Blog ≫ 2022 ≫ Easter London trip
I'm walking back towards the Inn Doors1, I figure I'll try and use this time to write up our weekend. We had a lovely weekend away. Going on the Friday and Saturday of this long Easter weekend so I'm trying to dictate this into my phone as I walk because if I leave these things for too long then I never remember all the details and I think I'm going to write them up later and I never do.
We headed off Thursday morning, something like 10:00 Train. It was pretty busy. A lot of people heading up to London then and that's always busy because that's the first cheap train. I think that might have been cheaper, just as cheap to go earlier as it's a bank holiday but 10:00 was early enough. Ssort of managed to sit together and we got off at Stratford which is where we were staying, because a) we quite like Stratford and b) we couldn't get a hotel any nearer into town anyway because I left a bit late. As we jumped off the train, got a sudden panic. Clare left her case on the train, her many suitcase for the weekend. We look back on the train, no mini suitcase. She'd actually left it in the car back in Folkestone... She was all set to jump back onto the train, come back to Folkestone again and get it. I said that was silly as it was going to take her at least 2 hours to do that and plus she might have to buy another ticket. So I said can you just make do? I'm sure I could make do with no stuff for the weekend. She cannot quite make do but she realized she could by everything she absolutely couldn't live without, borrowing my card. So I'll have a little bill for makeup and makeup removers and other toiletries and a change of clothes, but not too bad. And then we we had a bit of a look around Stratford. The boys and I went in some shops, just really window shopping, went in Menkind and in the Lego store looking at stuff that we weren't really gonna buy, and then I think did we drop our bags off at that point. We checked into the room at the Premier Inn and then headed off into Central London. I'll stop there because I need to think about it a bit more.
(I took a break from dictation here)
First thing we did was visit the Harry Potter shop at Kings Cross, thing two was particularly excited to be here2. He loved it all, but when we'd decided "no more soft toys" and "not the best value for money sweets" he only bought a niffler t-shirt3. Then on again on the tube. Next bit is dictated again.
First activity that we had lined up for the weekend was an escape room, Harry Potter themed escape room. Not officially licensed, no actual mention of Harry Potter or brand names, but it was a school of witchcraft and wizardry, and it was really really good. Really well done, so the props and everything were a lot more impressive than they were at the last one we did. Though it was in the basement of an office building, it was decorated to look like medieval stone work and torches for lighting and things like that. The idea of it was we had to find the greatest wizard of all time and so we had to solve various puzzles and things. And then we had to find the right portrait to hang on the wall and then we had some potions puzzles we had to solve. It got quite tricky in places but we we completed it with seconds to spare. We got a certificate for our "outstanding" achievement. We think not everyone completes all parts of this escape room, so we did well. They did give us a few hints over the loudspeaker but I think the last puzzle, there's no way anyone would have sold it by themselves without a hint being told where to look, but very good. I think the boys liked it and we really liked it. So all good. We went in a pub just around the corner from that while we were waiting, The Flying Horse4 which was nice. Was very quiet. No one else in there really, two bar staff us and we just sat and had a drink. There was some filming for TV happening on the same road so I got a picture of all the filming in action. The location crew were being very cagey about what was being filmed but I think someone said it was something called The Culprit5 and it was for Disney. They closed the road and they were hosing the road down. So I guess it's supposed to be a you know a rainy scene. I never at least a couple of smashed up cars so that was a thing to look out for on TV. I've got a picture that I can attach below.
It's a lot easier to get a lot of words down if I just dictate this instead of typing it, I wonder if it will read any more naturally than if I typed it in my usual style. I'll see when I read this back later.
We had a walk through Covent Garden and Leicester Square as we'd heard there were some other Harry Potter type things there. Struggling to think where we where we ate our first meal, where did we go? We didn't just take them to another pub did we? We kind of did go to another pub we stopped in. We were trying to think of somewhere to eat our evening meal and you know everywhere is very busy. We tried to book a few places and they were booked up. We thought we looked in some you know kind of interesting different non-chain places but we just couldn't get in any and we made a reserve backup booking at Prezzo and then we went and we had a sit down at a Mr Fogg's pub. I wanted to go to one of these for a while, so this is a chain that's all themed around Phileas Fogg and it's not really super kid friendly. I heard that they are in the daytime, but we got there about 6:00 but we managed to get onto a table outside. We sat outside, ordered some outrageously priced drinks, and the boys read their comics while we tried to find any other options for dinner but we kind of knew what was going to happen. We went to the Prezzo it was very nice and after that we got the tube back to Stratford. No real problems there, we were expecting cancellations and closures, but apart from general business it was fine.
I stopped dictating at this point, guess I had either arrived at the Inn Doors, or I couldn't remember what happened next in the grand order of things.I do know that we always take turns getting the boys to sleep in the hotel room, while the other goes out for a nightcap. This time though everyone was knackered, so we just took some wine back to the room. The boys fell asleep almost instantly, Clare watched TV on her phone and I read Private Eye in the semi-darkness.
Next morning, I had my running stuff with me and really had planned to do a parkrun in London. I knew the night before that I wasn't really up for it though, so in the end chose Premier Inn breakfast over exercising and meeting people. Next time. Breakfast was alright, very very busy in that hotel, but worth having as there are a couple of new vegan options on the breakfast menu now - vegan bacon and a vegan sausage. You can't just pick it up at the buffet, you have to order it, but still it's good. We breakfasted and then we headed into town again. To Southwark this time.
We had another activity booked that we thought was a bit video gamey and a bit escape roomy, but it was a bit more like a multiplayer Nintendo Wii game. It's slightly different tech, we had to wear special hats so the sensors in the room could track our location. Then every wall in the room was a giant touch screen, so we were immersed in the games. There were various games to play that gave us a score, one quiz, one matching pairs thing, and more phyisically dancing about to make the game work. Good, but got a little stressful in the final knockings for the two smallest members of our party. We all had fun though and did quite well, this is where that picture is from.
That game turned out to be only one street away from where I lived when I first moved to London, in Nicholson Street. We had a look around that area, I hardly recognise the area, though the face looks exactly the same. From there a walk along the Southbank and a stop in Gabriel's Wharf. This is a place we used to go when I lived in that area, though like everything it has changed. Still sort of recognisable, the bar we drank in is in the same position though has a different name now. It is now called Limin' Beach Bar, and we sat in the fabulous sun and had rum punches and lemonades. The weather was just right for this, super sunny and hot.
We meandered back across town, stopping at a protest / demonstration at the end of Downing Street where we chanted in support of Ukraine. I gave some money and got the boys some badges, I think these might be things of great significance in the future, but I bet they lose them. I should have got myself something.
We stopped for quite a while at The Shakespeare, which is quite a good pub. Very busy though. I had a pint of slightly crap beer, I would have sent it back at another time I think. But then had a good pint of cider, and we had a table in there and we did puzzles and quizzes and a pictionary type game. It's (perhaps unsurprisingly) a Shakespeare themed place. They were playing old black and white Basil Rathbone stories, one has a pygmy guy hidden in a suitcase and the final scene was at a fairground. I think I've read that one. Then on to Hound Of The Baskervilles3, must be odd to work in this place with these things constantly on loop.
Back at Stratford for another drink and ice creams for the boys, and then another chain dinner, at Wagamama. We got the train home, and then a taxi, we'd pick the car up the next day.
A lovely two day weekend break, and it only took half of our long weekend. I'm sure I have more details I should have added here, I should have stuck with my dictation plan as that was working well. I'll do it again on our next visit, hopefully in a few weeks, after the next pay day. I didn't do any shopping for myself on this visit, though I kind of needed to.
They're still watching Lord Of The Rings in the next room.
- I was when I dictated this anyway.
- I did not dictate this paragraph, so apologies if the style change is too jarring. I just remembered a few days later that I have a bit to slot in here.
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- There are loads of pubs called this, this is the one on Wilson Street.
- Seems likely that it is actually called The Culprits and it has Eddie Izzard and Gemma Arterton in it, I wonder if they were there?