Day 4: London

September 10, 2022

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On this day we joined the UK population (what seemed like most of it) at Buckingham Palace as they marked their losing of Queen Elizabeth and picking up of King Charles. Though we are definitely not monarchists, we could feel their sense of loss and occasion, not to mention the crush of tens of thousands of people.

Let's start with a piper's lament, and then go on to what we saw and did, more in the order it happened. This piper, right in the heart of it all, did choke us up.

Here is what it sounded like (sorry, I'll figure how to flip the video later)

Before turning to important matters of state, we have to attend, of course, to breakfast! The hotel theoretically offered breakfast, at 5 pounds each. But when we looked at it, we decided to go to the pub. The hotel owner came along and told us that this week breakfast is free, but even at this price it wasn't worth the trouble!

In the town, we found a real (English) breakfast. Dodie cautioned that the full breakfast would be too much for just one, but I poo poo'd that. Mistake! Two eggs, lots of bacon, two sausages, scads of buttered white toast, etc., she was right!

In the streets of Horley, as indeed in all the streets of London, there were Queen photos and expressions of sorrow:

We jumped on the train north into the city of London, passing through quite a few nondescript suburban areas. We noticed again the run down state of things, such as the various town station platforms. It seems here like in other countries that once had great empires and that collapsed (Spain, Portugal, Greece, ...) - looking run down.

Without quite knowing what we were doing, we got off at London Bridge, and then took the Underground through to Green Park. Green Park is one of the parks around Buckingham Palace. There is also Hyde Park and St James Park. From here we were quickly introduced to the scale of the event and circumstances today, as the crowd around us thickened, and then solidified. That is, it became almost impossible to move in any direction. Later, we learned from a police officer, Green Park station was shut down, because it was overloaded.

It was touching to see people on the underground carrying flowers, and papers with personal messages. In talking to some, it was clear many had come from all around the country. One family, with the husband carrying flowers, took us in hand and guided from the Underground toward the Palace.

It was clear that the authorities had not really thought out the possibility of such crowds descending on the palace. More and more people compressed in along "The Mall" that leads to the front gates, but no outlet was provided, such as through to Hyde Park would have been. When people had had enough, they had to turn around and fight their way back against the press of people coming in.

It this point let us say that in this whole vast crowd we found only patience and good humour. What's more, in the course of the day we had occasion to ask directions or generally speak to dozens of people, and we found only helpfulness, and in fact a willingness to pause and chat about all sorts of topics. This way we learned stuff as diverse as the evolution of the Covent Garden site and first hand about ISIS vs the Taliban in Afghanistan.

We later read that yesterday Charles and Camilla had come out for a walkabout, but it was not clear what people were waiting for or expecting to see today. People felt that Charles had gone to see Liz Truss (the new PM) at St James palace, and would be coming home sometime. We did see some mounted riders and a band, and we heard the gun salutes at 11 a.m. when Charles was officially proclaimed Charles III.

Here are some of our shots, showing the crowd, some of the sights, and even the gathered news media:

We eventually battled our way back out through the crowds, and decided to make a try to go to Westminster and Big Ben next. This took us down Picadilly, iconic in itself, as is every darn street and place in this city. Along Picadilly we encountered Fortnum and Mason, a fine food purveyor. This rang a big bell with Dodie, since Lord Peter Whimsey of the Peter Whimsey mysteries was always getting picnic baskets prepared for him at Fortnum and Mason. In fact the first photo below shows the basket business in action. I found it significant that today not only the aristocracy can enjoy food delicacies such as are on offer here. They even gave us some free sample truffle chocolates.

Never seen an orange Stilton type cheese before

All the champagne you want, two colours.

Then Picadilly Circus, which is a roundabout in the street, and Trafalgar Square, with the Nelson statue up high and the lions at the base, the horse guard, the west end theatres, 10 Downing Street, and finally a view of Big Ben, the Churchill statue, the London Eye! There is so much stuff, just in this western corner of the city, it's a bit boggling!

Many shows like this seem to have permanent runs

At Downing Street, you have to get by these guys to speak to Liz Truss

Or, you could leave her a note, across the street

Since we love markets, we decided to go see Covent Garden next. We understood this to be a covered market, with produce and food and such. Since we were now seriously tiring, we decided to get there with the Underground. Here below, Dodie harasses and entertains two Bobbies, asking which train line we need.

As everywhere in London, walking the streets involves crowds.

Covent Garden turned out to no longer be a real market. It has been overrun by restaurants and shops, and actually no longer sells any produce!

Mostly undaunted, we decided to walk to St Paul's Cathedral. Following up on Julie Andrews from our last blog, I wanted to see the famous steps, where presumably one can choose to invest tuppence either in feeding the birds or in the bank, in the nearby London "City". I found my birds, but no old lady to sell feed! I think this could be a good business. I would now charge two pounds a bag, and claim "supply chain" difficulties.

Inside the Cathedral, the evensong service was praying for the new king. We had learned that one end of the church remained dull, after Queen Victoria declared the whole place depressing, and had the other end spruced up. Both ends in fact looked rather dull.

Quite dull inside - this is the fancy end

Finally, we trudged back to a train station, and beat our retreat from London!

Tomorrow we will get down to serious cycling! In the mean time, Mind the Gap!

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Jill GelineauHow fascinating that you are in London at such a unique time - passing of a long term monarch. Great timing!
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