The first time we came to an Arsenal match, it was during Christmas. We had bought a package that included hotel and match tickets for two matches, a Boxing Day fixture against West Ham (that ended up being postponed because of a Tube strike) and a New Year’s Eve eve match against Newcastle. Whenever we talk as a family about favorite holiday memories, that trip to London is always mentioned. We brought Christmas tree lights in our suitcase with the idea that we might arrange them in our hotel room in the shape of a tree, but the only electrical fixture that was usable was next to a mirror over a dresser. So we hung them around the mirror, prompting songs by our kids of “Oh Christmas Mirror, Oh Christmas Mirror!”
There was actually no need for anything special in our room because London is so beautifully decorated for the holidays.
This trip is the only time we’ve been back to London at this time of year, so my husband and I were both looking forward to seeing it all decked out again. My husband has been preoccupied with his parents’ move into assisted living in Florida, so I did some minimal planning for this trip. Minimal in the sense that every moment from 2 p.m. on Friday was planned, and not one thing was planned for Thursday (all day) or Friday morning.
I had seen information on a museum I thought my husband would enjoy, the Postal museum, situated at the site of an underground railway used for many decades in mail delivery. As a part of your visit, you can ride a train through some of the tunnels that accommodated the cars that carried mail. Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to me that the museum would be such a popular option. When we arrived on Friday morning after a delicious breakfast at Gail’s bakery in our neighborhood, all available visitor spots had been sold out for the day.
So we went back toward the Thames and had a leisurely lunch before the play we had booked, Ghosts. Ghosts was running in the Sam Wanamaker theatre, a small indoor space inside Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. The play is performed under the light of about 80 candles, which are laboriously lit at the beginning of the play by one character and laboriously put out at the end of the play by another. Candlelight aside, this was a very dark play about family secrets. Somehow we had considered dozens of lighthearted holiday productions and selected this one instead. Holiday fare it was not, but it was an excellent production and I’m glad we chose it.
We left to walk over along the Thames to a holiday light installation at Southbank Centre. Very cool.
In fact, you could also say very cold. Bone chilling dampness made my husband realize that we were very close to Gordon’s Wine Bar, so we crossed the bridge hoping to find ourselves in the cozy wine caves. Instead, we were offered outdoor seating which might not have fit the bill but turned out to be under a huge, very functional heating lamp.
After a very relaxing glass of wine and some warming, we walked back to St. Paul’s area for dinner at Krua, a Thai restaurant. Very delicious. And, because there are so many lights to see, we took the tube afterward into the shopping districts where some of the most fun holiday light displays are.
Our route back to the hotel took us over Tower Bridge, where the most fun light display of all is visible. The top of The Shard, the iconic tower near Tower Bridge, was fully lit in dozens of fun, moving & sparkly patterns. I enjoyed seeing it all over the city, but had the best views of it from Tower Bridge. Here are a few of the way too many pictures I took.
A packed day in a beautiful, bone-chillingly cold city.
A new statue for Arsène Wenger has been placed on the grounds of the Emirates since our last visit. After the match we wandered around trying to find it. You know my love for Arsène Wenger. It’s a bit out of the way and the grounds were so thronged with people, we struggled to find it. A nice steward pointed us in the right direction. Many people were lined up to take a picture with the statue and we waited patiently for our turn. Near the statue there were signs like the one above that surely reflected his philosophy. I recalled an article in which he was quoted in which he stated that he only facilitates “beauty in man.” I fell in love with Arsenal because of the beauty he so valued.
But that was at the end of the day and we should start at the beginning. We had breakfast again over near St. Katherine’s Dock, close to where The Big Half marathon was being run by thousands of people. After breakfast, we walked along the route where people were lined up to start and where some had already started and had doubled back to cross the Tower Bridge at around the 7-meter mark of the race. I am that annoying person who claps for every graduate at a graduation, so I am also the person who claps and whoops for runners who happen to be doing something I will not do. When I am giving (in my mind) motivating words to my kids, my family calls it “happy Mom talk.” When I am cheering at graduations and races, it’s “happy Mom cheering.”
I make no apologies. Except (mentally) to the people sitting near me. Sorry your ears hurt. Now start clapping for the graduates, you lazy, selfish beast.
Afterward, we took the Uber boat over toward the Eye and Big Ben just to enjoy the lovely day. It was shaping up to be a warm one.
In keeping with the theme of trying new things, I considered not having Sunday roast in London on this trip. That seemed over the top, so instead, I booked a different restaurant than I normally do, called The Marksman Public House. I found it by consulting an article. How does the article know? I have no idea. I ruled out some locations that seemed too close to Tottenham Hotspur stadium, although I was pretty sure they were not playing there on Sunday, and then focused on those not too far from the Emirates. The match was at 4:30, a little late to have Roast afterward, so we planned to go for lunch.
The Marksman turned out to be awesome. It had a more casual feel from the incumbent favorite roast place, the Princess of Shoreditch. The decor was light and airy, and people were laughing and relaxed. There were many big groups of people sitting near us, suggesting a popular family/friend gathering place. There was significantly less attention on food presentation. Importantly, there was plenty of attention on the taste of the food. We shared a crispy, perfectly seasoned, juicy whole chicken, a cloud-light Yorkshire pudding, deeply caramelized potatoes, and green beans and carrots with minted, crispy breadcrumbs. Perfect.
We both selected for dessert a thing called a brown butter tart. When it came, I was disappointed. It had sounded so glorious and looked so plain. Big lesson here. With the first bite I understood why no one bothered to make it look good. What would be the point? I’ve never tasted anything as delicious in my life.
We took the bus to the stadium and, because we were newbies to the new check-in procedure, went right in. Like all of the teams, Arsenal appear to be cracking down on the secondary market for ticket sales. In the past we would be sent a pdf of our tickets and would print it out to be scanned; this year, Arsenal require you to download their app and use the wallet feature of your phone for the ticket. A screen shot is not sufficient. As participants in the lottery, we would have been eligible to sell our tickets on Arsenal’s exchange, but we would not be permitted to transfer the ticket to other parties at will.
There is so little chance we will ever part with these precious tickets.
The check-in process went smoothly and we walked up a great many stairs to the novel location of our seats, high, high in the Clock End. I was shocked to realize that from our new seats I was not even able to see our old seats because there is a dip in the roof that conceals parts of the stadium. It had never occurred to me from our old location that most people in the stadium are unable to see all of the seats. We had a fine view of the field and the stadium was rocking when we got there. Literally. The chanting was deafening from the moment we walked through the turnstile until pretty much half time.
At the Clock End, you are very close to the opposition fans, and it became very clear what our role was to be: drown them out, counter their nonsense, and remind them they are guests, very unwelcome ones at that. It seemed the Man United fans were more organized than many who show their faces at the Emirates, but I’ve only once before sat this near the opposition. We had to endure their happiness when Man United scored the first goal, very much counter to play. We rubbed it in their faces when Arsenal scored our first goal about a minute later.
What to say about the match? In the stadium it felt like Arsenal had the upper hand and Manchester United’s only idea was to slow things down as much as possible and break our rhythm, hope for a counterattack. They executed their tedious plan well.
Arsenal had a call for a penalty that was overturned by VAR and Man United had a goal that was ruled offside by VAR. It looked like we were headed for a 1:1 draw well into the very substantial 8 minutes of stoppage time due to Man United’s time wasting and the time spent on VAR reviews.
The noise was more intermittent as the match wore on, but the fans got behind Man United’s substitution that brought Harry Maguire onto the field. Even the Arsenal fans–especially the Arsenal fans–were chanting his name. If you’re struggling to score a goal, there are not too many defenders a team would be more delighted to take a chance against. That is until Man United introduced Jonny Evans as a another substitute defender. I couldn’t believe he was still playing. In his day, he was probably one of the better defenders in the league. He played for Manchester United years ago and more recently played for Leicester City, who was relegated last year. So although nothing much was happening for Arsenal, you had to feel optimistic. And, like the sign said, you had to keep “Believing in Beauty.”
At least 5 minutes into the 8 minutes of added time, our captain Martin Ødegaard hit a hard shot that deflected off of a Man U defender for a corner kick. Saka put it into play and while Jonny Evans got distracted by Gabriel Magalhaes’ antics in front of the goal, the ball bounced off the face of our new boy, Declan Rice. He had a million years to take aim at the bouncing ball and tag it off Jonny Evan’s leg into the goal. The Emirates went insane. When Declan Rice ran to the corner flag to celebrate with the fans the fans in that corner rose in a wave from their seats to join him.
With the subs and celebrations, we had no idea how much time was left and we all stood and sang with great nervousness waiting for the final whistle.
Instead of the whistle, the ball came loose in Arsenal’s half and our sub, Fabio Viera (a far better choice than Jonny Evans or Harry Maguire), put a beautiful through ball exactly where our other sub, Gabriel Jesus, could run onto it, feint to draw the last Manchester United defender into a fruitless slide, and slot it calmly into the corner of the net.
. . . for by the time the whistle blew, there was approximately one Tottenham fan remaining in the stands.
What. A. Day.
We left the Somerset house and made our way over to the Covent Garden tube station. We had a bit of time so we walked through Covent Garden, enjoying the sun and the market. Not much was going on by this time, it was far too early, but it was still fun to look at the shops and restaurants and market.
Normally, we take the Piccadilly line all the way to the Arsenal stop. The other option, sometimes, is Holloway Road, which allows you to enter the stadium complex from the opposite side. We always think of the Arsenal Tube stop as part of the required game day experience, but in reality, the Holloway Road stop is often closed on match days and not really an option. It was an option yesterday, maybe because we arrived with more than 90 minutes to spare. There were plenty of people who had the same idea.
We used part of our time to stop into the Armoury and look at the merch. In the interim since our last visit I had decided that the pink jersey was not for me; rather, the black one was. However, the lingering Pandemic/Russia invasion supply chain crisis had a few things to say about that; there were actually no jerseys available in any color but red, anywhere near my size. Probably for the best. We departed merch-less.
We left the shop and wandered over to Highbury, which is just a few blocks away. The old Arsenal stadium has been turned into townhomes and the pitch is a park in the middle. The entrances were well guarded on Saturday. There have been times when we were able to sneak in, but that was not going to happen without a fight this time.
We took a few pictures and went over to Gillespie Road to pick up some barbecue for lunch. Then we went back and circled the stadium, picking up as much good luck as possible. By the time we went inside, I had chased down Gunnersaurus, the ridiculous Arsenal mascot, and got a photo bomb-like picture with “him,” posed with Statue Tony Adams, rubbed Statue Thierry Henry’s head, and touched Statue Dennis Bergkamp’s right knee before entering the stadium.
The fans were up for the match; it was a party atmosphere, even more than what we experienced for the past few matches. I suppose this was not surprising considering we were playing our arch rivals, Tottenham. I’ve never been to a match against Tottenham. It happens to be the favorite match of the person who shares the season tickets that allows us to attend. When we were here for the last set of matches, we asked him why he wasn’t attending the Tottenham game this year. He admitted that we had his daughter to thank. She was getting married in Greece right at about kickoff. He told us it was a hard match to miss; whatever the atmosphere was normally like, for the North London Derby, it was 20% more.
I’d say that was about so.
There have been a few beer-related changes at the Emirates recently. One of the changes: Arsenal no longer has a contract with Carlsberg for beer. Instead, it’s with the much preferred Camden Town brewery. Second: there is a beer-only concession line to more quickly serve the fans who want only that. (Many.) And finally, the beer is served in “London is Red” themed reusable glasses. Signs all over the Emirates, including in the restrooms, remind us that these cups can be reused up to 100 times if deposited in the correct bins.
We learned this week from this article that the Emirates has the Premier League’s most expensive beer. We didn’t think twice about it and had the Camden Hells Lager in the upper concourse while watching fans arrive across the Ken Friar bridge and listening to a live brass band of fans, with the other fans joining in to sing. There were so many people crammed into the area I could only reliably see the top of the tuba. But it was gloriously loud.
At last we piled into Block 98, for the newly obligatory and much-loved singing of “North London Forever” and kickoff. Although Tottenham is near the top of the league, Arsenal looked great from the time the whistle blew. Dynamic, tricky, beautiful and fast. Meanwhile, Tottenham had parked a big bus in front of its goal, waiting for a counterattack. They did get a few balls off to a waiting Tottenham player and there were some nervy moments, but the first goal was to the Arsenal. Thomas Partey took a beautiful shot from distance. I’ve seen him take a lot shots far from the goal before, but never have I see him take a shot from distance that I knew was going in from the moment he struck it. It curved perfectly to the top right corner where Hugo Loris, Spur’s keeper, was never going to save it. “One nil to the Arsenal” was ringing out all over the stadium.
Before the half was over, Spurs managed to move the ball into the box and our Gabriel fouled Spur’s newly-acquired player, Richarlison. I was so sure Harry Kane’s penalty kick was going in that I considered making better use of my time by visiting the ladies’ room. However, there were so few women in the stands, I had no doubt I would be the first one in after half time. I visited in nearly complete privacy only a bit later with things level at 1 apiece.
Arsenal continued dominating after half time and Jesus scored a scrappy, ugly goal that nonetheless put us at 2-1, when Loris spilled a shot from Saka. Shortly after that, Spur’s Emerson Royal put in a bad foul on our Gabi Martinelli. Referee Anthony Taylor took his time walking over to the site of the crime, and when he arrived, reached for his back pocket. The red card he produced stood up to VAR scrutiny, and Tottenham was down to 10 players for the remaining 30 minutes. Now I know Tottenham is probably capable of producing a moment to make us sweat and you probably know that, too, but apparently no one ever told Tottenham’s manager, Antonio Conte. He pretty much capitulated by replacing 4 starting players. Only Harry Kane remained among players likely to score. And yes, he probably could still have done some damage.
Except he did not.
Instead, our Granit Xhaka was fed a ball inside the box and he put up a beauty of a shot away from anywhere Loris was going to be able to get. 3-1 with 20 minutes to go and very little to worry about. In the stadium we enjoyed the last few minutes with songs, which if I am being honest were more focused on taunting Tottenham than celebrating our win. We sang “You’ll always be shit” to the team that has finished above us for at least the past five years. The Tottenham section became a ghost town as their fans dribbled out of the stadium.
We remain at the top of the league.
After hanging around cheering our boys, we spilled out of the stadium into the beautiful Fall day and marched with our compatriots, singing and chanting, to Holloway Road. My husband and I got on a bus and headed toward Hampstead Heath, the beautiful, big park not far from Islington.
We enjoyed walking past ponds and through fields and groves of trees, and taking in the famous, beautiful sight of the city from the highest point.
On our way to the tube station on the other side of the park we passed a lovely pub with outdoor seating called The Garden Gate, where we made an impromptu visit for beer and dinner while enjoying being outside. A lovely ending to a successful North London Derby.
My first, but hopefully not my only.
In the airport this morning I read an article on ESPN.com that provided updated statistics from FiveThirtyEight about the chances of any one team winning the Premier League. According to them, Arsenal’s chances to win the Premier League are only 10%. Manchester City, last year’s winner and, let’s face it, the winner for at least half of the last 10 years is credited with a 71% chance.
These are not the kind of statistics that make you feel confident of a big, happy ending to come. And, statistics or no, I can see with my own eyes that we have a ways to go to catch a team as good as Manchester City. Except for a couple of tied matches, they are destroying everything in their path.
However, that hasn’t stopped me from signing on for the last match of the season. No matter how unlikely the chances, if we get the trophy on the final day, I will be there.
Arsenal played Aston Villa Wednesday evening. Funnily (to me), they are referred to as “Villains.” Aston Villa was the team Arsenal played on the last day of the the 2016 season that we were lucky enough to attend. They had already been relegated by the time of the match, and what most of that team had to play for was the opportunity to be picked up by an alternate team remaining in the Premier League. Although Aston Villa put up an early fight in that match, Arsenal beat them handily in the end. That happened to be the last time Mikel Arteta (our current manager) played in before he retired. He was instrumental in the last goal scored, although it ultimately when down as an own goal.
Aston Villa won promotion back to the Premier League a few seasons ago. Although they sat in relegation territory after the first 4 matches this year, they had played some relatively tough teams and came away with 1 tie and 3 very narrow losses. Although they seem to be struggling to score goals, they have equally been doing a good job of keeping goals out of their own net.
We met a fellow Arsenal fan friend for dinner before the match and walked to the stadium afterward. Fun to walk among all those fans. Looking at the fellow walkers, it was abundantly clear that the 2022 merchandise is very, very popular. At first I was not a very big fan of the home jersey (it has a collar, which seems strange, a bit nerdish and not fearsome). It’s been growing on me. And the 3rd, pink jersey…..when I first saw it I was all “no way, what were they thinking?” And after two matches played in it, and seeing many local fans in it, I am all “where can I buy this?”
Home: Nerdy?Away (3rd Kit): I think I need thisWarm-up: Cute!
I do know exactly where I can buy it. However, Security was super tight Wednesday and I was lucky to be in my seat in time for kickoff. Some other time. I see that Arsenal have started touting a new green and yellow warmup top this week. It’s pretty sweet. Who knows what they will convince me of by the time I’m back?
Aston Villa came in and did what a team like that should strategically do: slow things down, destroy rhythm, and be very, very physical. It was very similar to the last match on Saturday against Fulham, and quite successful.
That does not, however, make it easy to watch. I was hoping for a match that would make me feel quickly secure and then enjoy a bunch of pretty goals. Instead we worked hard to get the first goal about 30 minutes in. Gabriel Jesus scored a scrappy goal following a rebounded shot by Granit Xhaka. And then, we struggled to make anything else happen. The refereeing was universally terrible, which made the physicality of the match concerning for the future. Arsenal already have injury trouble among defensive midfielders.
Into the second half, the Villains managed a goal on a corner kick. The kicker, Douglas Luiz, put it in the net himself, a rare phenomena, aided by what looked like interference by a teammate on our keeper, Aaron Ramsdale. The referee did not see it that way, nor did VAR. Fortunately, it ended up not being a talking point at all because Arsenal managed to squeak in a second goal about 10 minutes later. Gabriel Martinelli, who had a very good match, put up a tricky, high shot that the Aston Villa keeper couldn’t handle.
The last minutes of the match were as nervy as could be. I was a wreck.
Although I felt happy with the outcome by Thursday morning, at the final whistle on Wednesday night all I felt was relief.
The atmosphere in the stadium was again great. Despite being nervous as hell, it was so good to be among a truly supportive crowd.
Arsenal now face a run of tough matches, many of them away from home. We didn’t have any luck on the transfer deadline day bringing in defensive midfielders. We tried for–of all people–the very Douglas Luiz who scored that corner kick. (If you can’t beat ’em?) Aston Villa was not interested in selling.
Today, Aston Villa applied a very similar strategy for Man City as for Arsenal and managed to come away with a 1-1 tie. In addition to being useful for Aston Villa, the tie was useful for Arsenal, as Man City is currently in second place after 6 matches.
Here’s hoping Arsenal can win pretty again. But mostly, here’s hoping we can keep winning.
The first time I came to London was for business. At the end of a planned meeting, there were exactly three hours available to see the city. That time, I opted for a hop on, hop off bus. It was a good way to see a lot of the city, albeit only at a surface level. It made me realize that there was much more to see and do and that London would be a great destination for a longer vacation. That is partly what inspired us to take a Christmas trip with our kids in 2012. When we ask our kids about their favorite all-time Christmas memories, one of them usually brings up that trip.
Since then, although my husband and I have sometimes used city busses to get around in London, we’ve never again ridden a hop on, hop off-type tourist bus. That is, until Wednesday. My husband has always wanted to do that, and since this trip to London has been longer than usual, we were happy to have someone else do the planning. My husband did some research and selected Tootbus.
The basics of all of these bus companies: you ride along predetermined routes while listening to information about the attractions you are driving past using an audio guide. And, as you might expect, you can get off at any time and delve into specific attractions as you wish. In London, it appears that many hop on, hop off companies offer similar routes. In the tour we took, there were two routes available. We hopped off once to change routes and once to have lunch.
What was most evident to me is that the areas of London we have not much visited over our many trips are those primarily devoted to shopping. I had forgotten how lively Piccadilly circus and the commercial area around Harrod’s is. (It still did not make me want to shop!)
The other thing that really struck me: pubs in London are gorgeous. A container gardener could do a lot worse in getting ideas than to wander around looking at all the pubs in town. Better still if that gardener is traveling with a beer or pie aficionado.
When the audio guide was not providing information about sights around London, it was playing songs from British artists. They were mostly great songs. However, I noticed that my husband removed his headphones when Rod Stewart was singing Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? It had been a while since I heard that one. It had not aged well. And maybe not the best example of British art?
In all, a fun and relaxing day, and we got some ideas for areas we want to explore next time we’re in London.
Tower BridgeSt Paul’s Cathedral, Statue of Queen AnnePiccadilly StreetChurchill Arms PubQueen Elizabeth Gate, Hyde ParkBig Ben TowerBank of EnglandTemple Bar MonumentCenotaph, WhitehallStatue of Eros, Piccadilly CircusSights of London (Photos: WholeArsed)
As we headed over London Bridge on our way to London Bridge Station, we were walking against traffic. The Bank Holiday was over, and all of England was crossing the bridge on their way to work. However, several people had pulled off to the side of the bridge and were standing, watching over the water. That seemed strange, so we became curious also. When we looked out into the Thames, we could see the head of a person in the water, and a rescue boat on the way. The water was moving quickly, but the rescue boat was able to get in front of the person in the water and toss them a life ring. Hopefully, it all ended well.
Our train to Brighton was delayed numerous times due to some kind of switching problem in Brighton, but at some point we were directed on our way. We’ve very rarely left London while we’ve been in town, and it was fun to see the green and lush English countryside on our way to Brighton. Brighton is a little over an hour from London by train, situated on the English Channel.
Photo: WholeArsed
Upon arriving in Brighton, we walked down the hill to the beach. There was something about the town that seemed so familiar, and I realized it kind of had the feel of Nice, France, that we had just visited this spring during our son’s semester of Study Abroad. It was like Nice, but gritty. This is not a criticism or either Brighton or Nice. Nice is lovely and fun to go to, but it does not have much grit. It feels like a place you go to be out of the world. Brighton feels like a place you go to be in the world.
The first order of business was to find the best Fish and Chips in town. Our googling brought us to an establishment called Bardsley’s, where we ordered the Cod, which the menu informed us was England’s favored fish. And it was very delicious fish….delicious enough to almost make up for the chips, which if I’m being honest were a bit soggy.
We walked over to the Royal Pavilion and gardens. The Royal Pavilion was built as a summer home for King George IV in multiple stages. It was sold to the city of Brighton by Queen Victoria. As you can see, its architecture is unusual among the Royal dwellings. Its gardens have been recently restored and are fully organic. Some dedicated volunteers were busy weeding and pruning. Very pretty area.
Photo: WholeArsed
Then we walked back to the beach and along the Brighton Palace Pier, which has a big amusement park. School is not yet in session at least for some kids, who seemed to be having a great time on the rides and playing carnival games. There is an old electric railway, and we rode it to the point and back.
Photo: WholeArsed
It was time for more adult pursuits. We stopped by a bar on the beach and enjoyed the breeze and some drinks while listening to live music.
Sometimes the thrill of going to London is nearly as big as the thrill of attending an Arsenal match. As soon as we learned we had tickets for the Fulham and Aston Villa matches, we booked air tickets. And as soon as we booked air tickets, I booked roast dinner at The Princess of Shoreditch and tickets to attend a play at the Globe. We have had roast, my favorite culinary experience in England, at the Princess several times in the past. We have never been able to attend a play at the Globe theatre.
In the past, the outdoor play season has ended before the Premier League started, or at least before we have had match tickets. But this time, the World Cup in Qatar is in the winter, causing the Premier League season to start early and end late to accommodate a break in the winter. Yes, I have greed and graft in the soccer world that accompanied the Qatar World Cup to thank for the fun we had today.
In truth, my actual hope has not only been to attend a play at the Globe, but specifically to attend as a groundling, a peasant attendee who has to stand throughout the performance right at the front of the stage. You can attend as a groundling for £5, assuming you are lucky enough to get a ticket. Sadly, groundling tickets were sold out already when I was attempting to book, and really, almost all tickets for yesterday’s performance were sold out. My husband and I had tickets in different sections of the theatre.
The play running yesterday was Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare’s comedies. Although both my husband and I were English majors and took several semesters of Shakespeare, neither of us remembered the plot of this play. Like all Shakespeare comedies I can remember the plots of, the play features the intrigue of love. The play was wonderful, so well acted, and the groundlings for sure had the most fun and produced the most fun for those of us in the seats. Like being in the front row of Blue Man Group, groundlings are an important part of the show….and do get wet.
And dinner….I am obsessive about chicken in the UK. It is so, so much better than chicken in the US. And the very best I ever had was at the Princess of Shoreditch. Alas, it is so yummy it is almost always sold out by the time we arrive, and yesterday was no exception. I decided to try a vegetarian option this time, called Almonds and Dates. It turned out to be kind of like sliced bread stuffing. It was good, kind of strange. Also had a cold pea and mint soup. That was yummy. And roast always comes with Yorkshire pudding, my favorite part of the whole experience. I topped it off with a cherry ice cream sandwich.
The person who helped us select beer made a great suggestion for next time—when you book you can add a note that you’d like chicken. I feel that there is a lot of delicious chicken in my future.
Today we had a relatively quiet day, but formed a plan to see another play, The Life of Pi at the Wyndham theatre. This is the story of a boy who survives a shipwreck and is asked to tell how. He tells two stories, one fantastical, a story of wits, the other grim, a story of base survival. This was also a wonderful play, with wonderful staging.
Tomorrow we will go to Brighton beach. No shipwrecks planned (at least so far.)
We left the hotel, me in my 2019 Arsenal jersey and my husband in an Arsenal jacket. The Tube station is more or less under our hotel and we saw one other fan enter the train in his Arsenal shirt, a small boy. We changed trains at Kings Cross St. Pancras to the Piccadilly line and were joined by considerably more Arsenal jerseys, including a lot of the black Away jersey and many of this year’s pink Away jersey. By the time we stopped a few times to pick up more people, the majority of people on the train were Arsenal fans. The train let us out at Arsenal station, only the few neutrals continuing onward on the train. We were playing Fulham, also in London, and there were a few Fulham fans mixed in with our crowd.
In all the time I’ve been coming to matches, I’ve never seen the fans quite so jacked up. They were singing for all they were worth along the Ken Friar bridge and into the stadium. I went to the seats to watch the warmup and my husband went to find a beer.
We were both in our seats at the singing of North London Forever (really called The Angel), the song written by a local musician/fan that commenced being used at the stadium at the end of last season. That was pretty special and I felt the lump in my throat. Once the match started, the stadium was electric.
Normally, I am very tuned into the details of the match but I couldn’t find my focus. There was so much chanting and cheering, none of it very coordinated. A third of the stadium was singing one song, a third singing something else, and a final third singing something else entirely. I started to realize that I had only one purpose—to sing and support my team and will it, with thousands of others, to a win.
It registered with me that we weren’t having our best match. Odegaard was playing well, but things were a bit sloppy from everyone else. Other than that, there were only five moments that stood out in my mind.
Jesus getting drawn in on some Fulham bad behavior and getting a yellow card before the end of the first half. Great animosity toward the referee. Seeing the guy in front of us in a wheelchair doing the international hand sign of—let’s call it—self love, and hearing the toddler next to us pipe up in his tiny voice, while holding his stuffed bear—“you DON’T know WHAT you’re doing! You DON’T know WHAT you’re doing!”
Mitrovic getting behind the last two Arsenal defenders where they had no chance of catching up to get the ball. One of them was going to have to bring him down, risking a red card and maybe a penalty if it didn’t happen soon enough. And neither of them did. Instead, Mitrovic swung his mighty leg back to take a mighty shot that would produce a mighty goal….and then fell down as if God herself had laid a banana peel in his path.
Our Gabriel having the ball at his feet a moment too long and Mitrovic picking his pocket. God, fresh out of banana peels, shrugging while he scored a big goal. The Fulham fans going berserk with joy. And we Arsenal fans doubling down on singing and cheering to get through this moment. 0-1.
Odegaard scoring a deflected shot to bring the score to 1-1. I never took my eyes off the match, but where the ball came from, I have no memory.
Willing the last goal from a corner kick near the end of the 90 minutes, from the foot of Gabriel. It wasn’t pretty but it was in the net. Waiting interminably for a ruling on a possible handball. Then celebrating like mad, as you do when you looked to be losing or tying, and ended up winning.
We hung around after the final whistle soaking up the joy, then walked back over to Arsenal station. The entire train was filled with Arsenal jerseys and fans, until stop by stop, the proportion of fans to regular people changed completely. Finally, my husband and I were the only fans left in the train car.
This year England celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. One of the celebrations was a planting of wild flowers all around the moat of the Tower of London, called Super Bloom at the Tower. It includes a Queen’s Garden that specifically commemorates the Queen’s 70 years on the throne. We wandered by and took it in from above. Many people were walking along the path, looking at the flowers as beautiful, peaceful music played. Given the queen’s love of natural beauty, this is the kind of tribute someone gives when they really “get” you. Or so I believe from my hours watching The Crown, which is probably a bunch of hooey.
Super Bloom at the Tower (Photo: WholeArsed)
Before that, we started our day at Natural Kitchen, a place in the neighborhood that specializes in healthy food. I had granola and yoghurt and my husband had buckwheat pancakes. My husband was especially happy with this breakfast because our wait person turned out to be Italian. My husband, while not Italian, has been a student of Italian language all through the pandemic. We took our first trip abroad as the pandemic was winding down this spring to France and Italy. Our son was completing a study abroad program in Nice, France and joined us in the trip. He and I would exchange amused looks when in France, rather than asking for help in English, my husband would ask for help in Italian.Because Italy is very close to France and Nice used to be a territory of Italy, almost everyone did speak Italian. I didn’t think my husband would find the same level of opportunity to practice speaking Italian in London, but there it was.
We walked by the Super Bloom on our way to the Tower Millennium Pier. Our destination was Greenwich, hosting the Greenwich Fair this weekend. We took the Uber boat from Tower hill to Greenwich, a lot of fun by itself. This boat moves fast, and then they announce that you’d better hold onto your small kids, after which they really kick it into high gear.
On arriving in Greenwich we walked to the top of the hill to the Observatory, then further still to a garden. The area was alive with picnickers and dogs trotting around, happily free.
We walked back down to the fair, stopping by one of the food trucks for lunch. We had a chicken wrap and vegan rice bowl from a truck selling Bengali cuisine, Nanizi’s. It was delicious.
And then we did the thing we came to Greenwich to do, went to the fair. The fair consisted of a variety of musical, circus, street art, staggered so that you can take it all in. It was a lot of fun. The act we were able to fully watch was called Barriere, from Belgium. They sang, played instruments, and did acrobatics on a pole. Quite a combination. 🙂
We planned to take the Uber boat back to Tower Hill before the match, but there was a 40-minute wait. Instead, we walked in the tunnel under the Thames to the Isle of Dogs and the nearest Tube station. As you may recall from your Arsenal history (or maybe not, shame), Isle of Dogs is where Dial Square (which later became The Arsenal) played its first match. On the train, we went past the hotel of the famous Tottenham lasagne incident.
It all seemed like good karma for the match to come.
We arrived at Heathrow extremely early this morning. The Border has become very efficient, and we were quickly in the Tube on our way to our hotel, the CitizenM Tower Hill. It was all quite a bit too quick and we arrived far too early to check in. We took a few minutes to reorganize for the day, checked our bags, and walked out into a beautiful, rare (at least for us) sunny London day.
We’ve been curious just how busy the streets would be post-pandemic, and for sure the number of people out and about was lighter than in previous trips. We were happy to see that it’s still incredibly vibrant. When we started coming in 2016, the number of cranes over the buildings was astonishing, suggesting tons of building and renovation. If anything, the number of cranes post pandemic is even more extreme. It’s pretty hard to take any kind of a skyline picture without cranes all over it. London is definitely not sitting around on its laurels.
Business first, we shopped quickly for the best SIM card deal we could find in our neighborhood. Because that took us over near Leadenhall market, we wandered about there for a bit. Leadenhall market is said to be J K Rowling’s inspiration for Diagon Alley (and certainly where a scene about Diagon Alley was filmed in the first Harry Potter movie).
We also found ourselves wandering over to Borough market. I guess because we haven’t been in London for so long we wanted to repeat some things we’ve done before. We bought some croissants and empanadas to hold us over until a real meal could occur. And then we walked along the Thames over near The Globe. We enjoyed watching kids playing along the river front and listening to the variety of buskers making music and most enjoyably, making bubbles. They were so pretty in the sun.
Borough market
While we were there, we formed a plan to visit the Eltham Place. This is a smallish palace that started as a manor house and became a vacation/weekend haunt of Edward II and his heirs starting in the early 1300s. Henry VIII grew up in the Palace. It fell into disuse and was restored by a textile magnate and his wife in the 1930s. We learned that we could take the train to the place, so we set out for the London Bridge train station. We struggled to figure out how to buy round trip tickets to the location we had understood to be the closest and ended up buying tickets to the town of Eltham. However, once we got to the tracks we were informed by a train employee that you can’t get to Eltham Palace from Eltham.
At that point we had a decision to make. We decided to let the train take us to an adventure in Eltham, even if that adventure would not be Eltham Palace. I slept almost the whole way there.
When we stepped out of the train, our googling, enabled by the new SIM card, gave us new hope—it seemed we could EASILY walk to Eltham Palace. It was only 10 minutes up a pretty, shaded street.
Photo: Wholearsed
I’m glad we went because it was a very peaceful setting, with cool, somewhat wild gardens amongst Medieval walls. Note: you could see London skyline, including all the cranes, from the garden. The Palace, which would have been quite small by Palace standards (at least among those I have toured previously) was made larger due to a large great room used for parties.
The textile magnate and wife had left the exterior relatively pure to its roots, but inside had redecorated to 1930s standards in Art Deco. Although it seemed strange amongst palaces I’ve seen, it was interesting to see someone apply modern style to an ancient space.
We enjoyed the house and gardens and then trotted back to the train. By the time we returned to Tower Hill it was well past the time to check in to the CitizenM.
We’ve visited London at least 15 times and have never repeated a hotel….except this time. Partly because there weren’t very many options in our price point and partly because it just seemed like something familiar might be nice after the pandemic-induced hiatus from travel. Although the CitizenM is fine, it’s not the hotel I thought it was when we selected. Our room has the dreaded alcove bed where inside person has to climb over outside person to leave the bed. In my case, this is numerous times in a typical night. Oh well. We will enjoy the view and the location anyway.
Tower Bridge (Photo: WholeArsed)
We were happy for the shower and regrouped for dinner. For dinner tried a program via the Evening Standard where restaurants form prix fixe menus with typically three courses + wine for a reasonable price. We selected Cucina del Ponte. This restaurant is located along the Thames with inside/outside dining and a great view of Tower Bridge. There was also musical entertainment—an opera singer. I’m not a huge fan of opera but that was a very nice addition to the experience. The food was very good. I chose the Caprese salad, Scaloppina alla pizzaiola, and panacotta. My husband had bruschetta classica, mushroom risotto, and tiramisu.
Then a quick visit to a local pub called Hung, Drawn & Quartered for a London Pride, before we called it a day.
WholeArsed 