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London's Winter & Hidden Pleasures |
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Thanks to an academic life and motherhood, I have long been a summer traveler. Jostled and smacked by some of the biggest and most expensive backpacks kids heft as they tramp through Europe, I have longed for the space and quiet of off-season travel. This year, my daughter safely returned to college and with a few days between semesters to “cleanse my palate,” I decided on five days of wintertime London. I love London. Although it is not as physically mesmerizing as Paris, and I don’t feel as drawn to the Thames as I do to the Seine, the sight of Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s exhilarates me. Very little makes me as happy as wandering through the lanes of South Kensington, drinking in the smell of flowers, or walking from the West End, through Hyde Park and Green Park. And with my penchant for turning in exactly the wrong direction after I have carefully pored over my map, known to Londoners as the “A to Z” (pronounced “zed”), I have seen streets in London that many other visitors have not. My motto: if you don’t have a definite destination, you can never actually be lost. If I’m late for lunch with friends, they understand my map reading dyslexia and make allowances. In winter, I chose Bloomsbury, figuring my eyes would cope better with a more urban setting where fewer trees were meant to flower. I could walk to both the British Museum and the British Library, where I’d promised myself longer visits than I take in the summer, and I’d enjoy knowing that I was sharing streets with the ghosts of Virginia Woolf, Dora Carrington, and Charles Dickens (whose house I have failed to find for the third time). Russell Square’s lack of flourishing vegetation gave me a better view of the Duke of Bedford, at whose statuary likeness I winked every morning on my way to the Internet café to check my mail. But what's London like with chill winds snapping through the tube tunnels and frosty rain swatting my face? In a word, it’s wonderful. Streets almost as crowded as they are in summer, on some corners, English is a foreign tongue. The Brits—as has always been my experience—hear my Yank accent and treat me like a slow child in need of assistance. Since I generally need it, I smile, but it is hard not to wince when the customs inspector asks what I teach and chortles decorously when I say, “English.” Londoners are unflappable, no matter the season. My friends decided on a Sunday outing to Brighton, the seaside resort, in a driving rain. Cancel? Don’t be silly, they said. If the British canceled activities to avoid the rain, they’d never go anywhere. You’d be amazed at how many other people ignored the rain and tramped through John Nash’s Royal Pavilion, grandparents explaining to the little ones how George IV liked to spend his summers here. I am always amazed at how the British know their history and tell it as if they were part of the royal family. It isn’t just my friends who are undaunted by the weather. On a solitary walk through a foggy St. James’s Park, near Buckingham Palace, I saw the bird feeders out taking care of business, and two older ladies sitting on a bench sipping water from glasses, even though no restaurant, or even a water bottle, was in evidence. There will always be an England.
Because of the temperature, some spots beckon that might not otherwise: the Burlington and Opera Arcades along Piccadilly become perfect places to step out of the wind and spend a few minutes thawing out while you wonder who actually buys the pricey cashmere, linen, and all that jewelry. The tea and coffee shops along Piccadilly, their smoky windows indicating it must be warmer inside than out, become another respite. Or try the pub on Cecil Court, my very favorite alleyway in London (not covered), immortalized in a Kitaj painting. But the best place, always the best place, to rest one’s weary bones and escape the cold (or heat), all the while filling your soul, is a lunchtime concert at St. Martin’s in the Fields. This church, built in 1726, welcomes the homeless and travel-weary in its lower depths and the music-hungry in its chapel. The pews are not wildly comfortable, but the concerts are short, the acoustics good, and you can ponder what Nell Gywnn (interred here) must have thought when she looked at her paramour George II sitting in the royal box to the left of the altar. After two nights of quite funny theater-what the Brits do best and just what I needed-we decided to blow off candlelight Mozart in St. Martin's in favor of Raj, in Highgate, a restaurant (with Bed & Breakfast above) owned and presided over by Darcey, an affable drunk whose talents with a wok are greater than his talents with a pen; a bound notebook of his poems is kept at the ready and handed to a kindred soul for perusal. You have to know that this out-of-the-way North London restaurant is there. So now you do, and presumably you can find it listed in the phone book. Upstairs from a funky second-hand clothing shop, you find yourself in an equally funky dining room, a new age nightmare of a place, whose far wall contains icons of kitsch from every generation since the fifties: bunnies and elephants, mirrors and candles. Wooden benches line the other walls, long family style rough wood tables in front of them. This is not the place for intimate dining, but it is the place for glorious, Indian accented, generously portioned food, served with wine (whatever 'e brought, mate), local beer, or juices, brought to you by the quintessential English barroom waitress: milk-white complexion, deep red lips, raven colored hair, and a figure every man in the room ogles. A reedy guy, who looks like he has seen too much, plays guitar and "chats up" the room. Then a slip of a girl with a voice like Joni Mitchell entertains for an hour. She's studying in Spain, writing music, playing guitar here when she comes home to see her mum, who's in the room, along with neighborhood folks, students, and a few others, most of have been here before. We sing along with the songs she covers and pick up her original music. She begins to count on it, harmonizing with us as we capture the melodies.
We leave after several hours, souls and stomachs sated, smiling at the memories provoked and the night's laughs. Raj is probably not an acquired taste, but for those of us who find it, it's one of London's hidden and unexpected gems.
Jane Paznik-Bondarin is a university professor and writer who lives in New York City. She can be reached by email: Click Here If London is in your plans, be sure to visit BoomerCafé’s Library and read “Greg’s Guide to London,” written by our own Executive Editor Greg Dobbs. He had the good fortune to live there for five lively years. |
by
Jane Paznik-Bondarin
In
St. James’s Park, if you stand on the footbridge across the lake,
looking Northeast (toward the West End—don’t ask), you see my
favorite London sight: the cupolas and spires of the Horse Guards
Parade. In summer, the tops of the buildings appear above the
trees as if in a fairy tale. The first time I carelessly glanced
in that direction, I was enchanted, and I make this a stop in
every London visit. The winter view is different, but no less
engaging. Mist rises off the half frozen lake on which ducks are
doing a careful ballet. The naked tree branches point up towards
the now visible white buildings that support the luxurious roofs.
My Rapunzel fantasies become more textured. 
When
she finishes her set, Darcey takes over, no stranger he to public
gatherings. He passes a hat for the performers, promising to double
the take, and he reads a few poems, and chides me for being an
American on the day "you have inaugurated your new disappointment."
A man about fifty takes the guitar and starts to strum. He's good.
By the end of the next half hour, we've sung almost every song
Joan Baez ever recorded, plus older folk music and work songs.
It's like being back in New York's Washington Square Park on a
Sunday in the early 60s.