Day 7 – a week of our holiday has gone by already and we are settling into something of a routine. Murray and I wake up at ‘old person o’clock’, somewhere between 6 and 7am. Murray ambles down to the local supermarket to pick up a newspaper and milk, and I message the kids to let them know the ‘room 602 chocolate Weetabix buffet’ is open. They wander in when they are awake (much later) and we discuss each of our plans for the day and see where they intersect.
Today they don’t intersect a lot. Kennedy went off to meet her old school friend Michael – AKA Wham Boy – due to the way he, and his friend, looked when he made his first visit to our house when Kenny was about 12. Michael has lived in London for a few years studying musical theatre. They had a lovely day together and we caught up with Kennedy back at the hotel at bedtime.
Christian walked into Slough with us to have lunch. We opted for gyros from a Greek place. While it was tasty, it’s not quite the same eating gyros on the main street of Slough as it is under a windmill on Mykonos. We headed to the train station to buy our travel cards, weirdly it was cheaper to buy four and get the discounted rate than buy the three we needed. Travel card in hand Christian did a U-turn and walked back to the hotel for an afternoon of napping. Later he made his way to Ickenham Cricket Club again (told you it was a hotspot) to meet his mate. The rest of the details are yet to be determined as he’s not home yet.
Murray and I started a train journey together, he disembarked at Paddington and I continued one more stop to Bond Street. It was a tropical day in London. Not in the blue sky sunny version of tropical but the overcast, muggy as all hell and punctuated by heavy bouts of rain kind. I ducked in and out of Oxford St shops as I headed towards Regent St before turning left and heading to The Regent’s Park. London has some fantastic green spaces, and while Hyde Park is usually the go-to, The Regent’s Park was well worth the buckets of sweat I poured out wandering in some of the 395 acres. The park was first acquired by Henry VIII (whose grave we accidentally stomped on the other day) and was used mostly as a hunting park up until 1649. I very much enjoyed my stroll past the boating ponds, waterfalls and some of the 12000 roses in the park before I made my way to the mosque and exited.
My next stop was a cricket ground almost as good as Ickenham, Lord’s. Pretentiously calling itself the ‘Home of Cricket’ (clearly they haven’t been to the Devonport Domain) it was exciting to be making my first visit. We had purchased tickets earlier in the day for the Australia v England women’s T20. I spent an hour walking around the lower concourse checking out the merch (too expensive) and sampling some of the local delicacies. The first delicacy was a pie and a pint. The pint was good, and the pie was average at best. Before I headed up to my seat to rendezvous with Murray I had a pint of Pimms and lemonade. At over $20NZ it wasn’t cheap but it tasted good as I sat high in the stand looking down over this historic cricket ground where in 1949 Murray’s Dad had played for NZ against England. Opening the batting with Bert Sutcliffe Murray’s Dad (AKA Verdun Scott) he scored an opening partnership of 89 helping their team to a draw. Back in 1949, the English team came through the middle of the grandstand from the ‘gentleman’s entrance’, the NZ team on the other hand got ushered in a side gate through the ‘players gate’. I’m sure some of the toffs of the day will be turning in their graves that women are playing on their hallowed turf.
(Lord’s)
There was one shower that briefly interrupted Australia’s batting innings. By the 18th over I was losing the will to live from exhaustion, as the rain started tipping down at the end of the first innings we decided to make the hour-ish trek back to our Slough palace thinking the game may well be abandoned. Turned out it was only shortened and England batted well to take out the game.
Day 8 – another day, another round of chocolate Weetabix, for three of the family at least. Our youngest member was still MIA after his trip to Ickenham the day before. Turns out he’d gone nightclubbing in Watford last night and had spent the night away from our Slough palace, I don’t even know where Watford is but I’m sure he had a blast.
Murray opted for a quiet day today and was tasked with doing the family’s laundry. Kennedy and I headed into Liverpool St station to start our self-guided made-up Sunday market tour. We were heading for Spitalfields but stumbled upon Petticoat Lane on the way which became a VAE (value-added extra). Neither of us was in the market for clothes or bags so we continued on to Spitalfields where traders have been operating since around 1666, after the Great Fire of London. Undercover, this market is vast with high-quality artisan and upcycled clothing, jewellery and interesting things to buy, of which we bought none. We bought a big doughnut and coffee before heading on to Brick Lane.
Downstairs at Brick Lane was a vast array of retro clothing, and at street level was an amazing array of food to choose from. After checking out the goods on offer we took the tube to Covent Garden. After a quick browse around it was time for Kennedy and I to go our separate ways. Her to a Formula One watch party at a bar near St Pauls, and me to the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. My semi-trusty Google map told me there was a bus from very nearby that would take me to Waterloo where I could get a train to the palace. Alas, the road where the bus was indicated was closed due to the ASICS 10k run which had been finished earlier in the day. I followed the blue line towards the next bus stop on the route on Victoria Embankment. This is a usually busy main road which runs alongside the Thames, as I approached, it was empty other than the occasional cyclist. I spotted a marshall, easily identifiable by his fluro vest with ‘marshall’ emblazoned on the back, and had the following conversation:
Me: Can you please tell me where the nearest underground station is?
Him: (looking at the A4 map in his hand) Where do you want to go?
Me: Waterloo station
Him: (Pulling out his phone and searching on it) – easiest for you to get a bus there.
Me: Where is the bus stop, please?
Him: 48 feet from here
Me: (looking around confused) Which way?
Him: (points to the right) That way – 48 feet that way
Me: (looking at the tumbleweed blowing down the four-lane road) Isn’t this road closed right now?
Him: No, this road is open
Me: This road? Is open? Now? For buses?
Him: Yip
Me: Walks 200 feet to Embankment Tube station and took the underground to Waterloo where I changed to a train to Hampton Court.
(the road the man in fluro assured me was open and that I could catch a bus from)
After disembarking I followed the crowds and the signs directing me to the festival where I was met by my old friend Michael. Michael isn’t a big one for social media. We keep in touch by randomly sending each other a photo of a departure board whenever we are flying and asking the other to guess where we are going. It’s not been much of a challenge for Michael the past few years. It was nowhere for a long time and then Australia twice. Michael though has sent me an array of challenges as he and his partner take mini, or long, breaks to interesting parts of the globe.
We were meeting at Hampton Court as my first cousin once removed, Scott (now my favourite relative), had given me some tickets as part of his role at Tobermory Gin. What an amazing event, especially if you are into plants, food or gin. Set in the vast grounds of Hampton Court Palace, located in the London borough of Richmond, the building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of Henry VIII, who we walked over the other day. We spent a couple of happy hours wandering through the stalls, sampling the food and beverages and catching up on the years since we’d last met in person.
I was very grateful for the offer of a ride home rather than having to make my way back to Sough on public transport which would have taken well over an hour after I’d navigated the miles pebbly palace path in my non-practical court shoes which had already notched up nearly 10km today. By the time we met Murray at our Slough Palace for a drink in the bar, Christian had returned to base and was catching up on sleep and Kennedy arrived back after a brilliant time at the F1 cafe watching today’s race.
To finish today, a photo commentary on side luggage and another shameless plug to sign up to get my free novella https://gillianscottcreative.com/, and if you love that why not try my What Goes On Tour rom-com trilogy following a fictional tour manager in Europe in the 90’s.
(No – yes – no – hell no – no – and blurry, but still no)
Gillian Scott Creative 