Our flight up from Capetown to London was much more comfortable than it normally would have been thanks to our son in law and daughter giving us "Premium economy" class tickets, that's me permanently spoiled for future travel! We boarded in 30 Celsius weather and arrived to about zero Celsius overnight, quite a shock but exhilarating nonetheless.
Getting together with the family was wonderful and the reason we wanted to come in the first place, to spend Christmas with them all, it was a lovely day right from the start when our boys opened their presents, through too much good food at lunch to a lazy evening.
We have so far visited a couple of pubs for lunch, which I love, and we have done some sight seeing but yesterday we were to travel into London to see the Christmas lights, I was dubious because I just knew this was going to involve a lot of walking which is not my favourite pass time.
The train trip of about an hour to Victoria station was comfortable, as was the "tube" to High Street Kensington but it was from there that things went bad!
We entered a long wide tunnel, crowded with people moving in both directions, and walked for what felt like fourteen miles but it was probably only seven right under London and probably the Thames too. Eventually we spilled out into Chelsea and Kensington where the streets were dotted with Ferraris, Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Range Rovers. We walked past the Royal Albert Hall where the trees were decorated with lights, "Those lights are nice," I said, "can we go home now?" but they laughed and kept walking for another seven miles,
My son in law Andy found a pub and we went into the cozy warmth where I was able to sit happily once again with a cold lager but it was not to last,
We entered a long wide tunnel, crowded with people moving in both directions, and walked for what felt like fourteen miles but it was probably only seven right under London and probably the Thames too. Eventually we spilled out into Chelsea and Kensington where the streets were dotted with Ferraris, Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Range Rovers. We walked past the Royal Albert Hall where the trees were decorated with lights, "Those lights are nice," I said, "can we go home now?" but they laughed and kept walking for another seven miles,
They wanted to walk some more, it was cold and getting dark and we walked, and walked uphill through darkened deserted streets between old buildings, I expected to be accosted by an old man with fingerless woolen gloves and a battered bowler hat; " 'ullo Guv'nor", but it didn't happen and we plunged into the bustling bright lights of Regent Street, we had arrived!
It was crowded! Hundreds and hundreds of people all there to stroll along the street and see the lights, which I must admit were very impressive, "Can we go home now?", luckily everyone by then seemed ready and though I was dreading retracing our steps we boarded a bus and it was interesting to see the hoards of people out for the evening as we headed back to the station. In a previous life I was a bus driver in Durban for a year and I could appreciate how difficult it was for these drivers to negotiate those crowded narrow streets.
We had coffee at the station while we waited for our train and then another comfortable trip back to Dorking, I made my daughter promise that we would not do that again as I relaxed at home with a cold beer. It's great here in England but I just have to get them out of the habit of all that walking!
