12 May 2016 - Crystal Palace Caravan Site, London

 The sun has set and we are relaxing after a rather busy day, our final night in London. Last night we decided to set off once more into the city, although that was before we understood the cost of just one day’s travel, compared to the last week.  For just one day it cost us £12.10 each; we had paid £38 each for the seven days. However it was a done deal and we had committed ourselves to the day’s plan. So in keeping with all that,  and especially with the dawn of such a beautifully fine day, we set off from the Crystal Palace railway station on the Southern Train through to London Bridge, then changed to the underground and found our way through to Knightsbridge, the very smart shopping suburb where Harrods is situated. I did not really have any yen to explore this temple of consumerism, but as Chris said, it is one of the icons of London, and today was set aside for those we had missed in the previous week. And so we wandered about the many floors of this grand department store, admiring the fabulous interior and marvelling at the horrendously ridiculous prices of everything.

Hyde Park residents

Had this been a week or month long holiday, I might have been tempted to purchase a few kitschy souvenirs, but living here as we are, there is limited storage and possessions must be need’s based, not of the frivolous kind. We explored the food halls and the wine cellars; the New Zealand and Australian cellar wines we are familiar with many more times more than we would normally pay, but then in all fairness, we do not purchase the better wines, and these were supposedly superior. Yet the meat and fruit I priced was horrendous ; lamb loin chops for £28 a kilo ($56 a kilo), the apples £7 - £9 a kilo ($14 to $18 a kilo)! Surely people only buy their groceries here as a status symbol because no one with the slightest common sense would do so. We wandered through the housewares and interior decorating departments; I thought most of the ornaments and the like tasteless, garish and overpriced, but then what would I know. I am not one to judge these matters, considering the acquisition of such frivolous possessions as pointless. 

We did both enjoy wandering about the 5,000 square foot Halcyon Gallery where prints of works by Dylan Thomas, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and sculptures by Lorenzo Quinn and others are available for purchase, all dangling pricey sales tags. We also loved the Egyptian Escalator, an addition to the store since its acquisition by the more recent owners, the Al Fayed brothers. The decoration is sumptuous, and worth popping into the store to just see this.

As one of the world’s largest and most famous department stores, Harrods covers more than 90,000 square metres of space, the 330 departments spread over seven floors. It was established in 1849 by Charles Henry Harrod in a very modest manner, steadily expanding until it became a public listed company in 1889. It was here at Harrods in 1898 that one of the world’s  first escalators was to be found.

The store returned to private ownership when Egyptian Mr Al Fayed and his brother Ali in 1985 purchased it outright. These days the store employs about 4,000 staff, all of whom we encountered were nothing but welcoming and friendly, even though they must have known we were nothing but tyre kickers. But for all the positive comments, I was glad to escape this glitz and glamour; I simply could not be wooed to even linger in the jewellery store. 

The New Zealand War Memorial

We followed the streets up through Knightsbridge, admiring the exterior of the charming stores and residences, before finding refuge on the shores of the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Initially we settled into two of the deck chairs apparently set out for foot weary tourists such as ourselves. I checked with a couple of young girls who were doing likewise, to see whether there was a charge for claiming such comfort. They were no wiser than us, and said they thought not, however soon a young black man came along to collect the hire fee, £1.60 per hour. This is probably a fair tariff given the effort of setting the hundreds of deck chairs out and the outlay in the beginning, not to mention the wear and tear on the canvas, however we chose to move to the fixed benches closer to the lake, a half one still available to share.

Hyde Park, at almost 350 acres, is one of central London’s top wildlife sites, home to a diversity of wildlife; song birds such as blackbirds, robins, dunnocks and blue tits.  At dusk you can find pipistrelle bats which emerge from their roosts in mature trees and nearby buildings to forage on the park‘s insect life; this I would love to have seen. Apparently each bat is capable of consuming 3,000 small insects in a night!

A quiet scene in St James Park

The lake is divided into two; the Serpentine lakes are divided by a bridge about half way along, the Long Water lying to the west and the Serpentine to the east, this latter available for boating and swimming at the Lido during restricted hours in restricted months of the year.

After lunch we walked westward along the southern shore of the lake, through the Lido area and paused to explore the Princes Diana Memorial Fountain. This latter had not particularly excited my interest, however I am so glad we did check it out. Today with the warm sun shining, there were dozens of families out with young children, and dozens of tourists with childlike tendencies, all of who were delighting in this fabulous water feature.

A freindly squirrel in St James Park

So on we went, across the bridge and back along the northern shore toward James Park and Buckingham Palace, passing several war memorials, not least New Zealand’s , an interesting collection of sixteen bronze standards resembling tall fencing standards.

Officially named “Southern Stand’ it was unveiled in 2006; I clearly remember the news report at the time. It was designed by architect John Hardwick-Smith and sculptor Paul Dibble, both Kiwis. The wording on the shortest standard explains that the memorial was established to commemorate the enduring bond between New Zealand and the United Kingdom”. I am not sure I liked it, but I did feel some connection.

We walked on up through avenues of trees and throngs  of tourists, skirting around the tall barricade about Buckingham Palace, and on into St James Park. I remembered lunching al fresco with my mother and sisters nearly eight years ago, but must have been in some other corner because I do not remember the lake or the flower gardens, but then it was in late August and we are now in mid-May. I did remember the squirrels, the first I had ever seen, so was delighted to see yet another today. The birdlife was also wonderful, most not at all concerned about the thousands of humans sharing their space.

Emerging from the park, we wandered along past the Horse Guards Parade in search for Downing Street. Heading in the wrong direction, we were most pleased to be rescued by a chap in a suit who took us back the other way while chatting about travel in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He encouraged us to get up into Scotland; his wife was from there and he was passionate about the open landscapes, although accepted we might be rather bored by such scenery having come from much the same.

Buckingham Palace

And so we were left at yet another set of barricades, well-guarded by several policemen to make sure random tourists did not venture up to the door of No 10. We peeked through the rails and noted the black frontage of the house, so we can say we have seen the house where the UK Prime Minister lives.

We had planned to explore Oxford Circus, Oxford Street, Bond Street and several other iconic locations, but we were tired, or at least I was, so we decided to catch the No 3 bus home.  Actually we were anxious to reach the little hardware / general store up in Crystal Palace to see if the little Indian man had managed to secure an electrical connection for the caravan. He had suggested it would be there by Thursday afternoon. Alas on our arrival he produced two incorrect connections, and said the third he had ordered which he had understood to be the one we were after, had not yet come. We thanked him profusely and headed back home for our last dinner.

After a welcome cup of coffee I headed off to the showers, returning soon to find one very unhappy husband. The gas had run out, or was at a level that it could not be retrieved for use. The regulator definitely needed attention. We changed our menu, nuked several components and christened our little portable gas cooker to cook the potatoes. While the real problem has not been solved, the immediate need for dinner preparation was.