England

 

Letter No. 280

Dear all,

Our trip continued in the UK:

Day 12 – Marrakesh to Norfolk

Today was what travel bloggers call a “transition day,” which meant that we spent most of it in transit and none of it in a pool. We left our Marrakesh hotel at 7am for a 10am flight to Stansted, then a 2:30pm train to King’s Lynn—a town that sounds like it should be in a Jane Austen novel but is in fact a real place in Norfolk.

Katie was buzzing with excitement to see her brother again, which was very sweet. Chris met us at the station and whisked us off to our Airbnb to drop off our luggage. We had a lovely dinner at Chris and Julie’s home, which was as charming as a BBC period drama but with better plumbing. We sat in their courtyard garden catching up over a bottle of champagne and enjoying the long, golden twilight—because in Norfolk, the sun doesn’t so much set as politely excuses itself. Chris walked us back to our Airbnb, which was very gentlemanly.

Day 13 – Norfolk Broads

After a quick breakfast with Chris and Julie, we set off for a day on the Norfolk Broads—a vast network of rivers and lakes formed not by nature but by medieval peat digging. The Broads are essentially flooded holes left behind by 12th-century energy extraction. Eco-tourism before it was cool.

We arrived in Wroxham, the Capital of the Broads, around 10am. Chris, who has clearly missed his calling as a luxury cruise director, had booked a magnificent wherry sailing boat for the day. For the uninitiated, a wherry is a traditional Norfolk boat with a single large sail and a hull that looks like it was designed by someone who really liked barrels. These boats were once used to transport cargo like coal and reed, but today they mostly carry picnic baskets and holidaymakers. Beautifully restored, ours was one of only eight remaining wherrys still operating on the Broads.

Chris had secretly booked this day out as a surprise birthday present for Katie and Julie, whose birthday was a few days later, and the day turned into a floating party, with crates of champagne and trays of sandwiches and canapés, plus five friends who joined us at the boat jetty. The weather was spectacular—blue skies, warm sun, and just enough breeze to keep the wherry moving at a dignified and leisurely pace. We anchored for lunch, popped more champagne, and tried not to look too smug as other much smaller boats passed us.

By 5pm, we were back at the dock, sun-kissed and quite tipsy. It was just a perfect day. The kind of day that makes you wonder why you don’t live on a boat full-time.

Day 14 – Snettisham

I went for a run in the morning, the first since we left home. The English countryside is far more forgiving than the labyrinthine alleys of Morocco where I feared I’d vanish into a souk and re-emerge in a rug shop three days later, inexplicably fluent in Berber. Here in Snettisham, I managed a solid 5km, with a lot of stops to forage the abundant hedgerows for blackberries in their full fruiting late Summer glory. Perhaps less a run and more a berry buffet with intermittent cardio.

After my berry-laced exertions, we wandered over to Chris and Julie’s for a light breakfast and the next part of Chris’s “Festival of Katie” plan—a tour of Sandringham House. This is the royal family's countryside bolthole, and quite possibly the most comfortable house in England.

Sandringham House, nestled in the very pretty Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, has been a royal residence since 1862 when Queen Victoria bought it for her son Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII. The house itself was rebuilt in 1870, and features red brick, gables, and a conservatory that was once a billiard room and then a bowling alley. The estate spans a modest 20,000 acres, which is roughly the size of a small country. Sandringham has seen its fair share of royal drama. King George V and King George VI both died there, and Queen Elizabeth II spent her winters on the estate, marking her father’s death and her own accession with quiet reflection and, presumably, excellent tea. It was also the site of the first royal Christmas broadcast in 1932, proving that even monarchs aren’t immune to festive awkwardness.

Just as we arrived, the sun made a spectacular appearance from the clouds and bathed the estate in golden light, making everything look like a BBC period drama. We started at beautiful Sandringham Church which was where you see the Royal Family going to Christmas Service every year on the news. Next we toured the house, marvelling at its opulence and Queen Camilla’s jigsaws, and wondering how many corgis had scampered across those carpets. Post-tour, we had a picnic on the grounds with another spectacular feast of gourmet sandwiches and pink champagne. It was all very Downton Abbey, minus the servants and the looming threat of scandal.

In the evening, Chris whisked us off to The Gin Trap for dinner—a charming establishment that sounds like a Victorian pub but serves food that’s far more refined. We had a lovely evening, full of laughter, good food, and the kind of catching up that feels like slipping into a favourite jumper. After dinner we went back to their house for cheesecake and reminisced about Katie’s parents Ken and Pam. Spending time with Chris and Julie was so lovely; it is just such a shame that we can’t see them more often. If only the darn earth wasn’t so big!

Day 15 – Snettisham to London

Today we bid farewell to the charming village of Snettisham. Chris chauffeured us to King’s Lynn Railway Station, and we headed by train to King’s Cross. We dodged the huge crowds of tourists looking at Platform 9¾, and queuing for a photograph of Harry Potter’s luggage disappearing into the wall. There was also a Harry Potter Shop which was absolutely heaving.

We then caught the underground up to Southgate in North London and we were greeted by Julia Kyprianou, one of Katie’s university friends. Staying with Julia and Chris is so lovely and familiar and we had a delightful afternoon chat in the garden sunshine.

Later, I took a long walk around Southgate, which, fun fact, was once the southern gate to Enfield Chase – King Charles I’s personal hunting ground. The area blossomed in the 1930s thanks to the arrival of the Piccadilly Line and a sudden enthusiasm for semi-detached houses. Grovelands Park was once a private estate designed by John Nash (who also did bits of Buckingham Palace) and landscaped by Humphry Repton, the Beyoncé of Georgian garden design.

That evening, Chris and their son Hector dashed off to see Coldplay, so we had a quiet night with Julia and her daughter Eleni, which was just as entertaining but with fewer lasers. We slept in Hector’s room, which is now officially the most famous bedroom we’ve ever occupied. Hector Kyprianou currently plays for Watford in the Championship League, which means we’ve technically shared a roof with footballing royalty. I didn’t touch anything, just in case it affected his performance stats.

Day 16 – London to Oxford

The day began with a run around the lake in Grovelands Park, where I was delighted to spot grey squirrels—those bushy-tailed acrobats of the British Isles which, despite their cuteness, are technically invasive and have bullied the native red squirrels into near oblivion. Still, they’re charming little tyrants.

After breakfast, we set off with Julia toward Oxford, with a detour to Marlow—a town so quaint it practically apologizes for existing. Marlow has been settled since the Saxon period and was once a bustling inland port. It even had its own market by 1227 and was the centre of lace production in the UK for hundreds of years. We had lunch at The Ivy and then Katie and Julia went shopping unsupervised (a phrase that should strike fear into any wallet), while I wandered about like a Victorian ghost. I visited the Marlow Museum, admired the elegant suspension bridge designed by William Tierney Clark in 1833, and watched swans glide along the Thames with the kind of smug serenity only swans can manage.

We arrived in Eynsham just outside of Oxford to stay with Katie’s university friends Mei-Mei and Richard. The whole gang—Julia, Eleanor, Mei-Mei, Katie and Niki—assembled like a reunion episode of an 1980s sitcom. We took a long walk around their village, which was charming in that “I bet the postman knows everyone’s dog by name” sort of way. Mei-Mei whipped up a delicious salmon poke-bowl dinner, accompanied by a bottle of Sandringham Gin and a cacophony of cackling as the ladies unearthed photos from their university days. The hairstyles alone were worth staying up until midnight.

Day 17 – Oxford, the Cotswolds and back to London

The ladies ventured up to the Cotswolds for a garden tour and lunch at Highgrove House, the country residence of King Charles III. He purchased the house in 1980 and set about transforming the gardens, once a tangled mess, into a haven of organic horticulture and royal whimsy. The girls loved their tour and lunch and came away feeling inspired by the King’s green-thumbed vision, topiary and garden ornaments.

Meanwhile I took the bus into Oxford for a solo day of tourism. Oxford itself is a city so steeped in history it practically speaks Latin. It was first settled in the Saxon period and became a strategic crossing point thanks to its shallow rivers—hence the name “Oxenaforda,” meaning “ford of the oxen.” The University of Oxford was established in the 12th century and has been causing intellectual inferiority complexes ever since.

My itinerary was ambitious, and my legs now hate me. I visited:

·        Bodleian Library – where books go to live forever.

·        Radcliffe Camera – a building so photogenic it should have its own Instagram.

·        St Mary’s Church – climbed the spire, saw the view, questioned my life choices halfway up.

·        Museum of Natural History – fossils, dinosaurs and rocks… all my favourite things.

·        Pitt Rivers Museum – a delightful collection of weapons, masks, and other items that scream “colonial souvenir.”

·        River Cherwell – watched people punting, which is like gondoliering but with more accidental swimming.

·        Botanical Garden – plants behaving nicely.

·        Covered Markets – where you can buy anything from artisan cheese to existential dread.

·        Museum of Oxford – history, but with better lighting.

·        Oxford Castle – climbed the tower and hill, because apparently I hadn’t punished my legs enough.

After a restorative pint (medicinal, obviously), I caught the bus back to Mei-Mei’s where we all gathered for tea and cake before driving back to London. A heroic effort from Julia doing all the driving over the two days. Dinner was an easy and delicious Greek takeaway with Chris.

Day 18 – London

Ah, London. The city of fog, royalty, and an underground system that’s both a marvel of engineering and a test of one’s patience. We took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus, then onto the Cavendish Hotel, which greeted us with the classic British hospitality of “Sorry Sir, your room’s not ready yet.”

Undeterred, we wandered next door into Fortnum & Mason, the grande dame of department stores. Founded in 1707 by William Fortnum (a footman who moonlighted as a candle reseller) and Hugh Mason (his landlord turned business partner), this establishment has been supplying the British elite with everything from Scotch eggs (which they claim to have invented in 1738) to beef tea for Florence Nightingale’s hospitals during the Crimean War. It’s also where Heinz baked beans made their UK debut in 1886—because nothing says luxury like legumes in tomato sauce. We bought lunch from Bagels-to-go (not Scotch eggs, sadly) and ate in Green Park, a pleasant spot for watching the squirrels.

Post-check-in, I went for a run around St James’s Park, which has evolved from a leper hospital’s swampy backyard to a royal playground. Henry VIII turned it into a deer park, James I added exotic animals (including crocodiles and an elephant), and Charles II redesigned it with a canal for romantic strolls and mistress rendezvous. Today, it features pelicans gifted by a Russian ambassador in 1664, who presumably thought London needed more beaks. My route took me past the Churchill War Rooms, Buckingham Palace, and up Waterloo Place—a veritable sculpture garden of imperial nostalgia. There’s the Duke of York Column, commemorating the man who reformed the army and inspired a nursery rhyme. Nearby, statues of Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert remind us that even Victorian healthcare had its heroes. And even the statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, who helped win the Battle of Britain and now watches over tourists with stoic disapproval.

That evening, we went to West Kensington for dinner with dear friends Sandra and John Rontree. Sandra cooked a beautiful meal, and we had a lovely evening reminiscing on our days in Hale.  We were also delighted by a surprise visit from Sarah and Millie Rose, who were staying nearby.

Day 19 – London

Our morning walk took us through Leicester Square, originally laid out in 1670. The square’s central park was once a drying ground for laundry—so glamorous. It now houses cinemas and the world's largest Lego store. Next was Covent Garden, a district that began as a convent’s vegetable patch and blossomed into London’s first public square in 1630, thanks to architect Inigo Jones. It later became a bustling market and, by the 18th century, a haven for brothels and buskers. Today, it’s a charming mix of street performers and boutique shops, with a side of overpriced coffee.

While Katie had her hair done, I explored the London Transport Museum, which chronicles 200 years of London’s transport history—from horse-drawn omnibuses to the Tube’s deep-level shelters used during WWII. A shrine to the city’s obsession with getting from A to B, usually while complaining about delays.

We had lunch in Covent Garden watching the buskers, then strolled through the National Portrait Gallery, which opened in 1856 as the world’s first gallery dedicated to portraits. It houses everything from Shakespeare’s “possibly-him” portrait to Queen Victoria in medieval cosplay. The gallery’s motto: it’s not about the artist, it’s about the sitter—so even mediocre brushwork gets a spot if the subject was historically important. The oldest portrait dated from 1505, I forget who it was as I was too busy working out how old the painting was (520 years).

After another brief visit to Fortnum & Mason, we got ready for the finale of Katie’s Birthday Festival: a party at Ziggy Green. This boutique Mayfair bistro is a brilliant combination of Australian and UK culture, which Katie couldn’t resist. It is owned by an Australian family and serves signature Australian-style food and wines, and is also a shrine to David Bowie, being in Heddon Street which was the location of the cover image on his 1980s album Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars. It was a very cool space with some fabulous Bowie-themed artworks. Katie had done all the planning for the event “site-unseen”, so we were thrilled to finally see the restaurant and discover that it was perfect for our small gathering.

We were joined by 41 friends drawn from all of Katie’s different past lives—family and friends from when she grew up in Yorkshire, close friends from her Oxford Poly student days, some friends from our years in Manchester when our kids were at Bowdon Church School, a couple from Hong Kong who now live in Scotland, and even a couple of friends from Brisbane who actually live on our street.

It was a great party. Chris and I both gave speeches peppered with photos and colourful stories illustrating Katie’s 60 Glorious Years – Chris mostly covering Katie’s first 30 years and me covering the next 30. Chris had really gone the extra mile and printed booklets with a page for each decade with lots of facts and photos; his speech was a This is Your Life style presentation complete with theme music, the red book, props including Katie’s “actual” lacrosse stick from her school days and her long-dead black cat Elliot, plus recorded “messages” from many people who couldn’t attend the party—Tom Cruise, Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Middleton and King Charles himself. It was all very entertaining. The venue served lovely canapes, mini beefburgers, delicious prawn rolls, bowl food and a fabulous two-tier starry birthday cake which Katie had organised herself.

After the venue closed at 11pm, a smaller group of die-hards crossed the road to The Starman pub (another homage to David Bowie with a large wall mural of the Ziggy Stardust album cover) and the party kicked on for another couple of hours. Thankfully, Katie’s birthday has now been well and truly celebrated. I don’t think I can cope with another milestone birthday for at least 10 years.

Day 20 – London

Our final day in the UK began with a bittersweet farewell coffee with Chris, Julie, and the kids. It’s always hard to say goodbye because we never know when we’ll be back. We hadn’t stayed up until 2am for quite some time, so were a little slow.

I had wanted to visit the Lego shop, but sadly it was closed until 12:30pm, so I just pressed my nose against the glass and drooled at the life-sized Lego creations like a Dickensian orphan outside a bakery. We decided to catch the tube up to King’s Cross to see Coal Drops Yard and Granary Court, which is a relatively new retail and dining district with a gritty Victorian past. Coal Drops Yard was originally built in 1851 as part of the King’s Cross Coal Depot, a hub for unloading coal from Yorkshire via rail. The coal was dropped—literally—into hoppers and bagged for merchants, while horses and carts waited below. It was a marvel of industrial efficiency, though not particularly gentle on the coal itself, which often emerged more as dust than lump.

Afterwards, we returned to Chris and Julia’s for a proper Cypriot BBQ. Chris manned the rotisserie like a seasoned general, turning chicken into something worthy of poetry. Hector, their son, flew off to Cyprus to play in World Cup qualifiers (no pressure). Their daughters Anna and Eleni joined us with their boyfriends, both George, and the evening turned into a lovely, laughter-filled send-off.

Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie, Molly & Pippa