#91 July 30, 2022 Nomad Diary. Lots of Walking. Riding the 'Tube'. Discovering Significant Bits of History.
Darrell with Coco the cat in her London flat.
Saturday Activities. 30. On this day Darrell is feeling as though he’s recovering from his Tuesday night to Wednesday start with covid, and about 10 in the morning, symptoms hit me. I have already had breakfast, cleaned up, started laundry for our packing up to leave tomorrow. I’m making a loaf of banana bread to leave for our house sit hosts when they arrive back to their flat Sunday night. I get immediately exhausted while spooning banana bread batter into the pan and I cannot finish. I must sit down and stay there. Darrell finishes the baking. I’m down with only short spurts of activity through the day. We make our Sunday plan to leave by 9am. We won’t be going to church with our recent illness and I’m going to wear a facemask on the train.
Week’s Highlights.
Friday. 29. I take an afternoon walk through Hackney and Clapton Park and get a couple pastries and items at the grocery. Darrell is still weak and sick and I’m still feeling fine. We are thinking about Sunday in two days because we are scheduled to leave here and travel by train to a Bed and Breakfast in Swindon for one night, and then travel by train on Monday to our Bitton Airbnb where we have a two week stay.
Thursday. 28. Darrell was full on sick today with a fever, and sneezing some. It’s hot in the apartment and he’s trying to rest, get naps and stay hydrated. He takes a self covid test and it’s positive. We cancel our plans for meeting with a couple of different people. We find out that someone from the church also has covid. I’m still feeling fine. I cook simple.
Wednesday. 27. On this day we get up and I have a plan to walk about 3 miles to Bunhill Field Cemetery.
Statue of John Wesely across the street from Bunhill.
Darrell isn’t feeling great but he decides to come anyway. We rest ½ way there and get a morning drink at a cafe. We continue to Bunhill. This cemetery is well-kept and there are several informational history boards telling the notable people who are buried here including Isaac Watts. His tomb is inside a locked fence that can be accessed by request. We didn’t go into the locked area, but rather looked around at other accessible tombs with stories written on them. Once we finished we walked back toward the entry and just across the street was a statue of John Wesely, a chapel, his house, and a museum of Methodism. We went through the basement museum and opted out of the house tour because Darrell was really feeling poorly even though he continued to push himself. He wanted to ride a bus back to our flat asap. We googled to find an agreeable restaurant and walked about ½ mile to a nice Italian place where we carbed out with homemade pasta and bread. We then boarded the closest bus and got back to our place.
Tuesday. 26. I have enjoyed cappuccinos more here than anywhere. We get them several times a week as we are out, either in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Sometimes we order a tea that comes with milk in a little pitcher that can be added or not. I’m enjoying this time of sitting and having a lingering drink together with Darrell as we talk or just rest together. These drinks make the gap between meals go smoother and last longer for me. On this day we walk 20 minutes to Abney Park Cemetery. We arrive to a construction zone at the entry.
We find our way through and into the pathways in the park that others are using mostly for walking their pet dogs. This cemetery is unkempt. It is vastly overgrown and looks forgotten. The paths have been cleared for walkers, and oddly, the gravestones look as though they have been pushed back off of the current path and are shoved right up against one another sometime 3-4 deep. Many of the tombstones are readable, but some have weathered away. We wander through the maze of paths enjoying the cover of the green tall trees away from the heat of the concrete streets and traffic of this London neighborhood. We come to a couple of nicely kept monuments. One has a full sized lion on top of it and the complete story on the tomb of the family here. A short distance from this impressive tomb is a statue monument to Isaac Watts, a familiar name in spiritual hymn writing. I know some of his music as I have sung it all my life. “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”; “Joy to The World”; and more. He lived 1674-1748. He is not buried here, and I wonder why this full size statue of him is here. The statue explains that this location used to be a large Manor house owned by another who let him live here. He lived here at the manor and died here. He is buried a couple miles closer to London at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. So now I want to go there and see what that cemetery looks like. This place we are walking around Abney Park Cemetery, was originally laid out by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts and the neighboring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery. It was used until about 2000 and housing almost 200,000 burials.
Monday. 25. Today we walk to a tube station and head for Greenwich to go to the National Maritime Museum. When we arrive, we come out into a very clean neighborhood that looks set up for tourists. It’s before 10am and we walk through the Greenwich Market where food trucks are getting set up for the day. We walk around the block of shops and restaurants and find a bakery to get a take away cappuccino and a sweet roll. We carry our 2nd breakfast a block towards the river and find a bench to sit and enjoy. As we sit there, we take in the view of London and a memorial right in front of us, then a fence around this park, and then an old ship inside a building. Looking up on google what this is, we see that it is the Cutty Sark ship from the 1800’s and it is a museum where you tour the ship. We go there once we finish our coffee. We learn all kinds of info about the Cutty Sark, the tea importing business and the growth and development of ships for speed and delivery of goods. After we finish with this beautiful museum, we go back to the Market and decide to get Asian soup at a food truck. It’s fantastic! There are picnic tables to eat at in the shade and we talk to a local woman who works as a college recruiter and comes here for lunch quite often. Next we go a block in the other direction and find the Maritime Museum. We spend 2-3 hours here and enjoy the well-done displays of different aspects of ships, exploring and business through the centuries. Both of the museums we went to here had displays of wood carved ship decorations. Over 100 in both locations, painted and enjoyable to view as a past part of ships and their unique identities.
Sunday. 24. We walk 3 miles to church from Dalston Kingston to Kings Cross in London. The weather is sunny and warm. It is our second Sunday with this church and we enjoy our time studying and worshiping together. Afterwards, we use google maps to find a restaurant that we agree on to try. We get to an Italian place serving brunch. It’s very good using homemade breads and all cooked from scratch meals. We walk back to our flat.
Nomad Notes. This is the second week of our London house sit. This is our first experience of this type, and we have positives to take away. We enjoyed the relationship of caring for a house and a pet with the benefit of living in a home and no cash exchanged. We are already looking toward our next unique house sit in a couple more weeks.
Being sick this week has been a bummer, but this happens and we were so glad that the timing and our energy to move and get around worked out just on the end days of our stay in London. Thankfully we recovered quickly and were ready to see the beautiful scenery and historic places in and around Bath and Bristol.
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