London Visit. October 2018. 3.Windsor.

On Friday we had a day out to Windsor. This was my idea as I wanted a railway experience day and a trip to Windsor would involve a tube journey to Paddington and an overground railway trip to Windsor from there. Amazingly, the other two decided they would go along with it. Express trains leave from Paddington on a regular basis, many of which stop at Slough and this is where you change onto the branch line train to Windsor & Eton. The station at Windsor and Eton is a small terminus station so you can’t go on anywhere else from there except back where you’ve come from. But you can get your photo taken with Harry and Megan on the platform. As you walk out of the station Windsor Castle is there, right in front of you.

Windsor is like a tourist honeypot on steroids, so we went for a walk along the Thames and had a bit of lunch in a riverside caff. Erm, on this occasion, in contrast to the previous evening, we were on e.g. Fish fingers, chips and baked beans. Bloody marvellous.

The best bits of this day were the train journeys and the walk along the River Thames. On the return train journey, while waiting at Slough, I was reminded of a series of TV programmes I often watch on channel 5 called Paddington 24/7. The programmes are ideal for people interested in railways as they highlight the work going on behind the scenes and the workers behind the scenes who keep the trains and station running at Paddington. There is a very articulate train controller called Graeme Parker who explains the difficulties faced when delays occur on the approach lines in and out of Paddington and what he has to do to sort them out. And he was only waiting for the same train as us at Slough. I recognised him immediately. He was on the phone the whole time. I got a sneak shot of him on the train. This is Graeme on our train:

And this is Graeme on TV at Paddington Station Control.

One of the best bits with Graeme was when he explained he had to disable the smoke alarms over the relevant platform when the steam train Flying Scotsman visited Paddington. It was his job to disable the relevant alarm only and he showed us quite a complicated control panel and which switches did it. The TV program then cuts to the Flying Scotsman pulling into Victoria Station later the same day, only at Victoria all the fire alarms went off and loud automatic station announcements could be heard saying ‘Evacuate the Station Immediately’! Cut back to Graeme witnessing the film footage and keeping a straight face. “That wouldn’t happen at Paddington”!

Oh, I almost forgot. Slotted Spoon Update 2. Earlier that day at breakfast there had been an incident. The poached eggs incident. We were making poached eggs to have with toasted bagels and were looking for a means to fish six poached eggs out of a large pan of boiling water: No slotted spoon. Imagine the panic! We should have looked earlier, but in the crisis we couldn’t find a slotted spoon or a handy sieve anywhere. Surely such a kitchen would have a slotted spoon somewhere. Were we just not looking properly? or was there, could there, actually be no slotted spoon at all?? We had to manage without one. And we weren’t happy. What happens next?

Next up: A visit to The Houses of Parliament and more on the Spoon.

London Visit. October 2018. 2. The First Evening.

I’ll warn you now. This is going to be mainly about food. And it may include references to curried goat.

So the house was wonderful. But what good is a great kitchen with no food in it? Being weary travellers the thought of venturing into the West End was out of the question. There was so much to explore food-wise within walking distance. One of the three weary travellers informed the other two that it was a toss up between Ethiopian and Jamaican. As the Jamaican one was the nearest and had good reviews on trip advisor, we went for that. It was called The Negril. It was at this point that I revealed that my partner, who couldn’t join us for the trip, had given me some money for us all to spend on a meal out. This welcome generosity gee’d us up and we set off with an air of intrepidation for Brixton Hill Road.

This is what greeted us as we arrived early evening:

If your mother is anything like mine, she wouldn’t go any further than this. But in we went.

It’s a small restaurant with small tables in one room. The menu was great, the food choices were nothing like we’d seen before, and they all looked good. One of our party engaged the waiters into explaining what Ackee was. It turned out to be some sort of fruit which was cooked a bit like a vegetable. The waiters patiently described how it grew, what it looked like as a fruit on the tree, that it was poisonous if unripe, etc. (!) However, when asked what it tasted like they were stumped. After several abortive attempts they said ‘there’s nothing else like it’, ‘just try it’. So we did and if you want to know any more about it. They were right.

We sampled the Ackee, the saltfish with plantains, the jerk chicken, and the goat curry and the roti flatbreads. All were full of flavour and perfectly cooked. We loved it. A friendly restaurant with patient waiting staff if you are unfamiliar with the food. This is them and us with the picture taken at the back of the restaurant by the chef, a woman who emerged with a big smile from the kitchen behind her:

negrilrestaurant.co.uk. highly recommended.

With an enormous feeling of well being (stuffed) we left The Negril for the walk home, purchasing some bagels, bacon, and eggs for our breakfast the next morning on our way.

Slotted Spoon. Update 1. The crisis of the slotted spoon is steadily rising in the background all the time, but at this stage we are all still blissfully unaware of what is to befall us.

Next up: The Trip to Windsor, and crisis at breakfast.

London Visit. October 2018: 1. Getting There.

How many things can you do / do you want to do/ should you do when visiting London over four days with a couple of mates?

Having just returned from such a trip I’m pleased to report that we managed to get the balance just about right. Not easy, especially with three people involved. I’ll write several separate blog posts about what we did but first of all some background:

My friend Hardie did a house swap with his home in Hebden Bridge and a house in Tulse Hill, SE London. We were to stay for four days in a Victorian terraced house which had been vacated by a very trusting family of four. None of us had ever done anything like this ever before. What could possibly go wrong?!

There were various happenings, which made this a memorable trip, and here they are, more or less in chronological order.

The first thing was getting there. To me, one of the best bits of a visit to London (or anywhere) is often the journey there, especially if it involves trains. My friends travelled separately by train and had no problems, but I could write a complete blog post on just getting to London in the first place. My train to London was cancelled at short notice whilst I was waiting for it on the platform at Halifax station.

Those electronic indicator boards at the station are great aren’t they? They tell you your train will be the next to arrive and it is reassuringly expected to be “on time” – but how do you react when it suddenly goes to “Cancelled”? See below. The reaction with me was surprise, and then not inconsiderable panic.

But, amazingly, and to cut a long story very short, I got to London via Leeds instead and was “only” 43 minutes late into Kings Cross.

Having got to Kings Cross the next thing was to get to Tulse Hill. None of us had ever been to Tulse Hill before. All we knew was that we would be staying a long way, maybe 30 minutes walk, from Brixton tube station. Victoria Line to Brixton all the way from Kings Cross. Easy. But coming out of the tube station into the Brixton High Road. Not easy! The melee there demanded a sudden and brutal change from our laid back Yorkshire ways. I knew the bus numbers we were looking for, but didn’t have a clue as to which was north or south, or which side of the road we needed to be on. The pressure of people and the speed they are moving demands that you can’t hesitate or even slow your step to think, you just have to sort it out on the move. Fast!

Anyway, we got there. We had to collect the house key from a location a few streets away so we actually had a very pleasant walkabout and introduction to the suburban streets of Tulse Hill. Rows and rows of very neat two storey Victorian terraced houses. A welcome world away from Brixton and the traffic of Brixton Hill.

Slotted Spoon. We loved the house and enjoyed finding our way around it. It had everything. Lots of space on three levels, it even had a toilet on each level. Heaven! It also had a very well equipped kitchen living dining room. But try as we may we could’t find a slotted spoon. The relevance and importance of this will become clear as you read subsequent blog posts.