England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales!

(but not in that order)

Part One: London!

Lish cleverly selected a hotel within spitting distance of St Pancras International (where the Eurostar comes in).

It's TINY.

We were up two storeys of narrow stairs (with our ridiculous, enormous luggage). 

The room was barely big enough to keep a cat, let alone swing it.

But the beds were high enough to push some of the bags under so we had a small amount of walking space.

The wifi was absolute rubbish though. To finish the Bordeaux post, I had to nip up the main road (one block) to the British Library, which was fun.

St Pancras Station. Isn't she glorious? 

Around the corner from us - a little bit of home! 

After a good sleep, we went out in search of breakfast. 

What we did not have:

*Snail Bolognese* ??? This is not a dish I will be attempting to retro-engineer!!!

What we did have:

Porridge with banana, tahini, black & white sesame, and I think sunflower seeds (and if not, in future iterations it should). Also I think maple syrup should go in the porridge. A definite candidate for making when we are home! 

And tea. Noted on the menu as "Good And Proper Tea". And it most assuredly was.

At the table next to us was a trio of French, a mother and her two daughters.  London is heaving with French at the moment - because of the Toussaints school holidays. 

I was getting something out of my bag and my Parisian train ticket fell out onto the floor. One of the girls remarked upon it to her family, to which I didn't respond. Then, when our breakfasts arrived, I said 'Bon Appetit', as much out of force of habit as anything, and she made some comment of Oh, she just spoke French. To which I said (in French): Yes, I speak French. They were startled 😛 We had a nice little chat.

A warning not to take for granted anywhere that the people you are talking about don't understand you! 

This is the lovely little square in which our breakfast cafe was located.

Look what's up on the wall between those blue windows! 

We walked and walked and walked.

We found St-Martins-in-the-Field, which excited me from a music-nerd perspective, but it's fairly prosaic on the inside, after all the sumptuousness that we have become accustomed to with the Catholic buildings. They appeared to be setting up for a performance.

Right across the road is the National Gallery. This was a Must-Do on Lish's list. It was also very nice to get out of the rain! 

The domed ceiling is amazing!

And the hommages over the doors

This is Madame la Pompadour - mistress of LouisXV of France.

I had in mind that usually she had her boobs out in most pics, so I was surprised to see this very genteel and very I'm-at-home-in-my-craft-room portrait of her! 

The detail in the textiles of her dress: I am in awe.

Same with this guy (I forget who)

It's so small and so perfectly, finely-wrought!!

Lish is less impressed with technical dexterity than I am.

I knew who was the artist of this, without even looking! 

(Klimt, for those of you who don't immediately recognise it)

Apparently he chose the dress for her to wear for this sitting.

Lish blissing out in the Impressionists room.

(very Ferris Bueller)

Lish liked this one the best

I liked this one the best!

The layers in this one - fantastic. 

I think we annoyed people very much. We just stood and stared and stood and stared.
The more you stare, the more you see. 

Most people were homing in, snapping a pic, and moving off again. 

A lovely bunch of Monets

Australian representation!

This, believe it or not, is a van Gogh! quite unlike most of his other works. 

The artist's two daughters, with a cat that he tried to rub out, but apparently it wasn't having it :) 

Dogs and their owners

This AMAZING picture. One perfect, perfect horse. No background. Why would you paint a background? It's only going to detract from the perfect horse. 

And it's BIG. 

A still life, for my future reference. I may be gestating a second painting. Let's see!

This satirical painting is called 'The Ugly Duchess' and is apparently the inspiration for the Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland'

Having seen everying in the National Gallery, we proceeded up The Strand, to our own personal Mecca:

The Twinings Tea company flagship shop! 

Where we looked at every tea in their range and sniffed them and had taste-tests of a bunch of things...

And then went home with the tea that I drink from home!!! (although, it's the local version only).

Noted for future home-decor reference: I love cyclamens.

We had dinner at a little restaurant that Astrid particularly recommended to us, and which was well worth it! - a Malaysian street-food place. We had a beef rendang and a shiitake mushroom rendang, with roti absolutely to die for. Zero pics to show you. 

Pretty skies as we headed home.

Bad weather was expected in the days to come, but Thursday dawned clear and gorgeous!

We made our way over to Victoria Station, and while waiting for a friend to arrive off a train, went for a walk around the posh end of town. 

Saw some more of the fun blue dots. Felix Mendelssohn was here!

Everyone, meet Lisa! Lisa is part of the RecipeTin Eats Appreciation group that I'm on, on Facebook. We have been chatting in and separately to the group for a while. We tried to meet up when we were here in January but couldn't make it work. But this time, we did! 

She's EVER so nice. 

We went over to the Battersea Power Station, which I had discovered last trip, and which she didn't know! 

I bought some more of the perfume I had scored last trip, and then we looked around at the cool repurpose they have made of the building, with so many of the original historic elements still included. 

Then we went and had some lunch! Lovely, innovative tapas.

Char-grilled cauliflower, verdina beans purée*, crispy caulflower leaflets,  chimmichurri, salsa de churrosco. Patatas bravas (of course! - no tapas meal is complete without them!)

* a gourmet Spanish bean that is going to be hard to source in Sydney

Grilled cabbage, blue cheese sauce, aioli, roasted garlic crumble

Slow cooked beef with rice

Three sorts of dessert: tarta de abuela; churros; something that I can't remember the name of but comes across like a caramel slice. 

Last selfies on the Underground trip back!

We headed back out in the evening, to a performance of Cabaret, which neither Lish nor I had ever seen. Lish, who knows their stuff, declared it "possibly the best theatre performance they have ever seen". 

We were not allowed to take photos or video (obviously) in the performance, and they actually issued everyone with a sticker to place over the lens of their phone, as we went in! But I got a couple of shots of the foyer on our way out. The entire theatre had been reworked specifically for this production, including a mechanised multi-concentric ring circular stage, which I understand will be retained for other productions once this run is over.

This balcony, constructed over the bar in the foyer, was utilised for the pre-show show, where the mucisicans and dancers were playing and dancing as if we had actually gone to the KitKat Club. 

*    *    *

Another item on Lish's dance card was the Tower of London. 

We got very good at navigating the Underground, but we repeatedly have problems where we march off confidently, following a Google Map trail, in precisely the wrong direction! On this day, our wrong path took us past this memorial park in the Bengali part of town:

Sobering reading. 

Near to the Tower, this hilariously-named street, and this innovative housing project!

In the park near the Tower, were cheeky and extremely confident grey squirrels!! We were enchanted - although we have since been told that grey squirrels are an invasive species, who are pushing out the native red squirrels. 

We absolutely loved the Tower of London and spent most of the day there. Not too many shots to show you, but here's what I got:

There used to be a managerie there, for centuries, which was appalling by current animal welfare standards, and which was eventually moved to the London Zoo. Various sculptures in chicken wire and concrete are now placed around the grounds, which are artistic and much more humane! 

The ravens! There must be six living at the Tower at all times,
or apparently the monarchy will fail.

They have eight!

I regret not getting a proper photo of this Yeoman Warder, who was our *extremely* entertaining tour guide. 

You can read more about the Yeoman Warders here, it's terribly interesting.

Note the change of insignia to Carolus III Rex

We went to walk across the Tower Bridge (*not* the London Bridge) but it was cold and oh, so windy!!!

So we wended our way homeward, stopping for Old People's Dinner hour at an extremely nice pub just around the corner from our hotel.

Iconic British pub food: Plaice and chips, and Steak-and-ale pie.

*    *    *

Next day: More wandering, more nerdery! We went to Notting Hill!

- which was HEAVING with a market, so not terribly pleasant. But we saw the shopfront used in the movie as the bookshop, we saw the Blue Door, we looked at a bunch of friperie in the markets

Lish fascinated at the collection of vintage cameras.

Not pictured - all the rather amazing old china etc, that was completely gorgeous and completely outside our ability to bring home.

Another Tube ride, then a walk through Kensington Gardens, also through a flock of extremely unbothered swans!

past the Albert Monument, past the Royal Albert Hall,

... to the Victoria and Albert Museum, whence we have been specifically directed by Lish's friend Kauri, and so dutifully went. And it was amazing and I have only one photo to show you!

There was an entire exhibit on the making of leadlight for church windows, which was utterly fascinating and now I need to make leadlight.

Quick pic for proof to Kauri of having obeyed instructions:

And then Lish took me out for a posh dinner! 

FALLOW has a really good social media presence, and my TAFE colleagues and I love their posts on how to make things. So this was a wonderful opportunity to sample their gear!

Lish would have liked to have been able to book a seat at the bar, so we could sticky-beak at the chefs as they worked, but was unable to get that.

We were seated in the conservatory, instead. 

Here's a terrible pic of the kitchen, as seen from our table:

It was a wonderful experience! All the staff were just wonderful. One seemingly random guy strolled past and recommended a bunch of the dishes, turned out he worked there, I just thought at first he was a regular! All of his recommendations were bang-on.

We ordered a bunch of share plates (you could also get main dishes but we didn't)

Mushroom pâté - the texture of which was SO like a proper chicken liver pâté that I seriously couldn't believe it was meat-free! - and beef ribs

British bluefin tuna crudo with, amongst other things, hazelnuts!!

Confit smoked cabbage with miso butter

A lovely tart and a lovely chocolate mousse with coffee ice cream, and we were replete!

*    *    *

For our last day, more TV nerdery - we went to Richmond! 

Richmond deserves much more than a cursory hour walk-through. It's gorgeous! It's just down the Thames from London. 

This lovely old lady is now a floating restaurant

This river-side pub offers an innovative service! (click to enlarge and read the sign!)

We lunched at the iconic pub that stars in Ted Lasso, of which Lish and I are both fans.

Lish went for the steak-and-ale pie this time

I went for the lamb Sunday Roast, which I was not able to finish

We split the mini chocolate brownie with Chantilly for dessert, and it was perfect

Obligatory nerdy selfie, which, now that I look at it, has failed to capture the actual name of the pub! (Fullers is a beer brand, you see that insignia on many pubs). Drat! Have to go back.

*    *    *

And, having collected a rental car before Richmond, we headed out of London, to our next adventures!