So I took the trip...
Day Zero
I must admit to save about £30 I went up by coach to Victoria around 4 o'clock or so instead of by train to Waterloo and booked a hotel for two nights on the Walworth Road. I haven't been through the coach station in a while and I reckoned it would not only be way cheaper (and thus save some cash for shopping), but also give me a more interesting journey down through south London to the hotel. I also saw more of the way into London from the M3, including almost taking off when going up over the Hammersmith Flyover and seeing Chelsea Bridge all lit up. It was definitely worth it.
I had dinner in Wetherspoons in Victoria station and while it's not all that dissimilar an atmosphere to Waterloo, it was a trip down memory lane walking through the shopping centre -- our end-of-term trip one year at school about thirty years ago was to see Starlight Express and they let us loose in the same place to allow us to run off some of that wild teenage girl energy before going up to the actual theatre. I also briefly worked in the old BA building while at uni in 2000 (LSE, where I studied politics with an emphasis on Russia and Eastern Europe) doing data entry for the European Movement, sponsored by the head of BA, hence the use of some spare office space there. So lots of deja vu.
I then went on the District/Circle line to Embankment where I finally wombled onto the Bakerloo to Elephant and Castle (I made that word up to describe pottering about on the tube without really going anywhere). Where we got stuck in a tunnel.The elastic band must have snapped or something because it took several attempts to start us up again, and I was already melting from the heat.
It took me several attempts to find the right way down Walworth Road but it was actually quite a nice walk once I was pointing in the right direction. E&C is a nice little district and has a strong Colombian presence, so there was some cool music in some of the little shops along the road. My hotel was nice but compact -- I'm not terribly fussed about accommodation so long as I don't have to share a bathroom, but I do find some of the ubiquitous white sheets rather starchy and I was a bit cold. But in general the bed was comfortable and I slept well.
Day One
My plan the next morning was to walk from Amelia Street, where the hotel was, to Kennington, which is kind of parallel to the Walworth Road. I passed Walworth Garden on the way there, which was a sort of eco-friendly garden centre and would have been quite nice to walk in had it not been February. My mum is a keen gardener, but the potted plants really wouldn't have been easy to take with me and were obviously a bit sickly thanks to it being, you know, winter, so I bought her some biodegradable twine instead and walked on.
My husband, who passed away five years ago would have been fifty this coming March, so when I got to Kennington I went south one stop to the Oval, just to pay my respects. We'd been there a couple of times when tournaments had been held in England -- we did see Sri Lanka give England a bit of a spanking in around 2013 or so (yeah, now I remember, my younger nephew was born that day) but we went back in 2017 for a couple of one day games between other teams. I didn't get very far along the road from the tube station before feeling a bit sad, but we're going to Lords for his actual birthday so there'll be more memories to make then. I took a few photos -- you know that thing where people make up tee-shirts for group trips? Well, let's just say some creative photoshopping will be going on.
So after the Oval it was time for the Battersea trip. I love what they've done with the new stations, both there and on the Crossrail Core (later! Much later!). I get a bit claustrophobic on the tube sometimes and it's a great place for fans of liminal spaces sometimes. I remember when we were househunting in about 1986 when my dad was planning to move us down to London, we went all over the place on the Tube and it really caught my imagination.
I was 6 at the time but a fairly naive, autistic 6, from coastal north Lancashire so all these tunnels both fascinated me and creeped me out. I remember walking along the platform somewhere in the deep tube wondering whether we had to walk into the tunnels to get out because the exit wasn't visible. I was mightily relieved when we turned right just before we walked into the tunnel. Think The Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt crossed with the tube scenes from Skyfall and that was my first impression of the underground.
All this is to say that the aesthetic of Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station is so very very different and much less claustrophobic. I was honestly expecting them to be open air -- I hadn't spoiled myself on them -- but while I think the metallic decor feels a bit cold at times, you certainly can't fault the design and space even at those levels.
Battersea itself was a bit too posh for this weary traveller. I couldn't find somewhere just to sit and get an ordinary cold drink inside the power station itself. I spent a bit of time wandering around and photographing the architecture (my dad is a retired civil engineer and it's rubbed off on me -- even at school I put a power station into my landscape art) but it was all just a little bit too glossy.
I then headed off on the Thames Clippers. I'd done this before when I went to the Tower of London a couple of years ago and enjoyed the break from the railway. Battersea to Greenwich took a good long time but I saw a lot of central London from a different perspective -- going round the Isle of Dogs is fun as Canary Wharf looms up at you.
In Greenwich, I debated going into either Cutty Sark or the Royal Observatory, but my feet were starting to hurt a bit (I walk with a cane after a nasty accident a few years ago but I'm not sure I wore the best shoes for city walking -- in advance of a trip to Armenia in making in the spring, I ought to consult my physio) and I was mindful that by the time I came out of a Vietnamese restaurant it was pushing 2pm and if I wanted to get round the houses back to Tottenham Court Road and back, it would be not just getting dark but rush hour as well. It also cost £20 just to go in, so I just nosed about some of the antique and craft items shops, popped into Waterstones to use their loo, bought a book on the Iranian Revolution to get the entry code (as I said, I studied politics, so that's my version of a bit of light bedtime reading...) and felt a bit better.
But not quite. I got to the DLR, planning to take it all the way to Bank, but unfortunately I don't think the mild prawn pho I had in the restaurant agreed with me. I got off at Canary Wharf -- I've been there a couple of times for work, so I knew there was a toilet somewhere in Cabot Place. Suffice it to say that there's also a Boots there too and I had to stock up on Rennies. My feet were really, really hurting by this point. Unfortunately my family has the tendency to go on forced marches on holiday, so again I've taken after them, and only being there for a single full day meant I was trying to cover too much. My shins were feeling the heat, so rather than walk back down Cabot Place to the DLR, I decided to try the Crossrail Core.
And that is another amazing example of modern station design. The DLR seems to be a kind of transition piece between the deep tube and the new designs. I felt the same about the new station at Tottenham Court Road as I did about BPS -- they've really opened up what used to be poky little place. The platform-edge doors are also fun -- I've been to St Petersburg, where they have them in their metro, and again it creates that fascinating liminal space. Being autistic I inhabit a lot of mental liminal spaces, so they add a bit of mystique for me to an otherwise mundane activity.
I did intend to leave the system at TCR to go to Forbidden Planet, but I still hadn't found a craft shop yet, so I went a couple of stops on the Central Line to Bond Street -- just to sample it again -- to the big John Lewis and HMV shops there. Lovely fluffy yarn in the fourth floor haberdashery department; I'm working on some tapestry style blankets, so I picked up some 'arty' wool rather than anything that would make a nice jumper. But alas by this time I really was struggling. After eating in Itsu in the Bond Street vestibule, I just got on the Jubilee and got sucked back down to London Bridge and then to Elephant and Castle. Rush hour was now in full force so between the crowds and the pain I just wanted to get back to the hotel. I'm just glad I have the stick, as it legitimately means I can ask someone to let me sit down even in rush hour. Getting back up, now that was a bit of a challenge...
So ...that was the trip. My shins are just about back to normal. I really do need to find some better shoes. I wear Hoka runners that my marathon-runner friend suggested would support my feet better than ordinary trainers, but my physio did say that I'd need squishier solea to do more city walking. When we go to Lord's in March, I'll have the opportunity to test out the Skechers I have, but it's a real shame that I tried to do way too much and also had the disagreement with the lovely pho soup. Next time I'll book a Travelodge and stay a few days so I don't have to whizz about. I may well have a driver in Armenia (courtesy of a Perso-Armenian friend from Dublin) but I really, really don't want to spoil that trip by overdoing it or taking bad shoes.
But I know what I need to do when I next go wombling!
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. (There's also the Orc's Nest gaming shop round the corner but I haven't played D&D in ages.)
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