While Not Working

We came to Huddersfield not because of any particularly outstanding tourist sites but to visit family members who moved there in April and who were thus locals from our point of view. Huddersfield's history dated back a respectable 4000 years or so and included a Roman fort, a long-deserted medieval village, and a Norman Castle, none of which were evident other than in barely perceptible patterns on Castle Hill, just outside of town. Back in 1899 (recent times!) a stone tower was built on top to celebrate Queen Victoria's jubilee, and this was still the dominant feature of the landscape. The moors lie just out of town. We visited the Victoria Tower on a clear day with a bitterly cold wind that soon saw us all huddling in the lee of the Tower before we gave up and went home for a nice cup of tea without doing any exploring at all. Huddersfield had a long history of textile production in cottage industries capitalising on abundant supplies of wool and soft water. Huge textile mil...

We walked through Chelsea streets to the South Kensington railway station to catch the Tube to London Euston.  Lugging two bags is not my favourite pastime. Chelsea streetscape. Front yard art. The public announcements at London Euston Station implored travellers to exercise decorum and dignity: "Please walk through the station. Please do not run."  The trouble was no one, including British Rail, knew from which of the 15+ platforms their train would leave and everyone knew, courtesy of the PA system, that the train would leave on time and latecomers be damned and definitely left behind. A crowd gathered on the concourse under the display boards, everyone watching as the minutes ticked down to departure times. When a platform number clicked up a river of people ran for their train. Sometimes two numbers came up at the same time, and two human rivers created whirlpools and eddies awash with runaway luggage, dropped sandwiches, and desperation. Our platform number came up with ...

In the world of disability modification Britain had a reputation for quite innovative solutions to the problem of elderly and disabled Britons getting in and out of their baths. In the slightly dingy hotel world I now inhabited, the bathtub came with the promise of a long hot soak to ease sore feet and weary muscles after 20 000 steps of sightseeing. Alas, there was no bath plug let alone any other innovations, and I had to make do with a scrawny shower instead. Such are a tourist's trials. What sent me in need of a hot bath, you ask? Well, Storm Benjamin came to London town with dire warnings of flooding and risk of decapitation by flying roof tiles.  This was my last day in London and Roger and Steve could cope for a day as long as neither of them did any bending and all things dropped stayed where they landed. I went out for the day, flying roof tiles or no. Whoever thought they could fool people into thinking a circle of paint was a roundabout? I caught the Uber Boat from Chels...

Barely had I walked two steps from the Tower of London when I came across All Hallows Barking , which claimed to be the oldest church in London City with fascinating crypts and layers of foundations suggesting that the site had been used for worship consistently since before the Romans founded the settlement of Londinium. Roman mosaic tile floor uncovered during renovation/rebuilds. The tiny museum/crypt. There was another slightly bigger one next door. Creepy cherub. Barely had I walked two steps from All Hallows Barking when I stumbled across St Mary at Hill , which was entered via a little laneway and a secret garden and had a lovely double-faced clock on its exterior. An enthusiastic member of the Friends of London Churches told me that they try to have all of the churches open to visitors at least a couple of days each week. He sniffed when he found that I'd come from All Hallows. "Oh yes," he said. "They claim they're the oldest church in London City."...