28.05.2022
After the soul crushing cancellation of 2020 and 2021 due to someone rooting a bat (maybe ate it, not sure), we finally got to embark on our trip to the UK.
After the mother of all glitches made it impossible
to rebook our flights with Qantas (but not before we spent around 18 hours of
frustration on the phone and two trips to the airport for the captain, trying
to fix the issue and consequently giving me a facial tic), we gave Qantas the flick
and re-booked with Singapore airlines. They’ve got a great reputation, right?
Ah, cue the usual shenanigans that accompany the Newlands’ wherever we should
roam.
First – Singapore Airlines couldn’t get our
boarding pass to print at Tullamarine airport for the 2nd leg of the flight on
to Heathrow. After waiting patiently while our service assistant consulted many
other staff members, who all got the same result, it was established that we’d have
to go to the Transit desk when we hit Singapore to request one. Eyeroll.
Within minutes of boarding, I knew this was going
to be a shit flight. No screens on the back of the seat in front of me. We were
booked on a Singapore Airlines Scoot flight - the ‘Tight-arse Tuesday’ bitch
flight of the skyways. No inflight entertainment. Let me repeat that - NO
INFLIGHT ENTER-FUCKING-TAINMENT! Are you kidding me? For fuck’s sake
- hours and hours of NOTHING but the back of a seat in front of me! Scream! I
can’t sleep on planes so sweet F.A. to do for eight Goddamned hours. I
look askance at The Captain with a mouth pursed like a cat’s arse, struggling
to hide my ire. He volunteers, “Oh, maybe that’s why the flights were so
cheap”. You think, sunshine?
A nanosecond after take-off the one and only food
delivery is served – Mum’s Fried Rice (questionable). OK, I’m being bitchy, as
it IS airline food we’re talking about, but I was already pissed off due
to the lack of inflight entertainment. Mum’s fried rice my arse - tasted more like
Uncle Joes seared left testicle, deep fried in plastic. There was a
questionable substance that had a chewy foam texture that I couldn’t bring myself
to swallow. I believe a lone, pale, unappetising spotty pork chipolata sausage
was presented on top of the rice like a fat choad dick. Nope. Then I discovered that we had to pay
for our drinks and snacks! A$35 for a couple of drinks. Get fucked, Singapore
Airlines! What a stitch-up.
Halfway through the first leg (the shortest part of
our trip), my ‘low battery’ red light came on my phone - I’d been listening to
podcasts to entertain myself. Kill me! Four more hours of this shit!
I tried to sleep and did that dozing, lean forward jerk awake when you smack your face on the seat in front of you thing about 20 times before I gave up on sleep. I finally asked Captain Fantastic to get my backpack down from overhead storage and got the charging pod out to get my phone off ‘near death’ status and then started reading my manuscript.
29.05.2022
When we disembarked at Changi airport at some
ungodly hour, we had a few hours to kill so we bought a Singapore noodle soup
that was delicious and was super cheap. Cue the one drink we allowed ourselves
and we were astounded that alcohol could cost so much for a glass of
mediocrity.
The second leg of our trip departed four hours
later and lasted 14.5 hours. I was practically punching the air to discover
those little screens on the back of the seat in front. Drowsy as I was, I
settled in for a viewing fest of the latest movies.
I poured a glass of water on my crotch at about 3am
so I marinaded in that for around 7 hours. I attempted to leave my seat to
attend the bathroom to clean myself up a bit but as I was trying to get out of my
seat, a guy walked briskly past me popping fire-cracker farts that smelled like
holy hell, so I sat back down gave it another hour or so to let the miasma of aerated
death clear from the toilets.
After 3 movies or so, I tried to settle into my
neckroll whilst sitting upright to catch a few Zs. I cannot sleep on a
plane at the best of times, but this was especially difficult given that there
was a screaming child in the row in front of us. The screaming escalated to
ear-splitting as we descended; matched by a dead-set, lung-fest, screaming,
vasectomy advertisement a few rows back. My shoulders were up around my ears
for the entire decent. I could still hear her screaming at the baggage terminal and pitied the parents.
By this stage, I felt like an octogenarian, I was so tired and withered.
After the time difference, we landed at Heathrow airport at 6am London time to a beautiful sunny morning. We caught the Piccadilly line (heading to Cockfosters… Ha-ha). It was late spring in London and the weather was mild (chilly by Melbourne standards at that rude hour, but sunny and pretty). As we travelled the Piccadilly line, we are rewarded with lush, green, and beautiful blooms. The line was high in places, and we got a peek inside the cottage backyards of the houses we passed. Some were overgrown but others offered a glimpse of gardens awash with well-tended blooms. This fed my excitement, and I couldn’t wait to start exploring. We disembarked the train at Hyde Park, which was located near our hotel.
Only the Newlands’ would walk the full length of Hyde Park loaded up like a couple of packhorses, dragging luggage, onboard bags & neckrolls. People were jogging the tracks, others were walking their dogs and here we were, bedraggled and travel weary hauling arse through the massive expanse of Hyde Park. We walked up and down Bayswater Road hauling all our crap, looking for Queensborough Terrace without data or a map. Finally located, we dumped our luggage at our hotel to be left until we could access our room in the early afternoon, and we started our sightseeing adventure.
First order of business was to pop into a shop and get a SIM card that would give us data to use for our stay in the UK so we weren’t wandering aimlessly about London like lost sheep. I was dubious of the dodgy looking bastard behind the counter, but he turned out to be alright and I'm a judgmental piece of shit.
First up we visited Buckingham Palace, which was a bit of a fizzer because Tuesday would see the celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee kick off, so we couldn’t get a photo in front of the gates. There were tents and tarps everywhere and a gazillion people all wandering around in the sunshine like browns cows. The Bobbies were attempting to control the crowd and of course, we’d just missed the changing of the guards. Shit!
We popped into Westminster Cathedral - oh my gawd it was lovely. So much history. Westminster Cathedral is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales & is the largest Catholic church in the UK, so we certainly picked a good one to start with. We also saw the London Eye, Big Ben (still couldn’t go up as the renovations are still ongoing and they are not expecting it to reopen until Spring 2023), we saw the River Thames from Westminster Bridge (the chocolate milk colour of which would rival the Yarra), walked through SoHo and Whitehall gardens and saw those teeny, tiny little squirrels in Hyde Park which elicited an excited squeak from me… and an eyeroll from The Captain. He’d already endured my squirrel obsession in New York in 2016, and he was not pleased to experience it again.
We’d overheated a little in the completely unexpected warm weather, so we called into The Clarence and had a warm beer and a bowl of hot chips. This was the first and only warm beer for me – if there is no condensation on my glass, that’s a ‘no’ from me. It’s just not right! I had to drink water to quench my thirst. What the heck?
After this alarming experience, we went to Trafalgar Square and took some photos by the water fountain. Then we moved on to the Italian Gardens in Hyde Park, saw Scotland Yard and walked the streets of the Monopoly board in real time. All streets and shops were decorated with paraphernalia for the Queen’s impending Platinum Jubilee celebration.
We dined at La Brasserie Italian for our first meal in the UK. By the time we got to bed, we’d been awake for 48 hours. No wonder we crashed and went into a coma.
30.05.2022
We started
our morning early with what was to become the best toasted ham and cheese sandwich in
our entire UK experience, and a delicious latte at the Granier Bakery across
the road from our hotel. We had noticed a mammoth queue outside the bakery the
day before and made a point of sampling the goods. We weren’t disappointed.
Despite
walking over 20kms, we didn’t see as much as anticipated as Her Majesty’s
jubilee preparations thwarted our efforts.
We paid our respects at
Dianna, Princess of Wales memorial fountain, which was a poor man’s second to
what I really wanted to see, the Lady Diana statue located in Kensington
Palace. The bloody palace was closed just like Buckingham Palace. Insert angry
face emoji. This was the second ‘must see’ that I couldn’t get to because of
her Maj and her celebrations! Talk about selfish. I’d researched Kensington Palace
before we arrived, and it was high on my list, but I guess she had to hunker
down somewhere while all the shit was going on around her.
We walked through Kensington Gardens (past the closed palace... no, I WON’T let it go), saw the Albert Memorial with Royal Albert Hall in the background, visited Harrods - La de dah! (We traipsed through this fine establishment in exercise leggings/ shorts and a tee - ‘oh hey, the bogans have arrived!’ We bought a bottle of water so we could say we bought something there… tight-arses, ha!). We walked through The Wellington Arch, we passed the Horse Guard’s Parade, (maybe saw the horse guards??) and finally got to see the magnificence of Westminster Abby. Lordy, it was even lovelier than the cathedral. I couldn’t help but think of all the royals who tied the knot in Westminster Abby. The inside far excelled what my imagination could conjure. Whilst there we also saw the Little Cloister, Pyx Chamber, Britain’s oldest door (from the 1050s) & St Catherine’s Chapel Garden within Westminster Abby.
We’d bought heritage passes before we left Melbourne to save entry fees on the tourist attractions in the UK. Well all it was good for was wiping your arse on. The only ‘discount’ we got was at Westminster and that’s it. Rip off! Another stitch up!
We ducked into the Royal Albert Pub for a breather and a pint, then walked back though Hyde Park again, this time without the baggage. I reckon we traversed the entire expanse of Hyde Park twice over in just 2 days.
31st we would depart London for York.
*****
** Note: 09.09.2022 - We woke to the news of the Queen's passing this morning. We were privileged to be in London and the UK during the celebrations of her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations and all humour was tongue in cheek and certainly not meant to offend.
