Courthouse Hotel, Soho AND (it came as a package, but was two separate Experiences really) a day trip on the Thames with City Cruises.  We redeemed the afternoon tea on Friday, which was our anniversary, and very good it was, too! 


Then today we went on the river.

We didn't actually profit very much from the Hop-On, Hop-Off, as the cruises only stop at 2 places between Westminster and Greenwich, which are the London Eye and the Tower.  But we went down to Greenwich, which was a lovely trip in itself. 




We were hungry when we arrived, and there is a branch of Zizzi just by the pier, so went in there for lunch.  I had Chicken calabrese 
which was delicious, followed by an ice-cream sundae.  Also delicious!  Then we went for a walk around the Cutty Sark

and the old Royal Palace (now a university and the National Maritime Museum),

and then back to catch the next boat back upstream.  There were superb views,

but oh dear, the live commentary was dire - almost the same jokes as going down, but badly delivered, and he was totally patronising about the women (who he called "ladies") who built Waterloo Bridge.  I was very unimpressed, and even if I'd had any cash on me would not have left a tip.

We had planned to get off at the London Eye, but it didn't stop there on the way back, so we got off at Westminster Pier, and then walked up to Whitehall through the public subway at Westminster Station, and then eventually - it was rush hour by then - on a bus home!

14 February 2023

A London walk, with grandsons

So we were on half-term grandparent duty today.  Their mother brought them down to Brixton Station, where the Swan Whisperer met them and brought them back to the flat and, after coffee (hot chocolate for Boy Two), they went off climbing, while I stayed at home.  When they had finished, they came back to the flat and picked me up, and we went into Brixton to have lunch.  The boys would have liked to have gone to Mama Lan again, but it turns out to be closed on Tuesdays.  This led us with the huge choice of restaurants that you can go to in Brixton, but as the boys love Mexican food, we finally ended up at Jalisco, where we had a delicious lunch.  I had a breakfast burrito, which is basically a wrap filled with scrambled egg and hash brown (and hot sauce) which came with a choice of toppings - I chose roasted vegetables.  It was delicious, but I couldn't finish it!  I also ordered a Virgin Mary, which was incredibly spicy!  It may not have had any vodka in it, but it was surely no virgin!!!

Anyway, after lunch we set off on a 159 bus to Parliament Square, and went for a walk.  I had given the Swan Whisperer a book of London walks for Christmas, and we went on the one that technically started and finished at Trafalgar Square, but went through Parliament Square and it was easier to start and finish more-or-less there.  It was a most enjoyable walk, even if I did keep stopping to take photographs.  Up Whitehall,


through Admiralty Arch, along the Mall, then up through Carlton Gardens to St James' Square, along Pall Mall, down Marlborough Street, and across St James' Park.  We then deviated from the walk proper to walk down to Tothill Street where there was a Prets and we stopped for refreshments.  From there, it was only five minutes' walk to the Daughter's offices (now in Church House Westminster), so we left the boys with her and caught a no 3 bus back to Brixton, largely so that we could see how the rebuilding of Lambeth Mission St Mary's is coming along!  

Most photos will be uploaded on Facebook.

01 December 2022

More new railway adventures

So today I had arranged to go Christmas shopping with the Daughter at Westfield, Stratford.  Now, I have commented before on the myriad ways of getting between Brixton and Stratford, but now there is yet another way, which is to get the Northern Line to Tottenham Court Road and then the Elizabeth Line to Stratford.

Which is exactly what I did, although to my irritation I didn't see the lift and found myself going up far too many stairs to get to the very long passage between the lines; I dislike too many steps as I get breathless going up, and with my varifocals, don't see too well going down!  But I survived.

Of course, the new link isn't very interesting as it's all in a tunnel, but I hadn't done it before, so....

After our shopping and a coffee, I decided to go home the "sensible" way on the Central Line, changing to the Northern Line at Bank.  This is a totally different experience these days, as there is the new moving walkway between the lines


and with escalators either end, it is totally step-free, which is lovely.  Plus, of course, the Southbound Northern Line platform is now twice as wide as it was, which makes waiting for a train a whole lot nicer!  And I didn't have to wait very long, either, for a Northern Line train!

24 October 2022

The new Bond Street and other stories

 Although the Elizabeth Line has been open for some months, Bond Street station didn't open until today.  And while we were on holiday, the new link between the DLR and the Northern Line at Bank opened, as did Battersea Power Station (which every Jodi Taylor fan knows is the Time Police HQ) and, I believe, a knew entrance to Knightsbridge station.

We do plan to go to Battersea Power Station very soon - it's a direct bus ride from here - but today was about the first two of these.  We started off by getting a bus to King's College Hospital where a friend is currently incarcerated after a fall.  After visiting her, we took another bus up to Elephant and Castle, and caught the Northern Line (neither of us has used this station before, as far as we are aware) to Bank, where we eventually found the rather shiny new escalators down to the DLR.  As we wanted to go on the Elizabeth Line, we took the DLR as far as Canary Wharf, and enjoyed seeing the Elizabeth Line station there, which apparently has roof gardens, which I decided not to bother visiting.  

The Elizabeth Line duly took us to Bond Street, where we admired the huge new station,


and then came out and had a snack in Prets.  I had their Chocolate Moose (sic) which I don't think I've had for nearly 20 years and every bit as delicious as I remember it!  And then just a short walk to Oxford Circus, where we got a Victoria Line train home.  At least, I did a bit of shopping, and the Swan Whisperer went off to do something else.  And so home.  

24 June 2022

Trains, trains and more trains!

The Elizabeth Line opened while we were still away in Germany, so we missed the grand opening, and one way and another hadn't got round to visiting it yet.  The Daughter did use it on the first day, but the Boys hadn't.  Today, the older Boy had an Inset day, so his mother took a day's leave and exploring the Elizabeth Line was high on his list of things to do.  We met at Liverpool Street, and took the first train along to Paddington. 



At Paddington, we came out of the station because the Daughter wanted to see the clock where it looks as though a man rubs out and redraws the minute hand

and, presumably, the hour hand.  So we watched that for awhile and then headed back, this time all the way to Abbey Wood.  Such a pity Younger Nephew and his partner no longer live there.... 

So anyway, we thought it would be a bit dull just going back to Liverpool Street and, to be honest, there is very little to see.  So we didn't get out at Abbey Wood, but caught the next train back one stop, to Woolwich, which I'd never been to before, 





and then walked the few hundred metres to Woolwich Arsenal DLR, where we just caught a DLR train to Stratford International. 

It was lunch time by then, and the Boy wanted Mexican food, so we went to the food court in the Westfield, and the others all got Mexican food, but I got noodles as I'm not just so fond of Mexican.  The Swan Whisperer had to finish my helping, it was so huge!

After that, he went off and the Boy, the Daughter and I went round Westfield on a hunt for t-shirts for the Boy, who is just not quite big enough for x-small men but dislikes, with some justification, the pictures they will insist on putting on boys' t-shirts.  I don't think the shopping trip was a success!  I also wanted to go to Lakeland, which I did, but then was going to have an ice cream but the stall, which had been empty when I went into Lakeland, was rammed when I came out.

I thought I might take the Javelin to Paddington (okay I'd have to pay, but it's not that much), but it turned out I'd just missed one and the next wasn't for over half an hour, so I thought sod that for a game of soldiers and went back to the DLR station.  Changed at Canning Town on to the Jubilee Line and then at Canada Water to the Overground, and at Peckham Rye to a bus, which fortunately came along just as I reached the bus stop.  I was, and am, beyond tired, but it was a lovely day.

11 June 2022

Stockwell Bus Garage Tour

Stockwell Bus Garage is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and, to celebrate, held an Open Day.  You could just go and potter round the garage, looking at the large variety of buses they had gathered for our delight,


plus an extremely large number of stalls selling bus memorabilia, but, as the Swan Whisperer said, we weren't keen enough to want to buy anything (although I was very tempted by a book on the nadir of Southdown Bus Services during the 1950s; those wonderful years when the buses crossed at Castle Goring Gates on the hour and the half-hour; the 9 going to Littlehampton on the half hour and the 10 to Arundel, and both buses going to Brighton on the way back!  But I digress.).  You could, however, also book a guided tour of the garage for a small fee, and the Swan Whisperer had managed to score practically the last available tickets just before we went away.

We gathered outside the Binfield Road entrance just before 2, and our names were checked off on the list.  The tour was absolutely fascinating; our tour guide, Ricardo, who has been a bus driver for 21 years, was knowledgeable and friendly.


  We started off in the check-in area, where drivers checked in for their shifts, and were shown the various notices of diversions, etc, they had to know about.  Then we went upstairs to the heart of operations - the iBus area.  We weren't allowed to take any photographs there for data protection reasons, but it was fascinating, as the controllers knew where all the buses were, and you got the occasional announcement from TfL headquarters saying that so-and-so routes were to be on diversion during an event in Central London that was just starting.... and the controllers could talk a driver who was not very confident through a diversion, and tell someone to wait for a few minutes if they were running late.  If there are fewer than 4 buses per hour they run to a timetable and shouldn't be more than 5 minutes late or 2 minutes early; if there are more than 4, they must leave a certain amount of headroom between buses (so you don't get half a dozen coming along at once).  And so on.

We were then shown the canteen - there is also a games room and a television lounge for drivers between shifts, although the canteen isn't open at night so night bus drivers have to provide their own food - there is no take-away service.  I asked whether there was a gym, but didn't get a very clear answer.

After the canteen, we went back downstairs and were shown the engineering areas, where the buses go in to be washed and cleaned after use,


and also where they go for their monthly inspections or if anything has gone wrong.  The drivers have a long checklist of things to look for every time they take a bus out, and if they are not all correct, the bus doesn't go.  All the engineers can service all the buses, and the drivers, too, are trained to drive all the various kinds.

The tour finished on the upper deck of an open-air bus, so we could see the famed ceiling of the garage, very avant-garde for its time.  



16 May 2022

The new Northern Line platforms

 I had a dentist appointment in Clapham at 4:00 pm, so, we thought, when we learnt that the Bank branch of the Northern Line was reopening today, we would be able to go up and have a look at it and then come down to Clapham in time for my appointment.  Of course, they thwarted us by opening the branch the previous evenings, so the likes of IanVisits and Geoff Marshall got there first!  We did quite seriously consider going up as soon as we learnt it was open, but it was getting late and I was still very tired, so we decided to stick to plan A.  

So we walked up to Clapham North and got the Bank branch from there.  We only visited the new platforms, as the new links to the Central Line and the DLR have yet to open, and the final part of the upgrade, the shiny new entrance on Cannon Street, won't open until the winter.  But the major part of the work, the creation of a whole new running tunnel for the Southbound branch, and turning what used to be the Southbound platforms into a large corridor, have now finished.

The new corridor/crush hall, where the old Southbound tunnel was.  The tracks were, I think, on the left, and the platform on the right.

The old and the new - the existing Northbound platforms, and the new connection.

Not everything is open yet, nor will be for some time.

The very large new Southbound platforms, such a pleasure after the ghastly overcrowding that was Bank!

And I got back down to Clapham Common in good time for the dentist!

14 May 2022

The Metro Marauder - Farewell to Class 455

 

The Class 455s are reaching the end of their natural lives, having entered service in the early 1980s, and transported commuters with greater or lesser efficiency ever since, under Network SouthEast, Connex, SouthCentral and now Southern.  South Western Railway is keeping them in service for a few more months, but today, being the final day before the summer timetable kicks in, is their last day of service under Southern.  And to celebrate, they organised a rail tour, in conjunction with the Branch Line Society 

It was not an expensive tour, as these things go, but then, they offered no food, and the 455s really only offer rather upright seats, in a 3+2 configuration, with no amenities such as plug sockets, window blinds (we could have done with them at one stage), air-conditioning or even loos!  They did warn us not to drink too much and to be careful how much fluid we took in!  

The tour left Victoria Station at 09:02; we took care to be there in good time, so we could buy a cup of coffee and, if necessary, get rid of it before we went.  There was a huge queue to get through the gateline, so they basically only checked that we actually had tickets (electronic ones) and came through on the train once we were off to check the tickets and issue wrist bands, programmes for the day and souvenir tickets.

The trip was extremely convoluted, with endless changes of direction.  Here is the plan for the day on the back of the programme: 

We first went south from Victoria to Billingshurst, where we were able to get out and stretch our legs for a few minutes, and then, reversing direction, went up the mid-Sussex line to Three Bridges,

where we reversed direction yet again and went to Hove, and then to Brighton, where we had a long break and the Swan Whisperer and I walked down to look at the sea.

  We did take a bus back - it's uphill, and I'm not very good at hills - and then bought sandwiches to eat on the train which went back to Hove, then back to Brighton - this was because they had to be on a different platform at Brighton to get to what I think is the East Causeway line to Lewes.  At Lewes, we reversed again, and went fast to Charing Cross, where there was another pee-break.  Then it did the oddest wiggle from Charing Cross, back over to Clapham Junction, and then round again to Blackfriars, where we again had a 15-minute break.  I got out of the train, but there were seats on the platform, so it was just nice to sit in the fresh air for a bit.  

From Blackfriars, we went down one line to Sevenoaks, where we reversed again, and then back to Victoria.

There was a raffle in aid of Mind in Croydon, and an auction of collectibles.  The SW and I both bought raffle tickets, and, very extraordinary, we both won.  He won a bottle of Cava - Asda's best, but none the worse for that, but I won the 2nd prize which was an hour's simulator experience to "drive a 2000 tonne freight train hauled by a GTRf class 66 locomotive on GBRf's state of the art class 66 Simulator".  Sounds great - although it took ages for the raffle organiser to get the voucher and then the person he gave it to gave it to the wrong person and had to run after her to apologise!  However, I got it in the end, and no harm done.


We had both had more than enough of trains by the time we got back to Victoria, so we took the bus home, and I am very nearly asleep!  All the same, I'm glad we went.  It wasn't the most comfortable railtour, and very far from the luxurious one we are looking forward to as my birthday treat, but it was a grand day out!  And the raffle prizes were the icing on the cake.

28 April 2022

A trip to France

We are staying with my mother for a few days while my sister is away, and, when we were planning our visit, I suggested we went to France for the day. My mother leapt at the idea, and so it was arranged.

We set off at 07:00 as we wanted to take plenty of time on the journey. We tried to stop at Clackett Lane services, but the petrol station, which my sister had said was the easiest place to go to the loo, but this was a bust as it was closed due to occupation by Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain, or one of those, so we had to stop at Maidstone Services, instead.  This was irritating because for some reason they don't let you go  back on to the motorway southbound from there, but you have to go back up to J7 and turn round there. Quite why, when there are several hundred meters after the exit before Operation Brock begins and you are directed on to the contraflow. This wasn't too bad, although we were limited to 50 mph for about 11 miles. There were very few lorries in their area then, although it was a lot fuller on the way back.

We got to the terminal in time to get a crossing 30 minutes earlier than booked, but also time to pay a quick visit to the terminal, which I haven't done for ages. Don't usually bother when we are in the motor home, but as the SW wanted coffee and was tempted by a bacon roll, as was I, and I got some orange juice, too, it was a good idea. The crossing was uneventful, although it felt odd to have nothing to do but read (I'd brought my Kindle, but the other two had nothing to read and were bored), as we are used to unpacking or packing or even getting ready for bed during the crossing when we are in the motor home.

In France, we went straight to CitĂ© Europe. As we had my mother with us, we could park in the disabled bays near the entrance, and she and I wandered round Carrefour - she had her walker and I had the trolley. The Swan Whisperer, meanwhile, swept out the car, which he should have done before we left but hadn't, and then he cleverly reprogrammed my car  key fob, which had stopped  working. And went to look at the restaurants to see where we could have lunch. He decreed that we should eat tartes flambĂ©es, so we walked the entire length of the shopping centre to get to the restaurant he had chosen.

The tartes were delicious, but very filling, and neither my mother nor I could finish ours, but we scraped off the toppings and ate then - and, of course, we tasted each other's!  Mum had a glass of wine, I had fizzy water (I so wanted beer, but I'm on strong antibiotics and can't) and the SW had Coke.

We had about 45 minutes before we had to head back, so drove into Calais and visited the Burghers, and then back to the terminal via Coquelles. We discovered that at Calais there is a special disabled lane (if there is one at Folkestone we didn't see it) which meant we got to board first! Sadly, this was not to be for awhile, as there was a disruption of some kind (not unusual) so we were half an hour later than planned.

The drive home was non-stop and uneventful. I think both Mum and I slept most of the way until we came off the motorway!

A long way to go to visit a supermarket, but worth it! A most enjoyable day. 

12 April 2022

"Why come ye not to court?"

 You don't go on the river for three years, and then two cruises come along at once!  This one was very different from our afternoon tea cruise.  This one was a short cruise between Kingston and Hampton Court, on board the Yarmouth Belle, which, built in 1892 is the oldest surviving passenger vessel on the Thames.  


We started off, however, by going up to Vauxhall to meet the Boys, and then up to Vauxhall Station, where we had just missed a train to Kingston, but they are every 10-15 minutes, so we didn't have long to wait.  The journey to Kingston takes about 30 minutes; the train said it was going to Strawberry Hill, as, indeed, it was, but it then looped round to come back via Hampton and Richmond, so the destination signs on the train said Waterloo, very confusing!  

The Boys had both said they weren't feeling very well, but soon cheered up at the thought of lunch at Five Guys, a favourite of theirs (and given the amount they ate, there can't be much wrong with either of them).  The Swan Whisperer and I had never been to this particular chain, but our expert grandsons showed us the ropes!  I chose a grilled veggie sandwich with cheese,

and very good it was, too, if rather difficult to eat!  The Boys both had burgers - one with bacon and cheese and the other with just cheese - and the most revolting-looking milkshakes topped with whipped cream, which they seemed to enjoy.  The Swan Whisperer ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with onions, and then we ordered a large chips to share between the four of us, which was just a nice amount.  

When we had finished eating, and topping up our water bottles with the free ice cubes provided, it was time to walk down to the river - not the loveliest walk in the world - and await our ship.  I had booked in advance, but in fact, hadn't really needed to, as there were only two other families on the boat with us.  

It is not a long distance between Kingston and Hampton Court, but long enough to be enjoyable.  The weather was rather irritating, as it was too hot with a coat on and not quite warm enough with it off!  The Boys spent some of their time in the interior, and went down the spiral staircase into the lounge - "Very old-fashioned," they told me.  I didn't go down, it looked rather steep for coming up again.  The Swan Whisperer spent all his time on deck, and I spent most of mine, as there was so much to see, from swans to be whispered at, 

St Raphael's Catholic church

Hampton Court park
and, of course, Hampton Court Palace itself.
"Why come ye not to court? To which court? The King's Court, or Hampton Court?"

The Boys were rather tired - I think they may have overdone it playing football the previous day - and so was I, so we didn't linger; we walked across the bridge to Hampton Court station (thus, for the Boys, and later for the Swan Whisperer, who took them home, meaning that they had gone under the river, on the river and over the river all on the same day!) and so a train to Clapham Junction and back to ours for a most welcome cup of tea.  

There are more photos on Facebook, if you are interested.