London and Heading Home!

 It has been a busy three days in London! 

We were greeted warmly by the staff at our posh hotel, Hayden Notting Hill, with free drinks and then had lunch while waiting for our room to be finished. After settling in, we took a stroll down memory lane to Paddington Station and to find the first hotel we stayed in on our first trip here 30 years ago, the Norfolk Plaza, which is now being converted into student housing. We then tucked in for the evening and planned our next day by signing up for a walking tour, and deciding to take a boat tour on the Thames!

We went for a sweet breakfast at a very pink and gold place that John found, called Pastada, which reminded me of Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Room from Harry Potter, and they had a lot of very unique decor that, while not my style, I thought was well done. I’d love to do a little place with a more creepy vibe with autumn trees, crows, and that sort of thing. It would be so cool! John had a very fancy avocado toast with edible flowers and I had a waffle and bacon with edible flowers. I think my waffle may have had rose flavor or something in it because it was slightly pink. After that, we went for a nice hike through Hyde Park along the Princess Diana Memorial Walk and saw the resident swans, cormorants and a bunch of kinds of ducks. 

We then met our Shakespeare and Dickens’ London Walking Tour group, and did an interesting walk for two hours with a bit of a scattered tour guide, but we had a good time. After that, we did the Churchill War Rooms Museum tour, which was a very long wait in line even for our pre-booked tour. It was a really interesting exploration of the underground bunkers where Winston Churchill and tons of other people worked and lived during WWII as they hid down here doing all the strategic planning against the Nazi’s. Incredible, and frightening. It also detailed a lot about Churchill, himself, and that was fascinating. 

Sightseeing Boat Tour on the Thames was on the docket for the next day so that I could rest my feet as much as possible. I developed painful, swollen bunions for all the walking and standing from the day before, and I was grateful to be able to sit but still seeing cool scenery and be outside. 

We have done some evening walks about, and we came across the coolest shop, the Magical Platform Harry Potter Shop, which is a spin-off, unofficial Harry Potter shop, but they had so,e of the most unique stuff Ihave seen yet! It was a wrench not to buy anything, especially the seals wax sets of all the houses!

We had reservations our final evening at the Swan Restaurant which is pretty posh and attached to the Globe Theatre. It was a delicious meal, and followed by a delightful walk along the Millennium Bridge where we got some pretty photos of a spectacular night skyline. After that, it was time to watch the play of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. It is very cool to see a play at The Globe, and a great way to top off our final night in London!

York to Norwich to Dereham to London

Not too much to report about the travel day to Dereham as it was a long day with a lot of train and bus exchanges. We enjoyed our breakfast at the Fat Badger hotel, I had the vegan sausage, eggs, a hash brown patty, mushroom, tomato, and beans and John had the normal Scottish breakfast. I didn’t care for the vegan sausage too much, so I swapped John a piece of his bacon for it. British bacon is more like what we would call Canadian bacon, and they call what we know of as bacon “streaky bacon” but I’ve never seen it in a restaurant. John’s brother Dave says it’s not that great anyway. I’m telling you, I am missing my coffee, though. I’ve switched to just rooibos tea in the mornings because it’s not such a diuretic and is keeping me hydrated without the need to pee/poo so much. Plus, now that we haven’t had mini fridges at two hotels, I can’t store any cream, so there’s no point in having coffee with the weird pre-packaged skim milks they offer in the hotel rooms. They do not have have the little creamers we have at home, so we have to go to the grocery stores and pick up what is called here “single cream” which is basically half-and-half, or “double cream” which would be heavy whipping cream to us. I had forgotten which was which when we bought some, and got the double cream, which was fine but a bit too much cream for me, so I was hoping that if our London hotel offers a mini fridge, I could maybe enjoy two days of single cream coffees, but not sure I want to commit to buying another one at that point. I’ll just be really happy to have our home favorite coffees next Friday!

There have been a couple of train fatalities since we have been here, one of which happened to be on this travel day on one of the stops that we needed to pass through, so it was quite a disruption (and my heartfelt sympathies to the poor folks that perished and their families). We needed to take a train from York to Norwich, then a bus from Norwich to Dereham, so after a lot of confusion and waiting on the train, not sure when it would leave or if we would be able to make our connections, we just made the next train by one minute! 

Dave and Julie met us at the Norwich bus station, and we took the bus back to Dereham together, then checked into our hotel and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. We walked them back to their place and said HI to their cute orange kitty, Boomer, who is a bit shy, then headed back to the hotel to crash. 

Yesterday, we met them at their usual coffee spot, the Sweetleaf Cafe, and had lattes and egg and sausage Baps (a breakfast sandwich on a roll), the caught the bus to Norwich to go to the castle/museum there. Sadly, a lot of it was under renovation, so we were only able to see a few wings of it, but we did get to see an exhibit about a very interesting historical figure I recently learned about, a female heroine named Boudicca, who led a massive revolt against the Roman army and almost defeated them. She was part of the Iceni peoples that lived in this area before the Roman Empire came and obliterated the indigenous cultures of this land. While her story, what is known of it, is terrible in what happened to her and her children and people, the story of her rising up against this incredible force is a powerful one. I really wanted to get a small Boudica related item, ideally a piece of jewelry with her image on it, but the only thing small enough was a replica Celtic coin that was really cool, but I decided against it. I ended up getting a serpent ring to match the Odin’s Wolves ring that I had gotten in York, as they were similar in style and look cool balanced against each other, one on each pinky. 

We then had lunch at the Norwich Wetherspoons restaurant, a chain of the hotel/restaurant we are staying in here, which are kind of like a Perkin’s or similar back home. They are hugely popular here since they are cheap, have a lot of options including a nice selection of “small menu” items for kids or anyone wanting to eat a smaller meal. It was so freaking busy there though, so we ate and went on our way. Dave pointed out a cool ancient wall remnant that we got photos of as we waited to catch the bus back to Dereham. 

Then we hung out at their place doing laundry and Dave ordered food from a local takeaway place and we watched cricket on TV, while he explained all the rules that John was totally getting but I was not, so my mind was wandering onto other things. One of Julie’s sons stopped by, Paul, and as our laundry mostly finished, we decided to head back to the hotel and let Paul have our seat next to his mom on the couch. I haven’t been feeling well, and since they both smoke in the house, it was just adding to my sniffles and sneezing, so I was glad to come back to the hotel. 

I had a rough night of getting up to pee a lot and deal with my snuffly nose, so we slept in a bit this morning. We then had oats for breakfast and took a lovely walk in the local nature area, hoping to see the local fauna like the barn owl, stoats, otters and tiny types of deer they have here, but we didn’t see any of those. We did see a heron, what I think may have been a Little Egret, loads of ravens and magpies, which are everywhere here, as well as rooks and jackdaws, both of which are types of corvids. It was nice to have some tree time. 

We then watched the Vikings in London game at Dave and Julie’s, had pizza for supper, and met some of the other Halvorson’s on Zoom after the game, then were beat and headed back to the hotel to have a nice sleep. 

Meeting up with them for another coffee and Bap this morning at the Sweetleaf, we then bid our goodbyes and hopped on the bus to Norwich, and the train to London, and are now relaxing in a pretty posh hotel called the Hayden in Notting Hill, who offered is free drinks right away and we had a late lunch that was delicious. John went for the fish and chips, and I had a chicken souvlaki, which is a Greek dish with a perfectly done chicken thighs, tzatziki (creamy cucumber sauce) with onions, tomatoes, watercress and pita bread. Now we are chillaxing in our room planning our few days here in London. 

Aviemore, Cairngorm Reindeer

We arrived in Aviemore yesterday, checked into our cute but very tiny B&B, the Ardlogie, and then took a wander around this cute little village. We discovered an ancient stone circle situated in a little neighborhood of homes! The stones are literally in these peoples back yards! How cool would that be! I think the plaque said they were over 4000 years old. They were fairly small, but must’ve been the local site for rituals and burials, as there were human bones found at the site. There was also the most gorgeous, huge Rowan tree, one so perfectly shaped and bigger than the skinny ones that are all over around here. There is a lot of lore around Rowan trees, and it is considered very bad luck to cut one down. I offered it my love, gratitude and hair, as well as to the two stones at the entrance to the circle before I entered it. Really cool to have stumbled upon those!

We then went up and down the streets, popping in and out of the little shops. I bought some locally made lotion that smelled fabulous and should make it through the TSA business at the airport. I hope! John wants to find another Scottish wool paperboy hat, but hasn’t yet found one he wants. We then had dinner at the Old Bridge Inn, which was a cute little pub that appears to have transitioned to a little more upscale type menu, so we each had a small bowl of Cullen Skink and we shared a charcuterie tray, we were stuffed!! There was a drunk Scottish guy that absolutely latched onto us as we came in the door, and when he found out we were American, starting singing Johnny Cash songs to us. What a hoot! But I was grateful that the hostess peeled us away for our reservation or we may have never eaten! The restaurant had tables set up right next to the Spey River, and there were some nature trails along that we strolled along after dinner. It was a lovely end to the day.

This morning, we both were up so early, like 3/4:30am, so it was a bit rough, but we had to eat our breakfast at a designated time and in order to make our morning bus to the Cairngorms Reindeer Centre, another highlight of this trip. So we had a lovely breakfast and met our hosts who are very vibrant, chatty people. I had herby eggs with some fruit and John had the full Scottish breakfast, which he hasn’t had yet on this trip. All was delicious and too much, I should’ve asked for only one egg! They raise chickens here so they said, “These eggs are from our gals out back!” Which was so sweet. We’ve seen the chickens bobbing about the yard. They also have a few apple trees and a nice garden where the rocket and cress was likely grown. Can you imagine that herbs can still be growing and picked fresh in October???

We hopped onto the 9:22 bus to the Glenmore Park Centre, where we then had to use to only loo for the next several hours and then up to the Reindeer Centre to check in. We then walked up the roadway about a 45 minute hike, gradually steeper and steeper incline, so by the time we made it up to the meeting place/car park, I was pink as a pig and sweating like mad. They go on and on about needing to wear warm clothes and will send you away if you’re not dressed appropriately, so I decided I’d better wear my long johns and bring all the stuff. Even though this morning it was quite chilly and a heavy fog lay over the whole town, by the time we started walking up the hill, it was sunny and in the 50s! But I know in the mountains weather can change quickly, and in Scotland it was start pouring anytime, so though I was miserable, it was for the best just in case. 

There is another, prettier and shorter hike to get to the reindeer, though some really steep parts on huge stones that were rough on the knees, but overall much easier than the hike up the roadway. After a lot of history and prep talk about meeting the reindeer, we were let into the gated area where they manage some of the herds (moms and babies, and to control some of the rutting between certain reindeer to keep their genetics diverse) while the rest of the herd, which is about 150 reindeer, is free to roam the mountains freely. There were two reindeer herders and two volunteers, and as we entered the third part of the pathway, the one herder began doing the “cow calls” the people do when they call of sing songs to call their herds in. It was so cute when they all began to come! One little baby just came running! Then they all followed, it was so fun watching them all come up to us! They gave us feed and lichen to feed them and said we could stay as long as we wanted, so we were there a good long time feeding and taking photos. The land is very wet and boggy, and there are unpredictable bumps of earth and reindeer poop everywhere, so you had to be careful. It got to a point where you didn’t watch for poop as much as for the lumpy bumps because they were a serious hazard! But we had so much fun with those reindeer, and it was so special for me because the reindeer is very sacred to me. We had an absolute blast, and we couldn’t have had better weather! It was lovely and cool up on the mountain, the view spectacular. I would come back again and again! 

We grabbed a bit to the two volunteers as we were hiking out, and blessedly, they offered us a ride down the street to the Reindeer Centre so it saved our knees a little more stress! I was very grateful. We stopped in the shop and got a few items, then hit the loo which is conveniently located by the bus stop, and caught the bus back to town to have lunch at The Winking Owl. Back to the Ardlogie for a shower and a bit of a rest, we then went out for a pan evening walk about in more natural areas in town, finding some lovely trails with soft earth underfoot. A few peeps at the Royal Scotsman steam train, and then back home to sup on cold sandwiches bought at Tesco’s. We are trying to balance the eating out with eating in, but cold sandwiches pre prepared aren’t really my favorite thing, I’d rather just buy the raw ingredients and make a fresh sandwich, but we have limited options on the road. 

Tomorrow will be another squeeze, we need to have our breakfast early so we can catch the train by 8:30 and the it’s a 6 hour ride to York! Ugh, lots of sitting and hard on the knees in other ways. Then one night in York, down to Norwich and Dereham to stay for three nights at the place Dave worked for years, Wetherspoons, which is a huge restaurant and hotel chain here. They’ve got reasonably priced rooms and food, and they had a very forgiving cancellation policy. It will be nice to hang with family and have some more leisurely time, though I worry that John will be squirrelly, since there’s not a lot to do in Dereham, so maybe he and Dave can have some brotherly catch up time walking and I can sit and work on my embroidery in solitude and give my feet’s and knees a break.