It’s cold here in Holland Park, just west of London! The nights are below freezing and the days barely above freezing, with hazy skies filtering whatever warmth the sun might have offered away, the chill multiplied by the damp. Snow dusts the tree limbs across the street and steam rises from mouths of people walking by. Our apartment has lukewarm radiators and leaks around the windows, so it’s chilly in the place. Thankfully, we are prepared with our down sleeping quilts that we brought for camping and water bladders that we can deploy as hot water bottles in bed, plus we use our bike headlights as bedside lamps since there are none. We make do! Since we didn’t want to carry the weight of an iPad, we watch Netflix movies on our phone, propped up by a little tripod stand and amplify the audio with a Bluetooth speaker that Chris uses to play music while riding.
It’s kind of amazing that this modest room costs over $200 a night and yet we need to deploy our camping equipment to stay warm but at least we have the items we need. This is London and it’s an expensive place to stay.
So, why did we come here? Right..we came to have surgery on Chris’ eyes to replace her lenses so that she can see without glasses! And that part went swimmingly well, with the surgery taking about 30 minutes (15 minutes per eye) and with less pain and fuss that having your teeth cleaned. So far so good and Chris is doing things without glasses that were previously impossible. Back for a follow up in a week, before we head to Singapore.
We hung around the apartment post-surgery, and then Chris napped while I took a walk and did some food shopping. It was a steady stream of ready meals from Tesco for dinners, which were not bad.
It’s too cold and we don’t have enough energy to go out to restaurants. We’ll do plenty of that as we travel over the next few weeks.
The day after Chris’ surgery, we took the train to Teddington, a picturesque town an scant hour away. We met up with Sue, the sister of Mike of Wendy & Mike, who runs a charity for the benefit of people in Uganda, a country she visited some years ago for the first time. Through Wendy and Mike, we’ve donated tools, money and clothing before and this trip is to deliver a bulging bag of bras, which Wendy tells us cost a month’s earnings in Uganda. Glad to be of help and also happy to offload the weight from our baggage.
From Teddington, we stroll the Thames Path (the continuation of the path as we walked when staying in Little Coxwell) to Kingston-on-Thames, another picturesque town. The sun is low and devoid of warmth, yet we encounter a steady stream of walkers and rowers along the way.
We visit a Christmas Market in Kingston, and then take the train to Mortlake to a Slovak shop to buy some Becherovka, an herbal after dinner liquor for some friends and then take a bus/train back home, warm some lovely fish pie with peas and watch a Netflix in bed. Tomorrow is another day!
Leave a Reply