After a long, grueling, and gray winter, Spring has arrived in London!
And suddenly, I understand why people say London is their favorite. These bright, sunny, warm(ish) days are full of flowering trees and bushes and breezes. Cycling and walking around I can’t help but see the world differently through my sunglasses-tinted sunglasses. I understand why people hate going down into the dark, musty tube stations. Why go below when there be sunshine up here??
Spring in London is an apology for the last three months of yuck. Spring brings hope and tulips — and already it stays light outside until 9pm. It’s glorious!
There is also a beautiful cultural thing in the UK: the Bank Holiday. These are basically nation-wide freebie vacation days. The dates don’t have affiliations with dead presidents or historic battles or religious high holy days. They’re just days when (almost) everyone in the UK gets a long weekend. And the banks are closed (obviously).
The first one was this past weekend, so we treated our Sunday like a second Saturday and had a Proper British Afternoon, complete with a Sunday Roast, frolicking through Hyde Park, and meandering through Little Venice.
What’s a Sunday Roast? It’s delicious, that’s what. They’re set meals of hearty veggies, topped with your choice of meat and a Yorkshire Pudding. And everything I just listed is code for “Gravy Delivery Mechanism.”
Sunday Roasts are found throughout London. We were at Cask in Pimlico, which also has a vegetarian option if you swing that way. And a bonus folk band, playing up-tempo tunes. We couldn’t figure out if they were hired to be there, or if it’s just a group who get together to drink beer, play good music and spin around on the stools (which the flute player did whilst playing!).
After that lazy two-hour affair of food, beer, friends, and more food, Britton and I walked up around Buckingham Palace, where tulips are blooming big enough for everyone to ignore the “stay off the grass” signs while trying to perfectly place themselves for a selfie.
The road between Buckingham Palace was closed to traffic, and everyone was taking advantage. I love the perspective of the old trees leading your eye to Hyde Park Corner and the archway. This would be a super-great photo if the statue on top weren’t covered in scaffolding.
(If you ever have a chance to go back to London in the 80s, invest in a scaffolding company. You’ll be rich.)
We meandered over to Hyde Park which was full of activity! Kids playing football (er, soccer), couples making out, tourists taking photos of squirrels. Everything you could want from an afternoon in London’s most famous park. We flopped down for a bit on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine. The temperature was cooling by that point, but we couldn’t make ourselves go inside.
An easy thirty-minute walk from Hyde Park is an area dubbed “Little Venice” since it’s on the canals and waterways. Over Bank Holiday weekend they gussy up all the houseboats and hold a little procession celebrating the neighborhood (waterhood?). We missed the parade (waterade?) but the boats were very festive!
All in all, it was a fun way to spend a day outside! And it definitely felt like a Proper British Sunday, complete with all the essentials of a New Londoner Trying to Be A Real Londoner. I’m so looking forward to taking advantage of as much of the sunshine as possible.
