By dint of an unusually straining-at-the-seams backpack – already to blame for some unhappy compromises, most notably the abandonment of two whole boxes of Creme Eggs – I have been forced to carry my laptop along as hand-luggage. Which means, in a silver lining sort of way, that I can start writing up my trip home before I even reach America again.
The Cambridge table at Caroline and Charles’s wedding
The initial anchor for this visit was Caroline and Charles’s wedding in York. They have many, many beautiful photos of their own, but suffice to say it was a beautiful wedding with delicious food, the best first dance selection I have ever seen (Everybody Wants To Be A Cat) and a fancy fireworks display. More importantly, they both looked incredibly happy together, so congratulations!
I woke up the next morning to find myself with no hangover but instead a year older, and spent my birthday morning exploring York (OK, mostly exploring the Railway Museum) with Randi, Katie and Randi’s parents. Then we used the real, actual railway to get back to London, sans Katie, and have dinner in Willesden Green together with my parents, Tash and Randi’s brother Alex. Got that? Good, because the next two weeks were a bit of a blur of working during the day and then shifting combinations of family and friends by night.
Families
One very special meeting was with Jack and his amazing parents, Abbi and Paul, a few hours after he was born at St George’s Hospital. Later on in the trip, we also met Josh and Cindy’s beautiful baby, Isaac, who is a few months older and has learned the twin tricks of smiling and gripping people’s fingers. It was so wonderful to see them both and I can’t wait to watch them grow up.
Last time I was in London I didn’t get a chance to go to the Tricycle – a grave omission – but we made up for it this time around with The Invisible Hand. The synopsis (American banker, Nick Bright, held hostage in Pakistan) made it sound a lot grimmer than it actually was. It’s actually a surprisingly funny play, as Nick is forced to play the market to try and raise his own ransom. A few nights later, we also introduced Randi’s family to the ever-reliable News Revue for some temporary relief during Friday’s grim post-Brexit blues.
Our Harry Potter tickets
But the best stage performance of the trip was, not surprisingly, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I’d been excited about seeing this ever since I snagged tickets on a tense morning back in October, but given the circumstances, it was perfect timing to leave the real world and be transported into JK Rowling’s creation for a combined matinee plus evening showing of Parts One and Two. They rightly implore the audience to keep all of the play’s secrets, so I will do, but it was utterly magical. And the staging alone changed my expectations about what is possible in the theatre.
On top of the (crumbling) world
Wasn’t supposed to take a photo of this. Sorry.
In blatant thievery of my sisters’ ideas, Randi and I also booked tickets to climb the O2 one night. (As it happened, the last time I was here it was still the Millennium Dome.) Their instructional briefing makes it sound like a feat of endurance, but actually, it’s easier than climbing a flight of stairs. And it’s funny, because while I’m sure the view would have been lovely on a bright, sunny day – or majestic on a clear night – the slightly apocalyptic air of grey clouds and light rain was equally evocative. Especially since you can’t really see much of London from the top, but you can feel like you have a bit role in an action film.
Food, unevenly distributed
In the Sir Colin Campbell
With dad, Daryl and Ermila
I have a very long list of other engagements over the last two weeks, including drinks near my old Highbury home with Clark where we celebrated with newly-minted respectable homeowners Cat and Matt. Simon joined me and Randi to complain about Corbyn, update us on his own scandalous life, and plan our upcoming American adventure. I finally saw Oliver and Abi’s flat and enjoyed its proximity to Italian food and wine, ate something like my third burrito of the trip over lunch with Christa (which is absurd, I know) and confirmed – over more drinks – that there is no issue about which I wouldn’t want to hear Melissa’s opinion. (And, y’know, maybe argue about it a little.) Not to mention snatching an hour with Daryl and Ermila, whiling away a night with Josh and Anna in a joyful little pub on Kilburn High Road where an enormous Irish folk band take up most of the space, and having a very brief and unscheduled reunion with Alex Trafford who lamented that my last blog post had made him miserable. Sorry!
Photo courtesy of Villy, Randi’s friend who accompanied us to the London Transport Museum
Also huge thanks to my family for organising lots of things with the common theme of stuffing me with food: a big gathering at Maggie Jones’s, a great dinner one night at Andrew and Bonnie’s, and one of my grandparents’ famous teas. But I want to conclude with a few more London landmarks which I deployed this year to continue brainwashing Randi:
- The London Transport Museum. Obviously.
- Dinner on Brick Lane. One of our many Indian dinners, of course, but the only one where you can start to smell the spices as you approach.
- A long-awaited sighting of North London’s many, many foxes.
Rainbow! Metaphor!
I’m not quite done with my trip to the UK, but I wanted to jot down some thoughts on Brexit before flying back. Partly because blogging is much cheaper than therapy, but mostly because I don’t want my upcoming ‘nice things I did at home’ post to be overlaid with lots of doom and gloom about our national implosion.
I stayed up until 3.30am on the night of the result, as it became increasingly obvious that England & Wales had voted to leave. And the feeling in the pit of my stomach was much worse than a disappointing general election. On those nights there is a feeling of gloom, as you watch your country move down a path you wish it hadn’t chosen. But on the night of the EU Referendum, it just felt like nihilism. To feel you have won absolutely nothing from Europe or from globalisation is one thing, but voting Leave also says – with such miserable certainty – that you have no hope for your children or grandchildren either, so pull up the drawbridge and damn the lot of them.
This doesn’t mean that the country is finished, of course, although it’s quite possible that the Union is. But the vote was not won on a manifesto. There was no plan. The leaders of Leave just burned the house down and walked away. There are intellectual arguments, yes, on the right (obsessed, in a rather un-British way, with abstract metaphysics about sovereignty) and the left (keen to prove themselves useful idiots by quitting Europe’s ‘capitalist club’) but neither are why Britain voted to Leave. It’s about immigration, stupid.
I know the ‘elite’ 48% of the country who voted to Remain are now required to humble themselves at anti-migration sentiment. But surrendering to a lie won’t make it true. Reducing migration from inside or outside the European Union will not create a single job, build a single house or care for a single person. No one will win from this. Impoverishment does not enrich culture. When the reckoning comes, and the betrayal is unmasked, the rage that will erupt will be terrifying.
I am disappointed, actually, that Boris will not become Prime Minister. As a lightweight without convictions – just like Cameron – there was a good chance he would choose the easy life domestically and avoid the wilder fringes of Conservative thought. And as the leader of Leave, who never wanted to win, he had the best chance of pulling off the closest possible deal with the EU. Clearly Michael Gove came to the same conclusion, as he knifed him.
Corbyn is not worth more words. Thank goodness for Sadiq Khan.
Polling station photo courtesy Tash, in happier times
Celebrating Randi (finally!) being done with uni
- Following-up my introduction to Indiana Jones with Temple of Doom (truly awful: like some sort of misogyny vs. racism face-off) and then Last Crusade (somewhat redeeming)
- Saying goodbye to Kevin (off to the West Coast), Nolan (off to the West Coast) and Alex (thankfully not off to the West Coast). Too many goodbyes, really.
- A wonderful Indian dinner at Ellen’s (who better not ever leave us for the West Coast or I might cry)
- Eating Ethiopian food for the first time courtesy of Carrie and her mysterious alias. Turns out Ethiopian food is delicious.
- Seeing Robert and Julie again! This one gets an exclamation mark because I had to wait six months, but it was worth it.
Sharing my extensive baseball expertise with overseas visitors
Sadly, these are just things you’ll have to go without hearing about, because I urgently need to pack for my flight to the UK tomorrow. So you’ll never know, for example, that at the Sox game I managed three hot dogs to Neil’s paltry two. Sorry!
Having almost exhausted the states which lie within a plausible weekend driving distance from Chicago, the logical candidate for the extended Memorial Day weekend trip was Ohio. Ohio! The land of John Kasich’s triumphant first victory and desperate last stand in the 2016 Republican primary, I generated the same general level of confusion about going to Ohio as going to Iowa. To which I remind people that it wasn’t me who divvied America up into 50 states.
Together with partners-in-crime and people-who-can-drive-cars Randi and Jason, we arrived into the capital Columbus at a distressing late hour, argued for a bit about what time to set an alarm (“but I need to make the tour of the statehouse!”) and went to bed. The next day, Jason and I sauntered down to the Book Loft (a cool, higgledy-piggledy 32 room bookshop) before marking that all-important tour of Ohio’s capitol. Our guide was certainly trying her best, but despite a lot of confusing Lincoln references (who’s pretty well claimed by both Illinois and Kentucky already) there was no blockbuster politics. Outside the gift shop, a flashing dot matrix screen posed the question of our age: should school buses be fitted with seat belts?
Brace yourself for bad news, Ohio
I love Yats
After lunch at Yats (and it’s no exaggeration to say that we structured this entire trip around eating at Yats) we moved on to the town of Chillicothe and their annual Feast of the Flowering Moon. While the website very much played up the Native American angle, it soon became clear that most of the feasting was on deep-fried fair food, and while there was allegedly some Native American dancing in the park (we saw none) the main stage was instead given to an ageing cover band who opened – somewhat ironically – with a spirited rendition of We’re An American Band.
If I sound bitter, it’s only because Chillicothe rained on me quite a lot. An even-handed analysis would also include the fact that the park was beautiful, the fair clearly popular with families, and that deep-fried Oreos were very tasty. Sadly I missed my chance to witness a beauty pageant, although I didn’t miss the gaggle of young girls staring up at the pageant winner’s outfit in a shop window.
Randi’s weather app lied to us
But enough distractions. Our real destination in Ohio was the Hocking Hills State Park, and we stayed at the Wildwood Inn & Lllama Farm (llama farm!) as a guest of Mike – a really interesting guy with a fascinating life story. Not only did he cook us a delicious breakfast casserole, but we were also invited to roast s’mores around his fire at night and walk his llamas in the morning. This led to worrying moment when my llama bolted free at the first sign of rain and ran off down the path, at which point I wish Mike hadn’t told us that each llama cost him $3000. (Thankfully, it had just ran home.)
In the park itself, we went zip lining in the morning and canoeing seven miles down the river (“technically a creek”) in the afternoon. This was great fun, even when we got stuck on a log and had to be rescued. I could easily have spent a very relaxing and secluded week here, with its pleasingly lack of phone signal and windy rural roads. Ohio, you’ve won me over.
Not pictured below: the ‘Oldest Concrete Street in America’ of Bellefontaine, Ohio. You can use your imagination for that one.
City car, country road
Zip lining!
Post-zip lining!
(This was before we ran out of energy to paddle)
Discovery: llamas will stare at you. Together.
Ooh the flame
Creepy Confederate flag watch: small but noticeable numbers by the roadside. What’s up with that?
And the sons of Pullman porters, and the sons of engineers
Ride their father’s magic carpets made of steel
And, mothers with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel
Memphis, Tennessee
For Randi’s birthday surprise gift thing, I decided to book tickets on an Amtrak sleeper train. Not only would this fulfil one of her stated life goals, but – conveniently! – would also speed me to another freshly visited state. With timetable options on Amtrak rather limited, the most sensible destination ended up being Memphis, Tennessee. I’m stressing that the destination started out as a bit of an afterthought, because I really didn’t know much about Memphis itself… but it turned out to be a wonderful place for a sunny weekend getaway.
But first, let’s talk about the magic of trains: taking dinner in the dining car opposite a stranger, folding down the upper bunk, shuffling down the carriage to brush your teeth, curling up to sleep under a blanket as the night landscape rushes by outside and the double-decker bumps and sways along the rail. Since I had just read The Mask of Dimitrios (as recommended by Simon, King of the Railways) it really wouldn’t have surprised me to find a communist spy in the next room. And while there’s a certain sadness to Amtrak – the feeling you’re just catching a faint echo of glory days long past – the staff on-board our train were phenomenal and fun. I generally avoid the notion that trains are romantic curiosities, because they’re not: trains are the future, not the past. But I make a bit of an exception for sleeper trains, because a little romance never went amiss.
Dining on Amtrak
We arrived in Memphis early in the morning and checked in to the Peabody Hotel, a fancy-shmancy kind of place famous for having ducks swimming around the fountain in the lobby. Each morning the ducks are led down from their rooftop penthouse, and then every afternoon – with much ceremony – they march back out of the fountain, along the red carpet and into the waiting lift. It’s all very cute, and naturally everything else in the hotel is now duck-themed too. (Weirdly, this even cropped up in the novel I was reading this weekend too.)
Procession of the Peabody Ducks
We mostly went to the Botanic Garden for the children’s section
After a much-needed southern breakfast at Brother Juniper’s, we walked off our train legs through a nearby park and then Memphis’s Botanic Garden. Not only was it beautiful and warm, but – in conformity with southern stereotypes – most people we passed actually smiled and said hello. (This was basically true everywhere we went in Memphis.)
Next stop: Graceland, the ‘home of Elvis Presley’ (his death proving no hindrance). I wouldn’t exactly call myself an Elvis fan, so this wasn’t quite a pilgrimage of rock ‘n’ roll, more an irresistible scoop of Americana. (Although talking of scoops: try ordering a milkshake there and you’ll be treated to what felt like an entire tub of ice cream.) The tour of his mansion was interesting, though, if a little bit confusing because the relentlessly positive chronology doesn’t provide any context leading up to his death, so he just sort of… dies, suddenly, for no reason. It did make me want to listen to a few Elvis songs afterwards, though.
(I don’t mean to sideline Elvis, but actually the most memorable thing which happened at Graceland was in the queue, when the couple in front of us suddenly turned round and, in southern accents, complimented my TARDIS phone case. Turns out their entire family are big Doctor Who fans, with children who dress up as Daleks for Halloween and walk around shouting ‘EXTERMINATE!’ at things. We’re everywhere.)
Elvis would have loved Twitter
Live music over lunch
Not moving fast enough
The most famous part of Memphis is probably Beale Street, and while we ended up ditching its big Saturday night crowds for the comfort and cocktails of the Peabody’s lobby instead, we’d already got our live blues fix earlier in the day over lunch. (Fried chicken and catfish, since you ask.)
After lunch we took the monorail to the Mississippi River Park on Mud Island. The chief attraction here is their giant, geographically-faithful scale model of the Mississippi River, which you are encouraged to paddle in until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico and becomes a fully-fledged swimming pool. It’s really, really wonderful.
Monorail
In the model Mississippi!
The next morning, while Randi worked, I took a more sombre trip to the National Civil Rights Museum built around the former Lorraine Motel. It was here, in 1968 on the balcony outside room 306, that Martin Luther King was assassinated: a good place to stop and reflect on what has and has not changed since then. Inside, the museum does a good job telling the story of the civil rights movement, but was all the more meaningful when I could overhear a member of the group ahead of me talk about his own life and memories in response to the exhibits: yes, he remembered Brown v. Board of Education, he remembered the Little Rock Nine and Massive Resistance and the lunch counter sit-ins and the slow toppling of formal, de jure segregation across the South.
The balcony at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated
The final spot on our Memphis itinerary was Shelby Farms Park: a huge park, about a 30 minute drive from the centre of Memphis with hiking and biking trails, lakes for pedal boats and kayaks, zip-lining through the trees and – allegedly – a herd of buffalo. We did not see the buffalo. But we did walk through the woods and fields to our hearts’ content, before flying home to Chicago.
I can’t quite wrap my head around Memphis. We had, of course, a very touristy experience. If you read up on the city, you’ll soon hear about violent crime, poverty and brutal racism. The same is true, of course, of Chicago. And it doesn’t stop being true just because it’s possible to visit and have a wonderful weekend. But I would recommend visiting Memphis enormously: for the people, the music, the food, the history and the green spaces. And if you really want to make it special, roll up on the overnight train.
Kayaking at Shelby Farms Park
Couldn’t leave without acquiring a duck
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
