Kiwi Roaming

We headed back into London for the days between Christmas and New Years, this time using up Steve’s last IHG points and staying at an airport hotel out east in Docklands. Paul and Karen’s apartment is in the Isle of Dogs so our previous visits to the UK had been based in this lovely new city so it was nice to get back to that stomping ground and see how much has changed in recent years. Our hotel was a very basic Holiday Inn and it was chocker with families which makes sense this time of year, we didn’t manage to have breakfast there any day cause it was like the hunger games!

Docklands – we didn’t know much about the history of the area so went to the London Museum Docklands for a couple of hours to get out of the cold. One floor is dedicated to the greed, cruelty and wealth building of London in the Industrial Age – the plight of slaves, the Windrush generation, and other examples where the British Empire were not on the right side of history. The next floor is dedicated to the formation of docklands and its development from the late 1700s through to today. I found it fascinating learning how Canary Wharf and Millwall Dock (areas we are very familiar with) were constructed). The rest of the museum was very much geared to children, all about old days ports, the introduction of scales, winches and engineering inventions through necessity in a port context. Lots of interactive displays.

We spent the rest of our first day wandering around, found another fantastic food market – our last for this trip – and ate yummy Malaysian food with a beer and a cider. I wanted to go and see what the roof garden by the Canary Wharf station had developed into, it’s very cool with a semi-open space and lots of plants, but a little disappointing at the same time. We also checked out the station extensions for the Elizabeth line, other new buildings that have sprung up and the cool floating pods people were entertaining inside. We moved around on the DLR which has not been upgraded with threadbare seats – remembering when it was brand spanking new and all shiny with the novelty of no driver.

Christmas lights and London sites – the next morning we met Sallie and Steven for breakfast at 9:45am, it only took 36 minutes to get from Canning Town into the Ritz to meet them at the Wolseley (and posh place next to the Ritz) which is just awesome when you look at the distance on the map. Was great to catchup with them mid-trip and hear all about New York, discuss their plans for Edinburgh and what they have seen in London.

For the rest of the morning we wandered. Walked up New Bond St – which is so lovely and Christmassy and great memory lane for me as I worked there for a year – then Oxford St and into John Lewis, then down Regent and along Piccadilly to Fortnum and Masons where it was unbelievably packed with people! We also wandered the lovely narrow streets but soon gave up due to the volume of people. Generally for those 3 days between Christmas and New Years the streets of London were as packed as the weeks before Christmas.

Battersea Power Station – when I lived in London 35 years ago Battersea was a decommissioned building in South London within a troubled socioeconomic area which we never visited. After being closed for nearly 30 years it reopened in 2022 as a massive retail and residential complex surrounded by an abundance of upmarket apartment buildings and it’s lovely. They have gone all out on Christmas here with ice skating, theme park, market and oh so many decorations. We only walked around about 1/4 of the inside of the retail part of the complex and that was the size of a normal shopping mall in itself, the place is huge.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived so after scouting the many queues for food (everywhere good had a queue) we joined the relatively short queue at Bao a delightful place with a really sharp menu and modern spin on Chinese cuisine. We were sat at the bar beside the kitchen which was a cool experience too. Yum. By the time we finished eating it was already 4pm so too late to go up the smokestack elevator sadly, something for next time.

It was freezing outside with a bitter wind coming off the Thames so we jumped back on the bus and headed to Sloan Square to see the Christmas decorations and beautiful shops. Another bus back into the city and another walk around Christmas adorned streets. Our wander ended at Trafalgar Square which was pretty disappointing Christmas adornment wise so we popped into a pub to plan our next leg which was up Charing Cross and Tottenham Court Road.

Outernet and Banksy – a new Banksy appeared in London for Christmas next to the Tottenham Court tube station, it was pretty easy to find but what surprised us was nobody seemed to know it was there so I squatted down to take a pic between the stead stream of people walking past. Before the Banksy we popped into Outernet which is opposite the tube station. An amazing visual display which runs continuously on the walls and ceiling of a very large open space. We figure it must be funded by advertising as the occasional large format advert is shown. So cool.

For dinner we ventured to Soho and found a delicious Greek taverna for yummy tapas.

Richmond – our third day in London was spent in Richmond where Steve’s cousins live. Even though it’s clear on the other side of London it only took 1 hour on the Jubilee then District Lines. When our tube reached Earls Court alarms were going off and the station was being evacuated, we got off then straight back onto the tube as nobody else got off – and away it went again taking us to Richmond.

It’s such a beautiful town, Mike and I lived not far from here in Hampton Wick so I know Richmond well. The park, the green and the village are all picturesque. Then there is the Ted Lasso aspect, there is a shop, you can take walking tours of filming locations and there was a queue to get into the pub of course. It’s certainly done heaps for tourism here.

We spent a lovely morning with Steve’s cousins, went for a walk along the Thames with them in the sunshine before Steve and I found ourselves a gorgeous riverside pub to sit outside. We watched black clouds rolling in and felt the temperature plummet after such a lovely day in the sunshine until then. It was dark when we got to Euston where I had my final Leon snack, then onto the train back to Milton Keynes.