Third and final London work trip
- Andrea
- Jun 7
- 35 min read
A little bit of background
This post documents the six weeks I spent in London in 2023 during my time as the Global Education Manager for an international travel assistance company. The organisation I worked for was owned by a large insurance firm. The team provided travel assistance to policy holders from the parent company and a number of other insurers and organisations. I had left academia in May 2021 and worked in the newly-created role until August 2023. What a wild ride it turned out to be!
The travel assistance company had a command centre in Brisbane, where I was based, and one in Toronto when I joined the organisation. As we emerged from the pandemic, there were big plans to return case management staff to pre-pandemic levels and expand operations to Europe, based at the parent company's headquarters on the outskirts of London at Uxbridge. I was sent to London in April 2022 for a month to train the first medical and logistical case managers to get the ball rolling. I returned again at the end of 2022 to train the second group of new case managers. You can read about these previous two experiences here and here.
It was an interesting time to be part of the company as there was an expectation that we'd have time to prepare the uplifted training program while travel was banned during the pandemic. The company was juggling a bunch of things and it was challenging to manage everything while time, resources and processes were still being built. Looking back on the experience now, it all feels so surreal. I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity, but I am happy to be navigating calmer professional waters now.
I was back in London for six weeks in April-May 2023, this time to support my new London Trainer, RM, to facilitate her first case manager training group. I'd hired RM in person when I was in London for the second time, at the end of 2022. My Australian Trainer travelled again to London at the beginning of 2023 to train Group 3 and teach RM the ropes. I was looking forward to working with RM in person and setting her up for success. I was also relieved to be there in a support role, rather than facilitating the training itself.
This was my ninth trip to London! My reflections on what the trip meant to me can be found at the end of this post. You can also check out my posts on my previous London wanderings in 1996, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2018. Here are the links again to my two 2022 London work trips, my seventh and eighth experiences of the city.
My journey to London
I'd been fortunate enough to travel business class to London the first time I went over for training and when I travelled to Toronto. By the time 2023 rolled around, the rules had changed, and the business class option was no longer available. We could travel premium economy but I elected to forgo that option to stick with Qatar Airways. I would be at gold member status by booking a third trip with the airline and I requested bulkhead seats for the extra legroom.
I actually ended up on business class by default. How, you ask? I was sitting in the member lounge at Brisbane International Airport when an announcement was made asking me to go to the gate. At first I thought I'd misheard as I've never had my name called out before and there was heaps of time before the flight was boarding. Upon going to the gate I was advised that I was being shifted to a business class seat for the 'big journey' (Brisbane to Doha, a little over 14 hours) as the flight was full and there were spare business class seats. I assume because I was a gold member and travelling alone that it was easy to bump me up. Yay! Bonus!
Even though the food and drink benefits of business class are completely wasted on me, it's rather nice to be able to lie down on a long, overnight flight and sit away from other people. I also had a great seat for the Doha to London leg, up top in a giant plane in a two-seater with no seats in front.
Easter in London
It was Easter weekend and I was due to start work on the following Tuesday. I flew on Good Friday so that I could spend Easter in London at my own expense. I arrived around 3pm on Good Friday and stayed overnight at the Staybridge Suites, the hotel where I'd stayed for my last work visit. I left my large suitcase at the hotel as I would be returning on Easter Monday and took a smaller bag with me to stay in central London over Easter. It was cool to be in London again - visit nine! - but there was also a lot going on in my job and another six weeks away from home was equal parts exciting and challenging.
Easter Saturday
I was feeling pretty good when I woke up on Easter Saturday morning, back in familiar surroundings at Staybridge Suites. I was an old hand at getting myself into central London by then so I headed off with my bag of stuff for the weekend. It was hard carrying my bag around as I'd not thought that bit through. Central London was teeming with people over Easter weekend as well. I should have taken less stuff with me in a smaller bag especially since I got off the Tube at Piccadilly Circus and went shopping for new joggers at Sports Direct first. Lesson learnt!
I traipsed over the Hungerford and Golden Jubilee Bridges to Waterloo to my hotel to drop my bag off after going to the Sports Direct. That was an almost 3km walk carrying the darn thing. I was relieved to be bag-free after that and stopped off at Waterloo Station for a sandwich to refuel.
I spent the afternoon wandering around and taking in the London vibe. I'm quite happy just poking about places especially when the weather is nice. Even though there were people everywhere, it was kind of nice to be caught up in the holiday atmosphere.
It was also helpful to get my bearings and acclimatise before work started the following week. As I've mentioned in this series of work posts, travelling internationally for work sounds glamorous, but it's not easy trying to do your job to the best of your ability while managing being away from the familiar.
I love being in green spaces in cities as they feel like a salve for the crowds and the closed-in feeling of all the buildings. These photos were taken at St James's Park and the Victoria Embankment Gardens. So pretty!
By mid- afternoon I was feeling tired so I went back to the hotel once my room was ready and had a nap. That's not something I normally do and I worried about messing with my body clock, but I must have needed the rest as I slept fine that evening. My Walthamstow friend, AC, messaged me and we decided to meet for dinner at one of the restaurants at Coal Drop's Yard. It's a lovely square near King's Cross station, where 19th century warehouses have been converted into posh cafes, bars, restaurants and shops.
Before dinner we had a wander along Regent's Canal, stopping for a poke around the Word on the Water bookshop on the canal's towpath. The bookstore is housed on a 100-year-old Dutch barge. How awesome is that?
Easter Sunday
I had a rather nice breakfast in the Travelodge buffet (£12 a pop) before heading off for the day. I'd been working through a list of must-see items over the course of my nine visits to London and I still had Highgate Cemetery to see. It might sound weird, but I love cemeteries!
The journey from Waterloo Station to Highgate was around 20 minutes on the Tube to northern London on the Northern line then a 15-minute walk to the cemetery. I inevitably got lost but this gave me the chance to wander around the beautiful and super posh Highgate.
Highgate is in the boroughs of Camden, Islington and Haringey and is one of the most expensive parts of London. Apparently, it was a village in and of itself outside of London until the late Victorian era, and once adjoined the Bishop of London's hunting estate. There are several green spaces in Highgate, including the eastern part of Hampstead Heath and three ancient woods.
Highgate Cemetery is one of the most well-known places in Highgate. There are over 170 000 people buried in and around the cemetery in 53 000 graves, on the western and eastern sides of the burial ground, on either side of Swain's Lane. The site is designated Grade I status on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens and it occupies de facto status as a nature reserve. It's a simply beautiful place, filled with trees, shrubs and wildflowers.
There are loads of famous people buried in the cemetery. Here's a selection of those graves that I found as I wandered around. It felt particularly poignant to see Alexander Litvinenko's grave. I'd watched a mini series on his murder on the flight on the way over.
There are also plenty of beautiful graves of mere mortals. The cemetery in its original form was opened in 1839, designed by architect and entrepreneur, Stephen Geary, as part of a plan to provide seven large, modern cemeteries in London. As with Highgate itself, the cemetery became (and remains) a fashionable place to be buried and there is a plethora of Gothics tombs and buildings scattered throughout the cemetery.
At the time of writing, tickets were £10 for access to both the western and eastern sides of the cemetery. Guided tours are available, but I bought a cemetery map and had no trouble navigating my way around and finding some of the famous graves, despite the size of the place. Highgate Cemetery was rescued by a charity, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, following the collapse of its private owners. The Trust receives virtually no government funding and it costs at least £1.4 million a year to keep the Cemetery open. I thought the entrance fee was well worth it, and I spent a good part of the day wandering around the beautiful and peaceful grounds.
Easter Monday
After a yummy Buddha bowl dinner at the hotel the night before and the breakfast buffet again, I headed off for my morning adventure, checking out of the hotel and leaving my bag at reception. I genuinely was impressed with the Travelodge for a budget place. My room was clean and fresh and the food not bad for the price. The hotel was super convenient being so close to Waterloo Station, and I enjoyed two days of easier moving around the city compared with my work hotel location way out near Heathrow.
After a lovely two days of spring weather, it was cold and showery on Easter Monday. I walked over to the Imperial War Museum in the morning, only a 700m/10 minute walk from the hotel. I'd been to the museum but not since 2011 and I was keen for another poke around, especially given it was so close to my hotel.
The IWM is a charity so it's free to visit the museum although visitors are encouraged to make donations. I bought two WW2 fridge magnets and a beautiful book of WW1 poetry at the gift shop (top right hand photo). I studied WW1 poetry as part of the English syllabus in my final year of high school and I always remember the poets we learnt about.
The museum was founded in 1917 after approval by the War Cabinet for a national war museum to remember the sacrifices of those who served in WW1 and on the home front. That's what I like about the museum - it's not about glorifying military campaigns, but shows people's wartime experiences, civilian and military.
After a quick lunch at the Pret-a-Manger near my hotel and a pitstop for groceries, I made my way back out to Heathrow to the Staybridge Suites, to prep for the start of my six-week stint supporting my new London Trainer to run Group 4's induction program. I said goodbye to the magnificent Waterloo Station that had become my transport hub over Easter.
It's an odd feeling, when you live in one place, yet feel so familiar in another, despite it being on the other side of the world to home. That is how I feel about Staybridge Suites. It literally was my home for six weeks (and for four weeks during my previous visit) and it will always feel like a home of sorts to me. The hotel is the kind of place that people seem to stay for extended periods and I saw the same people over the course of my stay, in the breakfast room and in the laundry, also obviously staying there for work purposes. My room, the reception area, the breakfast room, and the gym all became embedded in my stay. That's part of the reason why I requested to stay at Staybridge Suites, because it did feel like home, like living in an apartment building with shared spaces.
What the photos don't capture is my experience of living in the hotel. I'd get up each morning and go down to the gym, cycling my usual 10km from the bike shown in the top right hand photo. I'd have a shower and get ready for work and trot down to the breakfast room for eggs on toast, taking with me an egg, some cheese and some yoghurt for my lunch. I purchased cans of soup from the little shop (to the right of the reception desk) when I ran out of things for dinner. I washed in the communal laundry once a week and hung my clothes on my travel line in the bathroom, washing my undergarments in the basin, squeezing out the water in a towel, and draping them over the heated towel rails. Such a glamorous life!
I know it is a bit dodgy out by Heathrow - and I often felt gloomy travelling back to the hotel on the bus - but it was handy to be so close to the bus stop to get to the office and into central London, even if both journeys took an age. I could buy groceries in the M&S or Tesco in Uxbridge before taking the bus back to the hotel, or on weekends I could get the bus to Yiewsley to the Aldi, about 20 minutes each way. One time I even caught the bus to Heathrow Terminal 5 and shopped at the mini M&S there, much to the amusement of my colleagues.
And just look at this beautiful sunset shot, taken on evening from my room after a rare but much loved sunny day.
Work bits
I was glad I had met my new London Trainer (RM) in person when I interviewed her for the role at the end of my previous visit. We'd clicked right off the bat and I was excited to see her again. I planned my trip to have that first week to spend with her to prepare for the training and check out how she was going with all the processes and systems to learn. Here I am, back at the familiar Parkview building in Uxbridge, where the London office of the parent company was about to be transformed into a new fancy command centre.
The six weeks of training were intense as usual, but I was glad to be the support person this time and not the one doing the delivery. I am much more comfortable in the design and development space than I am as a facilitator.
Here's the training group of logistical case managers, with RM in the middle (long black hair, black pants and shirt) after we'd worked our way through the program. RM and I organised a graduation ceremony, complete with academic cap cupcake boxes and Tesco cupcakes with graduation toppers.
As we had the previous three training groups operational and helping customers at the Parkview office, we had to run next group's training in a separate space. The company rented an office in the modern Belmont building off the High Street. It was only 550 metres between the Belmont and the main office at Parkview, but I did seem to spend a lot of time running between the two, to sit in on RM's training at the Belmont and attend meetings and run new client training with the other groups at Parkview.
The café on the ground floor of the Belmont building was hilarious. That's it in the above collection on the bottom left side. The daily menus were posted in the lifts. I took the two below shots as they particularly made me smile. Broccoli and stilton soup and fish and chips with mushy peas! Coronation British Picnic, with coronation quiche! I asked one of my colleagues what in the world a coronation quiche was and he said it was "quiche made with the blood of peasants." Haha!
This collection of shots documents my most vivid memories of the day-to-day of my time in Uxbridge for the training. They're just shots of places in the centre of Uxbridge, but they are steeped in meaning for me, as they represent the scenes of my working routine.
Starting from the top left hand shot and working across and around the collage:
The Pret-a-Manger and Costa in Uxbridge town square were my sources of frequent chai lattes.
Parkview sits away from Uxbridge town centre and was the main office space at the time. It's now a swish command centre for the travel assistance company's London operation.
The second office space at the swanky Belmont building off the high street was where I spent most of my time, supporting RM with Group 3's training.
Uxbridge is the start of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines into central London. I took the Tube a few times for after-work things.
I bloody love Poundland! I bought my own supplies there and made frequent trips to stock up on lollies and chocolates for the training group.
The Tesco Express in the High Street was my main source of groceries. I'd do a run after work and take the bus back to the hotel from there, or from down by the Uxbridge Bus Station.
I figured out that if I walked across the street from the Belmont, I could take the bus from the first stop and be guaranteed a seat. The Uxbridge Bus Station backs onto the Tube station. It was always busy in the evenings when I was heading back to the hotel. I also figured out that it was better to take a different bus to the one I'd taken on the last trip, getting off near Heathrow and walking back to the hotel. The walk was longer (a good 10 minutes) but it meant less time winding our way around the back of Heathrow and Hillingdon for what seemed like forever.
Here are some shots that I took during my first trip to London for training in 2022. Uxbridge isn't the best part of London by a long shot, but it kind of grew on me over the course of my three visits. It looks nice in these photos, taken on a lovely sunny May day.
There's loads I could say about the work part of my experience. Reflecting on it, it was a pivotal time in my tenure with the company and I resigned within a few months of returning to Australia. The experience is one I will never forget, despite the complications and the chaos. It made me realise that I am values-driven when it comes to my work. I need to be where there is alignment between how people show up in the world and my values. I also have a strong sense of fairness and valuing people's contributions. I need to be where I can make an impact in an organisation where my (perhaps unique) perspective on learning is acknowledged and utilised. I am also not comfortable managing people and prefer to concentrate on learning design. Ultimately, the role probably wasn't the best fit for me, but I will always be proud of what I achieved and grateful for the opportunity.
Right, that's enough about the work bits. Now for the weekends!
Weekend 1: A round table and a Richmond park meet up
I'd had a visit to Winchester on my to-do list ever since we'd started watching The last kingdom. The show is steep in British history, set around 800 BC although based on a fictional book series. On the Saturday of my first weekend in London, I headed out to Winchester on the train, taking the Elizabeth line to Reading and then a regional train, all up taking a bit over an hour.
I've marked Winchester on the map for perspective on its location from London. My friend, AD, came with me, travelling out to Heathrow after work to stay in the same hotel as me so we could head off together in the morning. AD lives at Rochester in Kent, as shown on the map. We met online in 2012 and had spent time together in London during previous visits.
The train station in Winchester is quite close to the town, as is the way in a lot of British and European towns. We wandered down to the town centre and stopped for a coffee and chai latte before exploring further. Winchester is a beautiful place. It's a cathedral town in Hampshire, 97km west of London at the western end of the South Downs National Park. The area around Winchester has prehistoric origins and has a history of settlement from Roman times. It became one of the most important towns in England until the Norman Conquest of the eleventh century.
I'd learnt a bit about King Alfred from watching The last kingdom. Alfred was the King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886 and Kings of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. King Alfred is recognised for his defence of Wessex against the Viking invasions of the time and for eventually securing peace. His grandson, Athelstan was the first king of England. The bronze statue of Alfred in Winchester stands at the eastern end of the town, near the medieval East Gate. It was erected in 1899 to mark one thousand years since Alfred's death.
Winchester Cathedral - officially the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun - dates right back to 1079. It's the longest medieval cathedral in the world and the sixth-largest cathedral in the United Kingdom. The original Norman cathedral has been added to over time, with Gothic expansions through the 13th and 14th centuries. The interior was redesigned in the 17th century, but parts of the cathedral were destroyed by Cromwell's forces. The cathedral was in danger of collapse until it was restored in the 20th century.
We didn't go inside (something I now regret) but I did have a poke around the gift shop and bought this beautiful Jane Austen key chain. Jane was buried in the north nave aisle in 1817.
The Great Hall is another historic place to visit in Winchester. The Hall is the only bit left of Winchester Castle, built in 1067. Roman history of Winchester dates back to AD 70, where a fort was built to protect the town of Venta Belgarum, as Winchester was known then. William the Conqueror chose the site to build one of the first Norman castles in England. King Henry III was born in the castle and he added the Great Hall in 1222. The Hall has a cube design and is built of flint. The interior of the Hall has magnificent stained glass windows and the building is now Grade I listed. Tickets were £9 when we visited.
The famous Round Table of King Arthur's knights was hung in the Great Hall in the 13th century. The names of King Arthur's knights were painted around the edge of the table. The legend says that the round table, with no head, implies that everyone who sits there has equal status. It has come to symbolise chivalric order associated with King Arthur's court. I stood for ages and marvelled at the table. What a privilege to be able to see such an historic piece.
There's a lot of history to the Great Hall besides the Round Table. King Edward I and his wife narrowly escaped death when the castle's royal apartments were destroyed by fire in 1302. In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh was put to trial for treason in the Great Hall for his part in the plot to remove James I from the throne. Winchester Castle was eventually demolished on the orders of Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Apparently King Charles II planned to build a palace on the adjoining site but the project was abandoned by King James II. The Great Hall later became a law court, where a number of notorious trials took place over the centuries, including the Assizes in 1685 (to hold to account those involved in the Monmouth Rebellion to depose James II), the trials of four men for acts of "homosexual indecency" in 1954, and the IRA trial in 1973 of those responsible for bombing the Old Bailey. The Great Hall ceased to be a place for criminal trials after the adjacent Winchester Law Courts were built in 1974.
We had a lovely lunch at a trendy, whole foods café of a toasted cheese and onion sandwich (I remember it being a cut above your average sandwich, hence it rating a mention) before heading to the 878 AD attraction. The immersion experience recreates the battles between the Anglo Saxons and the invading Vikings and is a homage to Alfred the Great's legacy. There's plenty of live performances from a team of actors and Viking artefacts. Was it worth the £16 ticket? I'm not sure as it wasn't really my thing, but it was something different to do, anyway.
The final place we visited before returning to London was the City Museum. The museum, set over three floors, is one of those quirky British museums that I love, full of weird and wonderful things. It celebrates the origins of the town from the Iron Age through to the Anglo Saxon era. There are some of Jane Austen's personal items on display in the museum. Jane travelled to Winchester in May 1817 to seek medical help and died aged 41 there on 18 July. There's a cool model of the city from 1870, too. Tickets were £8 when we visited.
This is us, back at Staybridge Suites before AD headed home to Rochester. It had been a long and exhausting day but I absolutely loved Winchester. It's a fabulous day out for a history nerd like me!
On Sunday I met my friend, HB, at Richmond. HB and I met at an academic conference in Helsinki in 2013, met up again in Nottingham in 2014, and reconnected online a few years later after a period of being out of touch. I'd been to Richmond before, staying there for a weekend in 2014 at the end of conference travel. This time I took two buses (to Hatton Cross station then to Richmond from there) from my hotel. I was so proud of myself for figuring out London transport and braving the bus!
We had a lovely day in Richmond, wandering alongside the Thames and lunching at the now-closed Whole Foods Market. Richmond is a beautiful part of London, sitting 13km west-south-west of Charing Cross (considered to be the centre of London). There are loads of parks and open spaces in Richmond and I believe that an Act of Parliament protects the scenic view of the Thames from the town. The town was founded by King Henry VII in 1501 when he built Richmond Palace and Queen Elizabeth I spent her final days there. It's super posh and a very expensive part of London. If you're a fan of the TV show, Ted Lasso, you'll know Richmond well.
Weekend 2: Chichester jaunt
My second weekend in London was spent with my old friend, KP, in Chichester. KP and I worked together for 18 months in 1988-89 and flatted together for a short while as well. We've been friends ever since, reconnecting once in Australia and during most of my visits to London. KP used to live in the East End but now lives in Southbourne. I took the train to her place on Friday after work and stayed with her for two nights.
We spent Saturday in historic Chichester, shown on the above map to the right of Southbourne. KP's house is a short walk from Southbourne station and it's only a 10-minute train journey to Chichester. Chichester is another cathedral town, situated in West Sussex, southeast from King Alfred's home in Winchester. The town has both Roman and Anglo-Saxon origins and was once a major centre for market trading. The canal, one of two watercourses in Chichester, can be seen in the below collection. There's also a watercourse (a stream that is dry in the summer months) that runs south of the city walls.
The walls' foundations were built during Roman times. It is thought that King Alfred oversaw the building of the fortifications in Chichester to ward off the Vikings using these foundations, so the walls could date back to 878 AD. I just loved wandering around Chichester and soaking up the history. How cool to see ancient walls alongside homes for modern-day living.
Chichester Cathedral is formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity. It was founded in 1075. It is built in Norman and Gothic styles. There are two unique architectural features among England's medieval cathedrals: a free-standing bell tower built in the 15th century and double aisles. Over the centuries the cathedral has been subject to fire (1187), subsidence (15th century), a lightning strike (1721), and the collapse of the spire (1821).
The photos below are the best of my collection. The bell tower can be seen in the top left hand shot. The photos taken through the gates are my attempts at being artsy. What a stunning building.
The interior of the cathedral is beautiful. There are loads of stained glass windows, carvings, tapestries, misericords, and paintings.
KP and I had a lovely day wandering around Chichester. It's a charming town with a warm vibe and the perfect place for a history nut like me.
I stayed at KP's on Saturday night then headed back on the train on Sunday. It ended up taking me most of the day to get back as there was a problem on the line further south and the trains were delayed. I waited ages at Southbourne and started to get anxious about how I was going to get back to my hotel. Trains were later organised to shuffle people to major stations further up and I finally got to Victoria Station to begin my Tube and bus journey back to the Staybridge Suites. The trains were crowded, too, as there was some kind of football match on. I managed to find a seat but I was near the toilets and football fans who were already three sheets to the wind were in and out of the loos the whole trip. Interesting experience!
Weekend 3: Kew Gardens and Walthamstow Sunday lunch
The weather was superb on the Saturday of weekend 3 so I took the opportunity to visit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I'd figured out by then that it was easier to take the bus from Staybridge Suites a bit further down the road to Hatton Cross (travelling in behind the workings of Heathrow) and take the Piccadilly line from there. I transferred at Turnham Green to Kew Road station. The Gardens are a short walk from there.
Travel tip: The Elizabeth line is nicer as the trains are new, and it is faster, but much more expensive than the Piccadilly line. That said, the Piccadilly line trains are old and it takes an age to get into Central London.
It was super busy at the entrance to the Gardens and I realise now that I should have purchased my ticket online rather than at the gate where I lined up for ages. Tickets at the time of my visit were £25 at the gate and £22 online. Not cheap, but then I spent the better part of the day there. (Note that tickets are only £14 online and £16 at the gate during the off season between November and January.)
What can I say, I love green spaces and spending time wandering around beautiful places. I'd long had Kew Gardens on my to-do list and it didn't disappoint, especially since it was a gorgeous day. The Gardens are in southwest London (near Richmond) and house the largest and more diverse botanical collection in the world, according to the Kew website. The park was founded in 1759 and is now a World Heritage Site. It covers 132 hectares.
The Treetop Walkway, opened in 2008, is a 200 metre canopy platform 18 metres off the ground. I like the way the walkway has been built to blend into its surroundings. There's a lift up to the platform (top left hand shot) and a set of stairs. The entire structure sways in the wind, apparently, but luckily for me it was a still day.
This is The Hive, opened in 2016. It's a multi-sensory experience designed to showcase the life of bees. The structure stands 17 metres high and sits in a beautiful wildflower meadow. It was created using thousands of pieces of aluminium designed in the shape of a honeycomb. Cool!
Kew Palace sits within the grounds of the Gardens. It was built in 1631 but only the Dutch House survives and is now a Grade I listed building. It was once the home of George III and Queen Charlotte. The home is filled with artefacts from the royal residency, but the part of the experience that left the strongest impression on me was the information on George III's mental illness. The King and Queen had 15 children and by all accounts had a happy life, with the Queen a staunch supporter of her husband. It made me sad, though, to read about the King's bouts of mental illness - he was known as The Mad King - and both his mental and physical symptoms were misunderstood. He was brutally treated by physicians and died is isolation in Windsor Castle in 1810. You can read more about George's story here.
I had such a lovely day at Kew Gardens, happy in my own company and glad for the break from the stresses of work and the chance to be outside on a warm and sunny day. Other than my tip about the tickets, I'd suggest planning your visit to eat elsewhere, or at least bring food with you. The cafes were crowded and the food not great for the prices. I lined up for ages for an ice cream in the afternoon but it wasn't worth the effort (nor the price).
I loved the gift shop, though, and pottered around in there for ages, buying a few adorable mementos of my visit. The gift shop is absolutely stunning and I could have gone mad in there buying stuff.
On Sunday I made the 90 minute journey across London - from west to east - to spend the day with my dear friend, AC, at Walthamstow. I took the Tube from Hatton Cross on the Piccadilly line to Finsbury Park then the Victoria line to Walthamstow Central. I'll always be grateful for the work trips to London for the opportunity to stay connected with my friends who live there. Spending time with AC and her family made me feel less isolated and more at home in London, even though I enjoy my own company and pottering around London on my own. We had a lovely lunch at her place for the second of three catch ups during that last trip to London. Here is a photo of AC's house from one of my 2022 trips and one of the two of us taken in Brisbane when we next caught up the following year.
Weekend 4: Coronation festivities
I was fortunate to be in London for a moment in history - the coronation of King Charles III on 6 May 2023. My friend, MM, invited me to a street party in Brighton with her neighbours. MM and I met at a conference in Manchester in 2011 and I'd authored a chapter in her student experience textbook the following year. We've stayed in touch and I had visited her on previous London trips.
The lead up to the coronation in the weeks before the ceremony was massive. These photos were taken in the lobby of The Belmont, where we were holding the induction training. The training group is featured in the shots. We had loads of fun that week with the Charles cut out. Every time we passed through the lobby, he seemed to be in a different place. So funny.
My colleague, DMcD dropped me off at the station at Crawley where he lives, just north of Brighton, on the Friday afternoon after work and MM met me in Brighton. She showed me the coronation invitation that her neighbours had made. Amazing!
Honestly, it was the most British thing I've ever done, being part of the street party. The weather was rubbish - freezing cold and showery. Nothing could deter the British spirit, though! The neighbours had a tent set up with food, including coronation cupcakes, and a giant television under a makeshift shelter. I am in no way a monarchist, but I was thrilled to have been part of history. It was lovely to have had the chance to experience the ceremony with a friend, rather than battling the crowds in London in horrible weather or watching the ceremony from my hotel room.
I have to admit that I was feeling pretty down by this point in the trip. My job was heading in a direction that wasn't going to work for me and this was my fourth trip for the business in a year for big blocks of time. I realise now that I wasn't great company that weekend. MM was so lovely about it all and we had a heart-to-heart in the warmth of her lounge room later that day. I was intending to stay longer, but ended up heading off on Sunday morning. I was back at Waterloo by late morning, picked up some groceries for the week at the M&S at the station, and headed back to my hotel.
Monday was a public holiday for the coronation and I was quite glad of the additional day off. There was a general sense of a hangover from the build up, but central London was empty, as you can see in these photos, when I headed in for a potter around late morning.
It was nice to have the chance to recharge on my own and I had a lovely time wandering around. I bought some fab Harry Potter mementos from a store I found in Piccadilly.
I had a poke around the famous Fortnum and Mason shop in Green Park. I was in there for ages as the stuff is absolutely beautiful. I walked over to Harrods and had a look for coronation souvenirs in their gift shop as well as Fortnum and Mason. I couldn't settle on anything: too hard to carry home all the delicate stuff and super expensive.
I ended up with three mementos of the coronation. I love the little wooden piece, bought from Curated Makers the following weekend at Battersea Power Station. I also found a fridge magnet - totally gaudy but in keeping with the occasion. RM, my London Trainer, bought me one of the gorgeous coronation edition Fortnum and Mason biscuit tins as a farewell gift.
Weekend 5: A common, a power station, and some powerful photography
I spent my penultimate Saturday morning wandering around Clapham Common. The weather was a bit rubbish, but again, it was nice to be outside with an opportunity to recharge. I took the bus from the hotel to Hatton Cross Tube, then the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square then the Northern line to Clapham Common. I bought a steaming hot chai latte from a café near the Tube station and had a lovely wander around.
The Common is a large triangular park in Clapham, south London, spanning 89 hectares. There are three ponds on the Common and a Victorian bandstand (top right hand photo). Clapham Old Town is another of London's posh addresses, and there are Georgian and Victorian mansions overlooking the green spaces. As with most open spaces in London, it was once part of an estate, but became public parklands in 1878.
I then took the Northern line to the Battersea Power Station Tube station. The redeveloped Battersea Power Station is only a short walk from the Tube. The power station operated at its peak between the 1930s and the 1980s, producing one-fifth of London's power, including supplying the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. The power station was given Grade II listed status in 1980 and closed in 1983. It was purchased by its current owners in 2012 and works began the following year to convert the site and its surrounding buildings into a community of apartments, restaurants, cafes and shops. Pretty impressive, huh?
What I love about the restoration is the faithful retaining of the heritage of the building and the way it showcases the engineering works of the former power station. The turbine hall that can be seen in the middle shot below has been restored to its art deco former glory with the roof and end windows reglazed after being covered up during WWII. The existing gantry cranes and travelling rail have been left in place. Footprints of the old turbine machinery have been laid in brick on the floor. The old brick walls in the north and south atriums have been left exposed.
The place is massive and it's super posh, with all the stores and restaurants chic and high end. I wouldn't go for the shopping, but it's a great place to wander around and marvel at the sensitive restoration. I understand the complex cost £9 billion to restore. Wow.
I had a delicious lunch at the Poke House and bought a few crafty things at Curated Makers and a pen pouch for my notebooks at the Battersea Bookshop. The below collage shows the things I bought from both visits to the Power Station. The Lift 109 stuff I bought the following weekend with HB.
Out front of the power station were these giant moss-covered chairs. I asked a passer-by to take a photo of me sitting on one.
Despite the rather rubbish weather, I walked along Terrace Walk from Battersea Power Station to Battersea Park and down to Albert Bridge, taking in the north bank views of the Thames. Albert Bridge is visible in the left hand photo in the middle row. There's something magical about London's green spaces, even on a dreary day.
For perspective, Battersea is circled in black on the below map in relation to the centre of London (circled in red). The Terrace Walk route that I took is mapped out, the end of which is Albert Bridge over to Chelsea.
I bought some grocery supplies in an M&S and then took the Tube back to the hotel from Sloane Square (shown by the map pin above). I'm a whizz at getting myself around London now. Mind you, that was an almost 90-minute journey by the time I took the Circle line to South Kensington then the Piccadilly line to Hatton Cross and then the bus back to the hotel.
I'd already spent some time wandering around posh Chelsea during my first London trip for work in 2022, but I did take these two shots on the way to the Tube. I'd love to see inside some of these posh houses!
The sun came out on Sunday and pretty much stayed that way until I headed home two weeks later. How quickly one becomes used to celebrating the sun when it is not seen all that often.
I met AC for the third and final time during my London work stints. I took the Tube from Hatton Cross again direct to South Kensington on the Piccadilly line to meet up at the Natural History Museum. The Museum is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road at South Kensington, the other two being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum houses a massive collection of life and earth science specimens from the worlds of botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology, and zoology.
Entrance is free, although there are paid temporary exhibitions in the museum on an ongoing basis. We were at the museum for the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition that usually runs from October to the following June. At the time of writing, tickets were £18. That might sound like a bit to pay but the museum is a charity and relies on patrons to keep it running and supporting its global centre for research on the natural world, climate change and biodiversity loss.
The annual photography exhibition is now 60 years old. The stunning photography bears witness to the fragility and delicate balance of wildlife and our natural environment. I was moved by the captions on each photo, explaining the lengths the photographers went to capture their images. I wasn't expecting to be confronted by the captions as well, as they highlighted the need to protect our planet from the destruction wreaked upon it by humanity. It was at the exhibition that I decided to become an explicit vegetarian, something I had been heading towards for some time. [Another contributing factor was the disturbing story I'd seen on morning television while eating my breakfast in the hotel about the chicken industry in Britain.]
Weekend 6: My last chance for London wanderings
I returned to Battersea Power Station on the Saturday of my final weekend in London. HB and I took the opportunity for one more catch up and she hadn't been to the Power Station since it reopened after the redevelopment. I'd tried the previous weekend to get a last-minute ticket for Lift 109 but they were all sold out. My travel tip is definitely to book online prior to visiting. Tickets were £16 at the time of our visit.
Lift 109 is the star attraction at Battersea Power Station. The lift rises 109 metres to the top of the north-west chimney of the Power Station, affording 360-degree views of London. I guess it's expensive for what it is, but the lift is pretty cool and ascending the chimney is a surreal experience.
The views are 360 degrees for sure, but because of where Battersea sits on the Thames, the iconic London buildings aren't visible from there. I'd suggest doing the London Eye if views of Westminster and other famous buildings in central London are what you're looking for. That said, taking a lift to the top of one of the chimneys in the Power Station is still super awesome.
HB and I had a wander around the Power Station for a bit and I bought another delicious poke bowl from Poke House. We sat out front of the building in Prospect Park to eat our lunch as it was a lovely warm and sunny day. There's a huge green space between the Power Station and the Thames and there was stuff going on there both times I visited. Inside the Power Station were these lovely floral displays. There's a real community feel to Circus West Village, the area surrounding the Power Station, with shiny new modern shops and apartment buildings. It would be very cool to live there, but I imagine it's super expensive.
After lunch we decided to take a ferry across the Thames. This was my ninth visit to London, but I had never actually been on the Thames. We took the ferry from the Battersea Power Station Pier to Embankment Pier and then walked across the Hungerford and Golden Jubilee Bridges back to the South Bank. The river bus service has been operating for 25 years, and is now a partnership with Uber (hence the name, Uber Boat by Thames Clippers). River bus tickets can now be purchased via the Uber app or using your Oyster card.
I had one more day to myself before heading back to Australia the following Friday. Writing this blog post two years later, I honestly can't recall what I did on that final day. I know I still had a list of things I wanted to see and do in and around London (a never-ending list, I think, as I can't imagine ever seeing everything) but I was pretty exhausted by then and ready for home. These photos taken in Hyde Park are the only ones I have of that day, so I assume I just made the long journey into central London and wandered around the park for a bit.
During the week I'd caught up again with AT, a former colleague from the travel assistance company. AT and I met in the very first week of my first trip over in April 2022 and we worked together remotely on an induction program for new Sales team members. He'd left the company at the end of 2022, but we stayed in touch and are still friends. Here we are at our first meeting.
AT booked a small neighbourhood Indian restaurant (shown in above photos) on the edge of Marylebone so that I could easily get there from the office in Uxbridge, on the Piccadilly line direct to Baker Street. On the way to meeting AT, I stopped outside the Baker Street Tube to take a photo of the Sherlock Holmes statue. There's a Sherlock Holmes Museum near the station, but AT said it's a tourist trap and recommended I give it a hard pass. (I was indeed thinking about going there...)
Marylebone is another of London's pretty and posh areas. I had some time to kill before meeting AT so wandered around the streets and later sat and chilled in this gorgeous park next to the restaurant, enjoying the setting sun.
Homeward bound
I rolled into the last week, pleased that the training group was operational and on the phones assisting travellers. RM had done a fab job of her first training and I know that she was grateful for my support. I could leave London knowing the training was in good hands. RM is a skilled facilitator and I learnt a lot from her on how to be confident in delivery even when you are still learning the ropes.
It was unlikely I would be back again given I now had a confident and capable trainer in place. This was my last chance to spend time with colleagues I had come to rely on and whose work ethic and approach to collaboration I admired and appreciated.
RM and I organised our own final dinner a few days before I flew home. We took the Tube from Uxbridge on the Metropolitan line to Barbican and walked to the restaurant from there. We went to The Ivy Asia for their fancy £30 Afternoon Tea. The Ivy is a famous British restaurant founded in 1917 and now has the Ivy Collection and the Ivy Asia. The Asian-inspired restaurants were launched in 2021 and are now in Brighton, Guildford, Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff. There are three in London: the one we went to at St Paul's, and one in Mayfair and one in Chelsea.
Here we are having our posh afternoon tea. It's all very fancy, as one would expect, but completely worth the experience of the sumptuous surroundings and decadent meal. The food was absolutely superb, but I have never been so full in all my life!
In addition to the beautiful food, there are also fab views of St Paul's from The Ivy Asia. The restaurant is located on the first floor and has floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the cathedral. We didn't have those views from our table, but it is possible to go up to the roof of the New Change building to take in the magnificent sight of the cathedral and the Shard.
I was ready to go home after six weeks away even though it had been yet another memorable experience, working in London and spending time exploring and visiting friends on weekends. The below left photo shows the view from my seat for the BNE-DOH leg on my way home. I was lucky to have a seat at the very front of the plane. I went to the lounge when I reached Doha and asked about an upgrade. Unbeknown to me I had enough credits to pay for the business class seat, my last hurrah in luxury. That's me, stretching my legs out in the right hand shot.
My ninth London experience
Nine trips to London! I can't wait to make it ten, but I am so fortunate to have experienced a city I love nine time over my adult life. My third and final work trip was a rollercoaster ride and was the beginning of the end of my time with the travel assistance company. There are lots of memories to take with me, though, and friendships forged with now-former colleagues. To be in London for the King's coronation (and to attend a street party in Brighton, my most British experience EVER) was something I will never forget. Also...I became an explicit vegetarian during this trip, after working my way up to it over the preceding 18 months. I am a proud vego still and feel proud to embrace a more ethical approach to my eating.
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