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Sunday, August 11, 2019
London
Hiya from London!
There is no sweeter feeling, at least to my mind, than waking up to
discover that you are in your favorite city in the world and have the entire
day to do with it whatever you please. I awoke to the sounds of the overground
train chugging outside my window at Battersea and the grinding drone of
aircraft engines preparing for landing on the Heathrow flight path. These sounds, far from being a nuisance, are like music to my ears because I awake with a happy feeling.
Mass at St. Mary's Church, Battersea:
So my day began with a cup of coffee as my friends Roz and Chrisite usually go to the 8.30 am Mass at Battersea followed by coffee at Queenswood, their local coffee shop. I have attended Mass at this church before--when I lived in London, ten years ago, I once met Roz at this venue, in keeping with my objective, at that time, of attending Mass at a different church each Sunday.
The church has a beautiful location--it is right on the banks of the River Thames and in early morning light, it looks gorgeous--its spire stetches towards the golden rays of the rising sun. Thames' waters are also usually placid and undisturbed at this hour of the morning. On the opposite (north) bank of the river, Chelsea continued to slumber as Londoners enjoy their weekend lie-ins.
Mass was said by Canon Simon (whom I have also met before). There were only a sprinkling of people in the church--about 25 (what a contrast to my church in Bandra!!!) and we sat in the choir stalls as there is major renovation going on inside. This church has been associated with the painter Turner (who used to sit in it to paint views of Chelsea on the other side), with the poet William Blake who worshipped here and with Benedict Arnold--each of them have a stained glass window dedicated to him.
The Mass was interesting--in the High Anglican mode (hence very different from the ones I attend at St Paul's Cathedral which is very similar to the text used in Catholic churches). The sermon, as usual, was a pleasure to listen to. I have said this before (a million times) and I will say it again: no one can preach as well as an Anglican cleric (which is one of the reasons I love attending Mass in an Anglican church) and, by contrast, I will dare to say this too: there are no preachers more lousy than the ones to be found in the Catholic churches of Bombay! There! I said it! After a year of the most excruciating experiences of Indian Catholic priests and their shockingly terrible homilies, I can honestly say that I would pay good money to listen to someone like Simon preach every Sunday.
After coffee, about 15 members of the congregation adjourned to Queenswood, the coffee shop, in a pretty little square about 200 meters from the church, where, since they are all known to each other, they chatted over a variety of teas and coffee. I had a decaff Americano and made the acquaintance of a handsome young couple called Jack and Lizzie with whom I had a nice conversation.
A 'Full English Breakfast' in The Asparagus:
Then, because Christie had told me that his local The Asparagus has a very reasonably priced 'full English' and because he enjoys hanging out there too, he took me to the place so we could both freely indulge. Roz pleaded laundry to be done and took the car to get home. Christie and I walked right past St. Thomas', Battersea, a private school dating from the 1700s in a building that wears its age on its sleeve--beautiful Tudor red and white brick creates diamond patterns on the walls that actually have very fetching stone plaques of knights in armor sticking out of them. I took a few pictures as we walked past because I loved the building--not so much because Prince George, son of William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, goes to this school and will be followed by his sister, Charlotte, who will start schooling here next month.
In five minutes, past neat terraced housing (all very quiet as people slumbered) and streets devoid of any signs of humanity, we arrived on Battersea High Street. Life was just stirring in The Asparagus when we got there to find patrons ordering large pints of ale and lager--yes, at 9.00 am!!!! I ordered a Traditional Breakfast while Christie got the Vegetarian one--he got mushrooms, I did not!!! The scrambled eggs were very poorly done and overall, I can say that you do get what you pay for. Let's put it this way: it was not like a Full English at The Wolsley!
When we were done, we walked back home and I got ready for my day. Roz and Christie were making the trek to Greenwich to meet friends there--they were taking a bus and I got on with them.
Being a Sloane Ranger:
However, when we arrived at Sloane Street, I hopped off. I decided that I would do the rounds of the thrift stores on the King's Road. In the 1960s, when young monied folks discovered Chelsea and converted it into the chic residential and shopping paradise it is today, they were known as Sloane Rangers--think Mick Jagger, Mary Quant and Salman Rushdie! Llew and I were Sloane Rangers for three consecutive years in the summer when his brother Lancy was based in London and was given a splendid terraced home on one of the most exclusive residential streets in Chelsea, right off the Embankment. I am so glad we did take his brother and sister-in-law up on their generous offers to come and stay with them during those years because they treated us to some of our most lasting memories of London.
All these years later, I remember those summers with great affection--now that both Lancy and his wife are gone. I often go right by their home at 26 Redesdale Street which they had occupied and in which we had stayed in a room on the top level. Anyway...the years have gone by but Chelsea retains a special place in my heart. By the way, Chelsea Clinton was so named because her newly-wed parents, then in love with each other and London, had been strolling through the borough of Chelsea and Kensington when they decided that if they ever had a daughter, they would name her Chelsea!
I enjoy nothing better than a poke in my favorite shops on The King's Road which is basically the high street. Apart from the supermarket Waitrose and the department stores Marks and Spencer and John Lewis, there are the coffee shops I love such as Paul's and a few lovely thrift shops that are my special joy. I love the Oxfam on Shawfield Road and the King's Arcade. Other than DVDs, I did not find too much this morning, but I stopped for a gelato at Ventri, a new Italian ice-cream parlor that has sprouted, took a turn around Partridge's, an upscale food shop and slowly but surely made my way to the Sloane Street Tube station on Sloane Square. I did miss my friends, the Colcloughs sorely, as they live in Chelsea but they are in Barcelona and I will miss them completely on this visit. Sad.
Off to Paddington:
My next port of call was Paddington as I had picked up a brochure when I was passing through Heathrow last month that spoke highly of this part of London. As it is not a part of the city with which I am familiar, I decided to explore it more thoroughly. This meant taking a more round about way to get there as the District line going north was not working. Using the alternative Bakerloo line, I got to Edgeway Road eventually and asked around to try to find my way to Paddington Basin.
I had a fairly uninteresting time there...there is not really much to see at all. After a long walk (that I much regretted), I managed to find it. It is basically a long off shoot of the Grand Union Canal that is much more evident after a ten minute walk as it curves towards Little Venice. I had already walked so much that I was worried about the impact on my feet (I am already fighting plantar fasciitis) and after taking pictures of the luxury high-rise buildings and the upscale shops at their base that surround this body of water, I really wondered what there was to see. There is a Go Boat, a water taxi that ferries people for free from this spot, past Fan Bridge (which I did not see), that plies from Monday to Friday--sadly, it was non-functional today.
When I realized that I was close to St. Mary's Hospital (where, in the Lindo Wing, Catherine has had all three of the royal heirs to the throne), I decided to cross the bridge close to Little Venice and get back on the main road again. I'm afraid Paddington Basin did nothing to impress me and I was bitterly disappointed by the visit.
At the Fleming Museum:
I was even more disappointed when I discovered that the Fleming Museum that is devoted to an exhibition of the wonder of the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming was closed. It is open from Monday to Thursday only from 10.00 am to 1.00 pm. However, I did actually enter St. Mary's Hospital to use the loo (a very solid Victorian building with wards and departments beautifully signposted inside) and then made my way to the entrance of the museum. Now that I know where it is, I shall try to return (maybe on my next visit to London as the time here is so short). I took a few pictures of the exterior and of the plaque that announces the location of the room in which the magic medication that saved the lives of so many soldiers during the wars, was discovered.
Back to Battersea:
I was pretty exhausted by this time as, whether I like it or not, I always seem to end up walking far more than I had intended when I am in London. My legs were beginning to hurt and the disappointments of the morning were doing nothing to lift my spirits. Hence, I merely hopped into a bus I saw that was heading towards Oxford Circus with the idea of getting the Tube from there. And that was what I did. In about an hour, I was in Battersea where we had dinner plans. I was taking my hosts for dinner to our favorite Italian restaurant in the neighborhood called L'Antipasto, where I have eaten several times and where the proprietor Antonio is known to me, thanks to Roz and Chrisite who frequent this place pretty often. I had also invited Bande Hasan, who used to be a colleague of both Llew and Christie at different times during his banking career. I have met him for a meal many times in London and know him quite well. He was expected at Roz's place at about 7.00 pm. I showered before his arrival and was ready to greet him warmly on a day that happened to be Eid (Bakhri Id as we call it in India where the Abrahamic tradition it taken literally and goats are actually slaughtered and eaten that day).
Bande is a teetotaler but the rest of us enjoyed drinks and nibbles in the living room before we walked to the restaurant along Battersea High Street. Once assembled in a corner, where Roz's sister Sarah was awaiting our arrival, we had a lovely meal. A bottle of white wine was ordered for the table (which went into a second bottle). I had a Fresh Crabmeat Salad as a starter (it was served with avocado, tomato, lettuce and a Marie Rose Sauce--just delicious and bursting with crab meat) and shared a Pasta alla Siciliana with Roz (it came with linguine, prawns and cherry tomatoes--a tried-and-tested dish that I have had here before and always like). Some folks had pasta pesto with chicken and others had a starter as a main. For dessert, we shared tiramisu and also ordered biscotti with vin santo. It was a wonderful meal, as it always is, in this very reasonably priced eatery where you can be sure you will get a good meal without paying a fortune for it.
Christie had a very early flight to board tomorrow, so Roz and I walked Bande to the bus stop where we waited with him until his bus turned up. He has a nice flat in Central London and it was not long before, he was sailing off.
What a great way to have spent Eid and what a lovely end to my day--a not too fruitful one, but the Italian dinner saved it, in the end.
Until tomorrow...
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