That London

Have only had a couple of days in London so far this year so it’s time for more (indeed, it's the Open Garden Squares weekend next weekend, which we're aiming to go to).

On the last Saturday in January Ruth and I made the journey over to Canary Wharf to see where she was working (and is still working, as at time of writing) for KPMG. Obviously dead impressed, what with their being a high-profile company and all, though my only direct experience of them has been as external auditors on behalf of HEFCW in 2011, not long after I started at the OU, and having to run around sorting out various levels of access for them.

It was a generally wet day but in addition to Ruth pointing out her building, we visited the fascinating Museum of London Docklands.

Wet Canary Wharf

The Museum of London Docklands

Ruth was stymied in her plan for us to walk to The Grapes at Limehouse (Ian McKellen’s pub) for lunch, due to rain, inconveniently-sited road works and my increasing irritability (Ruth isn’t the first person to point out that I become irritable when hungry). In the end we ate at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and viewed this large inflatable bunny before heading home.

Inflatable bunny

Second trip was on a Saturday in mid-March. Ruth wanted to see a play, ‘Mary Stuart’, starring Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams as alternately Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I – apparently a coin was tossed before the performance to decide who was going to be Mary and who Elizabeth that particular performance. Incredible how the actors can work like that. I had declined to see it as the tickets were reasonably expensive and I thought it might be a bit heavy-going for me. However Ruth enjoyed it, which was good. Turns out Stevenson was Queen Elizabeth for that particular performance.

While Ruth was being cultural, I went for a walk out of Volume 1 of London’s Hidden Walks, a darling little three-volume set Ruth had bought me for Christmas. Chose the Fitzrovia & Bloomsbury Walk, starting from Warren Street tube station. The area known as Fitzrovia apparently used to be owned by the Fitzroy family (the Dukes of Grafton), hence the name ‘Fitzrovia’ and the cluster of streets named after the family (Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square). Interestingly, ‘Euston’ (as in the road and station close by Fitzrovia) is also connected with the Fitzroy family, as 'Earl of Euston' is one of the Duke of Grafton’s subsidiary titles. Euston is (apparently) a village in Suffolk, close to Euston Hall which is the Duke’s seat.

Fitzroy Square

Noted Pollock’s Toy Museum, though didn’t attempt to go in. Nipped down Chenies Street to view the funny little round buildings labelled the ‘Eisenhower Centre’ - I've noted these before but didn’t know the history behind them. Apparently the buildings are one of the surface entrances to a deep-level shelter built during WWII. Fascinating stuff … the reference to Eisenhower is because the tunnels were apparently equipped to be his London headquarters during the war (though I'm not sure whether he actually ever spent time there).

Houses in Bedford Square

The walk passed through Bedford Square and along Bloomsbury Way to the junction with Kingsway and Southampton Row, where I stopped to peer through the gates leading down to the Kingsway Tramway Subway. Another interesting find – I’d never heard of this. There’s some footage here of a tram actually going down into them (the trams stopped in the early 1950s). Would have taken a photo but felt a bit self-conscious standing essentially in the middle of the road.

Stopped briefly at a Caffè Nero and then headed north via Doughty Street, observing the Georgian town houses pointed out in the book. Walked through St George’s Gardens, an old graveyard with a ‘hidden away’ air, though there were quite a few people sitting or walking in it.

St George's Gardens

Skipped the rest of the route in the interests of returning to the theatre to meet Ruth. We had been going to have dinner in London but weren’t hungry enough so returned to Reading and had dinner at the Valpy Street Bar & Bistro, the current incarnation of the former 'Chronicles', where we went for my 40th birthday dinner, and subsequently for drinks for Ruth's 40th in 2013, when it was called 'Valentino's'. On the current occasion it was busy and we only just got a table, in rather a crappy position next to a loud party. Can’t actually remember what we ate. Think I had some sort of veggie gnocchi.