The Whitehouses take on London
I had a very busy but extremely enjoyable long weekend in London. My parents and brother, William, flew in Friday morning to visit for just a few days on their way to a week in Tuscany. As is Whitehouse tradition, their arrival was not on schedule. Apparently there were 50+mph winds at Newark Airport so they were delayed 1 hour from the start. Their hotel was practically on Heathrow’s grounds, but it took them quite some time to meet me downtown, between my dad having to stop to get a British SIM card, you know he can’t go long without a phone back to his work and slow running underground. I had taken the day off of work, assuming we would meet in the morning and spend the whole day in London or even perhaps Brighton…it actually wasn’t until 2pm when they finally showed up at our meeting spot in the London Victoria train station. So in retrospect, I could have worked a half day…oh well!
As soon as we met in the station, my dad made a beeline for the closest café to get his caffeine fix with a nice latte. From there, we were quite close to Buckingham Palace and did a quick walk-by. We ate lunch at a little eatery right in St James’ Park, some typical British foods like “bangers and mash” and I had a delicious elderflower beverage. I really love that flavour and you don’t find it at home! After we were refueled with a late lunch, we continued onto Parliament and Westminster Abbey to get our touristy photo ops. The sunlight was great so it really was opportune photography time.
We crossed over the Thames and walked under the London Eye (aka Millennium wheel). The sky was a dark grey in some areas, with bright sunlight in others. The pictures came out really well. We followed the Jubilee footpath along the south bank of the Thames. Although the sun was coming out, it was still a damp cold. My dad and I were stopping to take a lot of pictures of the London skyline and my mom and William wanted to keep moving. We eventually told my dad, or at least we thought we did, that because he was being so slow with his photos and we were cold, that we may continue walking and if we got very far ahead, we would meet at the Millennium Bridge. Well, we had walked a ways down and finally were in front of the Tate Modern & Millennium Bridge when we decided to wait and let him catch up. Minutes and minutes passed and he was no where in sight! His mobile phones had both been dying so we were without communication too! At this point the sun was starting to go down so there wasn’t much time. We wandered across the Millennium Bridge thinking perhaps he had walked across to St. Paul’s cathedral since we had decided that was our ultimate goal earlier. He was not there either. Finally I got a text message from him that he was about a mile back, waiting on a bridge where we had last seem him at least 30 minutes ago! Well to make a long story short, we finally found him, but in the process lost William for about 20 minutes also! The trials & tribulations of traveling with family…and with a father who lives in his own world!
After that experience it was about time to find a pub and unwind with a local brew. Not far from St Paul’s cathedral, which is located in the “City of London” (just the name of the neighborhood), we found a quaint little traditional English pub called the Cockpit. It was everything that you would want in a pub: comfortable seating, living-room-type cozy atmosphere, stained glass windows, no loud music, lively crowd and good selection of local ales. We sampled a few different ones, recommended by the bartender who was quite excited that the one ale was made in the British Midlands where beer was invented in England. The other bartender looked like he could have stepped out of a medieval painting with his tiny spectacles and moustache, red cheeks and round belly.
We squeezed into a table by the door and soon I came to notice that there was a man sitting at the table with a very long beard and in front of him was a folder which said “British Beard Club.” I pointed this out and we all thought it was funny. Well, slowly more men with beards started to come into the pub and it turns out that this was the very inaugural meeting of the British Beard Club. We ended up chatting with much of the group: the leader was an older man with a long white beard, there was a middle-aged man with his new Australian wife just 2 weeks as newlyweds, an American ex-pat, and much more! One of the men had sort of a double beard where the middle of his chin was shaved but on the corners he had a long beard, he had a scarf on his head like a pirate and it looked as if he was wearing ski overalls (my mom thought she perhaps had the same pair). He overheard me mention that I was working at St George’s hospital and so he struck up a conversation. It turned out that he was actually a physician, and in fact he had worked as an Intensivist/Anesthesiologist in the UK. A few years ago, he felt burned out in his career, and now he works as a clown, going into pediatric hospital wards to cheer up the patients and becomes involved in more of the social and mental aspects of patients now. As time went on, there were a good bunch of bearded men in the pub, it was interesting to see such a range of ages and walks of life all with a common love for their beards! No where else would you see a 20-something punk rocker type with a 60yr old Santa Claus look-a-like! We got one of their cards by the end of the evening and my mom was already working on recruiting more members. They have a website (http://thebritishbeardclub.org/) if you feel inspired…their slogan is, “Supporting Beard Growers of the British Isles and their admirers.”
When we finally left the pub, we were starving for dinner. My dad wanted to eat some classic British cuisine. Our new bearded American ex-pat friend tried to help us find a place but all the good spots were booked. My mom suggested we head over to Sloane Square area which is near Chelsea and quite a posh neighborhood. My parents wanted to find this quaint old pub they had dined at about 10 years ago on a previous visit. We ended up on a bit of a wild goose chase to look for it and never did find it…still not sure if it went out of business or what. They seemed to remember that had been in business since the 1600’s so you would hope that it had not gone out of business with that much history, but with today’s economy, you never know!! We ended up finally at a more modern British pub and my dad got his lamb shank with mash so he was happy!
Thankfully on Saturday we got a much earlier start! I stayed with them out at their Heathrow hotel and we moved things along that morning. We took a bus to Richmond, a southwest very posh and beautiful London neighborhood. It is described as being one of the only areas in London that feels like a village. We ate breakfast in a Moroccan café and enjoyed the full English breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, beans, tomato) and also tried Welsh rarebit which is basically toast with melted cheese on top and some savory sauce. From there, we explored around Richmond which was quite crowded as it was a nice Saturday morning. We stumbled upon the Richmond Saturday market in a cute little square. They had all kinds of local British products and treats. I tried some North African sweets which were made of mostly ground almonds, really good! My dad found some soft cheese from the Isle of Wight. The woman selling it had taken the 4am ferry to get to London to be at the market. She was quite keen on my dad and gave him another cheese wheel for free! She was also selling some home made honeys that William bought. There were organic breads, fresh produce, beautiful baked goods, fresh game like partridge, pigeon, mallard duck and venison, and a hog roast! We bought these delicious home-made tarts: a lemon custard, rhubarb, and pear. I also got Rhubarb Ginger preserves sold by a cute old man with a salmon colored bow-tie. It was his granny’s recipe!
From the market, we walked up the hill in Richmond which offers a great view of the River Thames and the Richmond park. It is a pretty posh area, one man told us that Mick Jagger lives on the hill. We followed trail that cut through the park and into the town of Petersham which was also adorable. Quaint little British home,s as well as some large ones which would be quite expensive. We visited an old Norman church there that had the most peaceful cemetery. The sun was out and the birds were chirping and it felt like spring. It is also the birth place of George Vancouver.
From the roadside in Petersham, we took a bush to Kew Gardens which are the Royal British botanical gardens. It is a huge area with loads of outdoor gardens as well as indoor ones. Since it was winter, the indoor ones were the best option. There are quite a few huge glass conservatories at Kew which were all built in Victorian times and themselves are quite impressive. They house huge palm trees and exotic plants from all over the world. There was also a special orchid exhibit that was beautiful too.
We stayed at Kew until it closed around 5pm and rode the train back to central London to the Piccadilly Circus/Soho area. It was very, very crowded there as it was Valentine’s Saturday night. We had a beer at a pub there and waited to meet my British friend, Ed, who I met when studying abroad in Brighton. He walked us to a quieter less touristy area on Goodge St and we ended up eating at a Filipino restaurant. I had never tried this cuisine before but it was quite good…even though they brought the wrong entrée out to me! When our dinner ended, we all went our separate ways. I said goodbye to my parents who had an early flight to Italy by way of Paris. But it won’t belong before I see them again as I have booked a trip to Italy myself and will fly to Pisa on Thursday morning to visit Tuscany!!
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