Weekend in London, March 2022

Last weekend was wonderful :) I spent it in London with my friend, on a weekend away we were originally meant to go on two years ago. On Friday evening I enjoyed a catch-up over pizza with my oldest friend - we've known each other since we were 5, and will both be turning 30 in the next few days! And then I spent Saturday and Sunday with another friend on this little trip, enjoying the sunny spring equinox weekend in a couple of the city's large green parks, and some great food, before a breathtaking concert on Sunday afternoon.

First - the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew!

Neither of us had been to Kew Gardens before so we were very excited! London traffic meant we arrived an hour later than planned but thankfully there were still parking spaces (just), and we got inside the gates quickly. And yaaay we're in a lovely green park full of grass and trees and flowers! Of course the trees are still mostly bare, but there were daffodils, and glorious pink magnolia, and marvellous cherry trees just bursting with beautiful blossom. It'd be a wonderful place to have on your doorstep as a local, somewhere to go and while away a few hours or a whole day, with a book and a picnic in good weather.

One of the first things we came to was The Hive, an interactive art installation that represented a beehive. From the outside it looked like an enormous roll of wire mesh, but from it emanated a low vibrating hum and orchestral music. Inside, a thousand LED lights flickered in time with the music and humming, which were created to mirror the fluctuating intensity of vibrations produced by bees communicating with each other, as recorded in one of Kew's own beehives. It was a bright sunny day so the lights weren't particularly obvious, but standing in the middle of the installation and being surrounded by that loud vibrating hum was quite impressive. It was a cool example of environmental interpretation, which we've been covering at college this year, something interactive and immersive that engages different senses. The Hive itself it was surrounded by a wildflower meadow (which obviously doesn't look like a wildflower meadow at the moment, but will be a visual and olfactory feast in a few months time) and little boards giving information on bees and the importance of wildflowers.

Wonderful big old trees. Victorian glasshouses full of exotic plants. (Both of us smiled as we entered the tropical section of the Princess of Wales Conservatory - the heat, humidity, plants, and smell of it all reminded my friend of home in India and me of visiting my aunt in tropical Queensland.) Carpets of daffodils and little purpley-blue flowers that weren't bluebells. A pagoda built in the 1760s. A treetop walkway with views over the park and all the way to the City. A lake. Woodland walks and open parkland. Ring-necked parakeets. Cherry blossom! Oh and a tasty lunch - I had a quiche made with mushrooms, spring onion, and nettle. (I must go forage some nettles and make something.)

I had a mooch around the gift shop, hoping to find a hand lens - small little things that anyone can use to look at plants and insects in greater detail (or rocks, or jewellery, or archaeological artefacts, etc.). But to my astonishment they didn't have any!? I thought that Kew Gardens, which must want to encourage people to have an interest in plants and studying botany, would sell the simple accessible tool that is the hand lens. They didn't even have magnifying glasses. Tut tut.

By 4pm we were pretty tired from all the walking around, so just sat on a bench for a while looking at the trees and daffodils in the sinking sunlight, and we left around 5pm. It was a really lovely day, and we only saw half the park. Definitely a place to go back to, especially at a slightly later time of year when the trees are in leaf and there's more growing.

Cherry blossom and the Palm House at Kew

For dinner, we went decidedly out of our way to Southall, to an authentic Punjabi restaurant called Raunka Punjab Diyan. There was an Indian sweets shop next door so we went in there first and my friend bought a selection. The restaurant was busy, and loud, and I was the only non-Indian person in there; my friend asked if I was happy to stay or if I wanted to go to the quieter Turkish place next door. Had I been on my own I probably wouldn't have been quite comfortable, but an Indian restaurant full of Indian people is a sign that it's good! As a food lover, going to a local, family-run restaurant where they serve authentic and delicious dishes, which you don't get in typical Indian (or any other) restaurants that cater to British/tourist tastes, is one of the best experiences.

My friend recommended several dishes, and ordered for us (the staff interacted with her as she speaks the language). To start we shared paneer shashlik - marinated paneer cheese chargrilled with green peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Then we shared two mains and sides: sarson da saag with makki di roti (cornbread roti), and daal makhani with garlic naan. All was delicious! Sarson de saag is a mixture of mustard leaves, spinach, and other greens, cooked down with spices then pureed and traditionally served with a makki di roti. Daal makhani - black lentils and kidney beans slow-cooked with tomatoes, butter, and spices - is one of my favourites anyway... but oh my goodness this one was incredible! In contrast to the chili heat of the saag, and other daal makhani's I've had, the daal was mild and had a lovely sweetness to it, and it just tasted wonderful. Yummmm :)

The sweets aka desserts sounded amazing, so of course we got some. I ordered ras malai, a chilled dish of a soft cheese dumpling in saffron milk, and my friend had dudh jalebi, coils of syrupy deep-fried batter served in a bowl of hot saffron milk. Both were utterly delicious! Mine was lovely and light and refreshing, the milk ever so subtly fragrant. We also ordered some aloo tikki chaat - potato patties with chickpeas in a spicy sauce, chutneys, and yoghurt - from the 'snack' part of the menu to take away with us in case I got hungry later in the evening... which of course I did not after the filling meal. We left it in the cold car overnight, and ended up having it for lunch the next day. And, for a change, I was enjoying myself so much that after the starter I forgot to take photos of the food! Haha.

It's sad we can't really get anything like that closer to home. In Southampton, my friend says Sanjha in Shirley is good, more authentic than most Indian restaurants, and there's an Indian sweets shop in St Mary's, but neither are as good as ones in London. I wondered if I would be able to try and make ras malai at home but my friend said Indian sweets all take a lot of time and effort to prepare. But I might still try and make something similar, perhaps with ricotta. And the sarson da saag has given me an idea of what to do with those big bags of spinach that I usually end up wasting half of because I can't use it all in time - I'll try cooking it down with onion, garlic, ginger, and spices, blend it to a coarse puree, and serve with a flatbread. Decent healthy snack or lunch :) 

Holm oak in Greenwich Park

We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Limehouse. Parking was £20 so the man at reception suggested parking in a nearby residential street instead - but after driving around my friend couldn't find such a place, at least that felt safe, so pay £20 we did. In the morning, breakfast was included so I enjoyed some scrambled eggs, baked beans, and a Cumberland sausage, plus a yoghurt and a croissant, though I was feeling quite dehydrated from not drinking enough the day before (there weren't any water refill stations at Kew that we could see), so was disappointed to find no bowls of fresh juicy fruit, or even canned fruit salad, to rehydrate with, though I had a few glasses of water of course.

Our plan for the morning was to go to Greenwich Park. Wandering down the avenue of trees towards the Royal Observatory I was very happy to see a magnificent holm oak - an evergreen species from the Mediterranean - its limbs spreading out in a wide circle around it, a real parkland oak. (Parkland trees grow outward as well as up because they are surrounded by open space, whereas the growth of trees in woodland is more upright. This can give you a clue as to the history of a place, e.g. if you see a parkland tree in a wood, or an upward-reaching tree in an open park.) 

The Royal Observatory, which has the Prime Meridian marker, was closed, but we could see the line through the gates and I noticed it went down a wall and onto another footpath - so we got to see and stand on it anyway :) One foot in the eastern hemisphere, one foot in the western hemisphere. We continued down the hill and went to see Cutty Sark - the world's last surviving tea clipper and one of the fastest ships of its time, built for the China tea trade and launched in 1870 - which was impressive to look at from the outside. I do admire the sailors, who had to clamber up the rigging in the middle of the deep dark ocean as the ship rolled about in the waves. Ambling back through the streets I was tempted by food several times - at the stalls in Greenwich Market (a cute little covered market), at a gelato shop, and at a bakery that filled the street with the scent of baking cinnamon buns. Alas the latter had only just come out the oven and weren't ready for sale yet, and the staff couldn't tell us how long it would be, so we didn't wait, and made our way back to the park. 

The reason for going to London in the first place was to see the matinee of 'Planet Earth II Live in Concert' at The O2 on Sunday afternoon. I had been given tickets as a birthday or Christmas gift in 2019, and the show was originally booked for March 2020, then for obvious reasons rescheduled twice. So it was great to finally go! I should have done some research beforehand and pre-booked parking, as we ended up paying an absurd £36 to park for the afternoon. We ate the aloo tikki chaat for lunch, which was of course very tasty, and had some of the Indian sweets my friend had bought, which were really nice. After the ridiculous stressful faff that was collecting the tickets and getting in, we could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the concert.

Planet Earth II, the TV series, was of course stunning. I think it was the first Attenborough series that I watched in full, so it's stayed with me and remains my favourite, though of course they're all amazing. I especially love the soundtrack - composed by Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea, and Jasha Klebe - and the main theme is one of my favourite pieces of orchestral music, probably in part because of its association with the spectacular cinematography of the series; it always sends a shiver down my spine and brings a smile to my face. The concert was basically screenings of some of the more well-known clips from the series, on the big screen, without Attenborough's narration but with the soundtrack being played by a live orchestra. It was spine-tingling, breathtaking, and we both sat there in awe, absolutely loving it. Science presenter Liz Bonnin hosted, coming on stage in between clips and talking about them (and of course the importance of protecting the natural world), with the series' Executive Producer, Mike Gunton, who could tell us about how they made it, which was cool. While Sir David Attenborough is brilliant, the actual production teams are the ones who envision and create these spectacular documentaries. Each clip is a mammoth task and the teams do astonishing work.

After that fantastic concert, we went to find the gelato place within the O2 - I had been wanting some ever since passing the shop in Greenwich. It was of course going to be stupidly expensive, but oh well. I chose a scoop of hazelnut, and my friend got white chocolate-pistachio; we each tried a small spoonful of the other's and her's was amazing, I should have chosen that instead haha. Afterwards we got an early dinner in the Design Quarter's street food hub just outside the O2; I got an Indian naan wrap with minced lamb and salad, but sadly it was very spicy so I regretted my choice a bit. But once back at the car I thoroughly enjoyed finishing off the two Indian sweets I'd had half of at lunchtime. My favourite was a bright orange cardamon-flavoured syrup-drenched ball called a ladoo. 

And that was it, homeward we went. This weekend in London, enjoying so many great things with my friend, was just so lovely, really special, and was a great way to have an early birthday celebration :) I know this has been a long post, but it's more for my memories than for an entertaining read, haha. But thanks for reading if you have.