‘Not here you don’t. This hotel has been closed for years,’ are not the words you want to hear when you arrive at the hotel you think you’ve got a reservation in for the next week. My first thought was we’d be somehow scammed. Had I booked on a fake Holiday Inn website? But from memory (which is unreliable at best), I didn’t think I had paid anything yet nor provided my credit card with the booking, so it would be a bit of a terrible scam if it was one. Murray, who is in charge of bringing paper copies of everything, fished the required piece of paper with the email confirmation out of his bag and we handed it to the security guard. He scanned it and quickly explained that this was for the OTHER Holiday Inn, the one that has not been turned into refugee accommodation and that it was about half an hour’s walk away from our current location.
After we negotiated with the train station staff that we could re-enter, traverse and re-exit on the other side we quickly decided that we would rather eat our own heads than walk 30 mins more with our backpacks. Less than a £10 taxi ride later we were in what felt like the middle of nowhere outside the Holiday Inn Slough/Windsor, checked into our rooms and flopped on our beds feeling as flat as flounders.
We had a meeting locked in for 6pm tonight in Leicester Square so at 3.30pm we headed back in a taxi to the Slough train station to work out our best option for our transport in and out. It was then that we found two crucial pieces of information that would have saved us $100NZ if we’d done some forward-thinking earlier;
1/ An off-peak travel card costs £16.90 and if we’d bought one of these at Paddington we wouldn’t have needed to buy one now, we could have used it to get out, back in and home again.
2/ If we buy the four cards together as a group they come down to under £12 each.
Travel cards in hand we headed into Tottenham Court Road and meandered via Murray’s favourite sports store, Lilywhites, and on to Leicester Square where we met up with friends we’ve picked up along the way from various parts of our lives. It was great to see Deb and Mark and Clare who were friends from our Contiki days and Granger and Krissie from the cricket side of our lives. We had a great few hours at The Moon Underwater chewing the fat before the youngins went in search of a younger crowd, and happy hour cocktails, and the Contiki oldies kept our fluids up to lubricate the conversation.
Day 6 – as we pulled the curtains back this morning bright daylight flooded into our spacious room, illuminating our two queen-sized beds, long desk with a TV, comfy armchair with a side table, luggage and wardrobe space and large bathroom. Looking out the window, we could see the grandeur of Windsor Castle and we decided the hotel, which cost less for two rooms than one room at the Royal National would have cost, that we didn’t know would become our home for a week was not so bad. The offspring were keen to venture off by themselves and do some shopping so Murray and I made a plan to stay local. After a family picnic breakfast of chocolate weetabix (who knew that would taste good), we went our separate ways.
(view from our hotel room)
Murray and I headed off walking towards Windsor. The first 10 minutes or so of the stroll were pretty grim through industrial buildings and along main roads, but once we found the walking track it improved immensely. We strolled down dirt tracks surrounded by local flora and fauna including blackberry bushes as we navigated the country paths before arriving into the grounds, specifically the golf course, of Eton College. With fees of £15,432 per each of the three terms (just under $96000 NZD per year) and a requirement to register three years before the boy starts, this exclusive school has educated the likes of George Orwell, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Prince’s William and Harry. The grounds and the village itself were stunningly picturesque as was the rest of the walk to Windsor.
Once in Windsor, we stopped at a cafe in the old train station which has been repurposed as an eating precinct. Caffeinated and ready to go we joined the short queue at the palace entry, handed over £30 each and headed into the grounds of the castle that I’d previously only seen on TV for the likes of Hazza and Meg’s wedding and the Queen’s funeral. Included in the entry is an audio guide which we collected and began exploring.
Windsor Castle was built in the 11th century, after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror, who, if my ancestry research is accurate Murray is descended from. As I always say, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so even if my research is not good, I’m sticking with the story. The castle has been the home of 40 monarchs including one King who imported royal traditions that Louis XIV, the Sun King of France was a fan of. These included having invited guests to watch him get out of bed in the morning and into bed a night. It was also quite an honour to be invited to watch him on the chamber pot. Good times. Murray and I agreed his bedroom, where these marvellous rituals took place, was our favourite part of the castle alongside the final resting place of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip laid to rest in an alcove of St George’s Chapel. They are not the only royals interred in the grand gothic building, there are also Edward IV, Henry VI, Charles I, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, George V and Queen Mary and Henry VIII and Jane Seymour who we inadvertently walked over.
We were fortunate to catch a changing of the guard ceremony due to my penchant for gift shop browsing. Once that was complete we made our way to Windsor train station and travelled to Hayes and Harrington Station where we met the kids and waited for our friendly local cricket guy Krissie, to pick us up.
Ickenham Cricket Club is also probably not on the tourist map of London, but maybe we can change that too. North Shore Cricket Club (where I previously worked) has a long association with ICC with players from NZ coming to it for an overseas experience and players from ICC coming to Devonport for summers playing at the Devonport Domain and coaching local kids. There have been a few marriages, and children, that have come out of the clubs’ relationship and it works for both institutions to keep the relationship strong. The recent NZ summer Krissie and his friend Luke and been in NZ and we’d gotten to know them. They have returned (for now) and have been joined by Sam and Finn from NSCC who are spending the English summer coaching and playing cricket.
Krissie drove us to the ground in time for the start of a local U19 T20 derby. What an absolute pleasure to sit literally on the boundary of this beautiful club ground, meet some of the locals and reconnect with players whom I have met at NSCC in years gone by, all while enjoying an icy cold Carling and a burger off the cricket club grill. Unfortunately, despite keeping our hopes alive until near the end of the game, the local side lost by about 14 runs.
Add Ickenham Cricket Club to your next London itinerary if you haven’t already.
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Gillian Scott Creative 