Day 24 – London
After everything we’ve been eating, a continental breakfast at the hotel sounded sweet. A little light toast, tea, all-bran and some yogurt and honey to add a bit of balance to the system and top up the immune system. London at this time of year can be a bit of a challenge to the system, as there aren’t many seasonal greens, and the cold, biting wind on the streets is rapidly contrasted by the blast furnaces cranking up the heat in almost every building. Lots of sudden temperature changes.
After breakfast the most pressing task was doing the laundry. A little bit of research has located a couple of laundromats in the area, and they should be open. It’s always good tto be able to pull clean clothes out of the bag or drawer, not looking for where we had to hang whatever we’ve been washing in the sink or shower. This one’s run by a kindy of grumpy and creepy old guy, who has an office out the back where he conducts experiments on sewing denim unto people or something. Heading back to get change feels like interrupting a mad scientist at work.
Mission accomplished, and it’s off to make a start on the museums. With the V&A and Natural History Museum just a stroll across Hyde Park away, they seem a good place to start. Wandered along the Serpentine for a while, admiring the plethora of birdlife, including some crafty white swans — they just know when you’re not holding food — and some big ass Canadian Geese. L was talking about coming back with chips and trying to tease the avian locals, but I think that these folk are pretty crafty and know they’ve got the numbers and experience to take on any chip-bearer. They’re probably in cahoots with the squirrels, too, the seemingly innocent and cute little beasties that will take food out of your hand, it you have food. If you don’t they probably get one to distract, while another grabs your wallet and is off to the nearest off-license before you can blink. Afterall, isn’t Hyde Park a place for highwayment and all that? These guys are carrying on a long and proud tradition.
Took a quick stop at the Albert Memorial, first time I’d been up close and had the chance to appreciate how massive iit is. It’s one big monument. Wandered past the Royal Albert Hall, wondered how many holes it would take to fill and noted that David Sylvian is playing there sometime in March. Should be an amazing gig.
Then it was museum season. Did the sensible thing and had lunch at the V&A cafe first, had a meat and veggie pie, was quite good. Then came L’s disappointment, the fashion section was closed until spring. As this was her main reason for cooming here, it sucked a bit (I know how it feels, my first visit to Tate Britain was when the Pre-Raphaelite room was shut). There was much other coolness to see, the bling room, the house of Annie Lennox, a mini exhibition of her clothes, notes, awards, and bits and pieces she’d picked up along the way. There was also a section on theatre and performance, including one of Mick Jagger’s jumpsuits, Adam Ant’s Prince Charming costume, one of Elton John’s costumes, theatrical garb worn by Lawrence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Richard Butron and Margot Fonteyn, and a copy of Shakespeare’s first folio.
Went searching in the wrong place for the Pre-Raphaelites. Should have gone to the Paintings area, instead went to Britain 1760-1900. They had a little, mostly William Morris’ prints, some stained glass by Rosetti, some Burne-Jones printwork, but not the really cool stuff. Flicking through the V&A book in the giftshop, it seemed there was at least one cool one on display in the Prints Study Room, so after hiking through the place to find the secret elevator, found out that there was nothing on display in that room, everything had to be requested and be brought to you. Too tired to investigate further, we wandered out and across the road to the Natural History museum. Both sttarting to flag a little, so it was a quick cup of tea and then into the breach. L was flagging a little more than I, possibly because she wasn’t lifted by the idea of seeing dinosaurs. Hard to understand, I know, but maybe if they had Regency costumes she might have been a bit more eager. We both picked up a little at all the stuff we had to go through to get to the dinosaurs (we came in a side entrance), lots of displays of stuffed animals, birds (sadly not a real dodo) and the gift shop, where they had much cool stuff including remote control inflatable sharks and tarantulas, and all sorts of other stuff. Then it was time for dinosaurs. Fossils, fossils and more, big fossils, bits of fossils, allosaurs, iguanadon, diplodocus, triceratops, stegosaurus, lotsasaurus. Even L thought these were kind of cool. There was also a moving reconstruction of t-rex.
After this we were totally museumed out, so it was time to head back through Hyde Park, (the long way, as some gates were closed), and back to the hotel to rest our feet.
Once rested, we headed out for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant we’d spotted on our laundromat trip. Yummy satay, beef rendang and this great, spicy seafood dish. All very yummy and full of spice. Dessert was black glutinous rice and icecream, exceptionally yummy. Tukdin I think the place was called, great name, because we certainly did.