Of course the one day I had to wander about in London was not only a Bank holiday, it was also raining. Fortunately I had a wee ‘knirps’* tucked into the side pocket of the trusty leather overnight bag that has been my travel companion since I found it in a store in New Orleans in 2010 and consequently handed over my former overnight bag, given to me by my dear Papa, to my youngest child who had had her eye on it for some time :: it is how things go in families. Oddly enough, that one rejoiced in the appellation “the Camel” so might have been a more appropriate accoutrement for a journey in Morocco, but my Nola bag has just a whisker more space, and since I found the perfect leather belt in a thrift store in Dimboola (of all places) to secure its ever expanding waist from accidental rupturing, it and I have travelled well together.
So there I was, waddling about London in the rain. I had booked two nights at the somewhat ambitiously labelled Chelsea House Hotel and was initially a little nonplussed as the room turned out to be in the basement. It was scrupulously clean however, and endowed with tea-making facilities that were seemingly unblemished by the sorts of activities one hears about eg. the boiling of eggs, washing of socks and unders and the heating of such revolting substances as baked beans. I beamed happily to myself when I discovered it was possible to open the windows and also to look up through the area greenery and see daylight. The staff were absolutely lovely and had very kindly schlepped my suitcase off to the luggage room so that I didn’t have to drag it down a terrifyingly steep staircase to my lair. All was well.
It might be called the Chelsea but the helltell (sorry, I always call them that) was located more towards the grubby end of Earl’s Court. I shimmied off eastward and headed through the puddles, past Horrids** and up into Hyde Park, where there were very proper people riding their horses rather firmly in the way that I don’t ride mine (I was taught English riding but I prefer being soft with my horses and riding in a more relaxed fashion these days) and where the rose garden was just coming into bloom. I loved that swathes of the park were unmown and left to be gorgeous meadows. There were countless hawthorns in bloom along with linden, and purple beeches dressed in their spring splendour.
Whenever I encounter a hawthorn I hear the words “where oak and ash and elm do meet” running through my head (in a Gloucestershire accent, oddly enough). These three trees together create a sacred place where a unicorn might graze and so I am always looking out for places where the three of them might grow together. Such places are also portals…so be careful, if you see the three of them. That triangular space between them is shifting ground.
I didn’t spot any such connections in Hyde Park, though. I sniffed all the roses I could reach and wandered on, out of the park and along Oxford Street, heading for the British Museum area and Cornelissens lovely art supply emporium. Which was of course closed for the bank holiday, a wee handwritten note taped to the inside of the door to that effect. It’s not that I particularly needed any art supplies, merely that I love lurking within its walls. It’s a place that has a kind of “84 Charing Cross Road”*** atmosphere, the front door is a portal that takes the visitor on a trip through time. Maybe unicorns graze there too.
On the rare occasions I am in London I like to treat myself to a little something there, a bottle of ink or a small notebook or a little stick of colour.
If you look carefully at the image you will see the lovely new smock I was ‘road-testing’ on the trip. It has four pockets, a smaller neckline and is a good bit shorter than the original ‘wayfinder’ version. We are calling it the ‘leaf-whisperer smock’ and if all goes well, Maiwa will have it available in October this year, fingers crossed. Last time we talked, the cloth for it was being woven by hand, in fact many hands on many looms, keeping the craft of hand weaving thriving. Mickey Robertson**** and I are planning a workshop in her glorious garden for November this year, in which participants will be able to personalise their smock by (among other things) stitching text on to it and then dyeing it in my enormous cauldron. But I digress, let’s get back to London.
I know I could have visited the British Museum, but instead I headed south, to another small and magical corner of London. Tucked behind St Giles Church there is a secret garden, established in the mid1980s on a former parking lot. It is utterly adorable, paths wind their way like earthworms, seats are generously placed and the plantings between its lovely big trees seem splendidly spontaneous.
It’s called the Phoenix Garden and is an absolute gem of a place. Unfortunately it is now under threat of being overshadowed by a new tower building that will steal the light and thus compromise its health. It is the last of what used to be a collection of seven community gardens in the area and it would be an absolute tragedy if it were lost. Read more about it here*****.
Eventually I wandered on to Covent Garden, which is not a garden at all, but now filled with swanky little boutiques. I was headed for one of those called ‘Choosing Keeping’ that on its website was advertising a set of Wallace Seymour gouaches in a pretty wooden box. I’ll confess I was sorely tempted but I restrained myself. I have as much portable colour as anyone might need through the lovely makings of my friends at Deep Deep Light, and besides, if I want “local” colour it’s really just a matter of grinding up the findings, adding a little gum arabic and something like chalk for opacity if I want a gouache. So I went and found a nice comfy public house, sat down and rested my feet (they’d already covered about 9km by this time) and ordered fish and chips with mushy peas****** along with a cider to wash them down.
I do like sitting and writing in pubs. Curiously the volume at which the trio over by the window were conversing went up considerably after I sat down. Apparently they felt the need to broadcast that Nigel was absolutely ratfaced the other night because his “friends” had set a rule on his birthday that he had to quaff every potion that was bought for him. I hope his “friends” are still there for him when the liver disease kicks in. Or that he grows the cohones to be able to reject silly rules like that. Be that as it may, I spent an hour there, happily making notes for my novel thanks to Nigel’s “friends”…two young men who tried to outdo each other mansplaining everything from train travel to weddings to their female companion (who was, as far as I could determine, betrothed to one of them).
And then I wandered on, eventually heading west along the King’s Road and making a bit of a detour back to my digs via the Brompton Cemetery. I’d noticed it on the map when I was studying the area around the Chelsea House Hotel and was curious. Graveyards can be fascinating places, especially if not overly curated. This one did not disappoint. Along with interesting names (I had not seen ‘Smijth’ before) it was lush with plant life, and simply wittering with birds. There was also olfactory evidence of foxes, but then my early morning walk to the east had crossed many invisible fox paths, both dogfox and vixen (their scents are quite distinct) before the rain had washed them away.
By this time my ‘device’ had recorded 19km of hoofing, and my feet were weary and it was time to return to my belowstairs room and put them up. Sometimes you can be lucky and find a hotel ‘bin’ big enough to fill with hot water so as to soak the tootsies, but this was not that day. I’m thinking that seeking out a lightweight bowl of some kind might be a useful addition to my travel kit. Some might equate that with a kitchen sink, but my feet would be very grateful and I’m pretty sure I could find other uses for it.
We shall see.
+
* folding umbrella
** I know it’s silly but Harrods flips to Horrids in my mind
*** 84 Charing Cross Road is a delightful book by Helene Hanff, composed of her correspondence (from NYC) over two decades with a London antiquarian bookseller
**** find Mickey Robertson here
***** https://www.thephoenixgarden.org/about/
****** a recipe for mushy peas
I love your wanderings. There is a collapsible dish tub on Amazon that might do the trick for soaking tired feet, or maybe a foot at a time. I wander endlessly around my farm all day and I not only soak my feet because they're tired, but to try to get the dirt off. My feet are alway dirty in the summer, I really don't like to wear shoes and I usually wear hiking sandals if I'm off the farm.
I once begged use of the mop bucket at a hostel so I could soak my tired and blistered feet. I rinsed it out in the showers several times, filled it with hot water and my favorite foot soak that has boric acid and wheat bran in it, and sat on a chair I dragged into the bathroom. It was well worth the effort.