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Tube striking in London

Thames river with river bus
Thames river bus (Uber Boat) will be one of the few ways to get around during today’s tube strike

Departure day looms; I had a nice sunny afternoon yesterday for a final wander round Vauxhall as I prepared myself and my bags to move along.

Fate is a funny fellow. It had initially added to my carefully planned trip to London a week of train strikes, one of these incorporating a tube strike for additional merriment.

Retired soldier at Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey
Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey

Then the tube strike scheduled for November 3 was shifted to today, in order to avoid a clash with the Royal British Legion’s London Poppy Day appeal. So instead, the usual transit aftermath will spill into Remembrance Day itself -?! – and I had to take evasive action in order to avoid missing my flight this afternoon.

Well, this evasive action allowed me to discover routes and areas of London I hadn’t been familiar with. I travelled to Stanwell yesterday, where I found an Airbnb bed for the night, only 10 minutes or so from Heathrow.

All this brings back memories of my year in Italy, where transport strikes (scioperi) are so embedded, they have their own website. The BBC has its own advice on how to cope with a tube strike.. but so far nothing on offer about how to cope with the upcoming nursing strike, a whole new level of pain for my other country.

Milan to Paris to London

MilanParking
Parking, Milano style

At last, over-fed and impoverished, it was time to leave drizzly Parma for damp Milan to prepare for our separate departures. In Milan we spent a few hours checking out the neighbourhood, buying hats and gloves from a tiny shop we found in a side street. Found a pizzeria (Little Italy) that had been recommended by our Airbnb host, but the smell of deodorizing chemicals and the sneery attitude of the waiters quickly sent us packing.

Luckily we had stopped for a delicious Belgian beer and some rather nice MilanBresaolabresaola that tided us over until we found our zen at Ristorante Salernitano. We agonized over the staggeringly long and tempting menu while around us tables filled with locals. Risotto nero with lobster for my companion and some MilanMLBlackRisottoBeforefettucine alla lepre (hare) for me, followed by tagliata con rucola and a lovely green apple sorbet topped with calvados.

Too early the next morning we set off on our separate journeys. Mine took me through Milanese rush hour from Milano Centrale to Milano Porta Garibaldi by metro. No easy feat with baggage. Then back on TGV train service to Paris – this time first class, which was no different from standard class, except decidedly grubbier. Did not appear to have been vacuumed in near past. The seven-ish hour trip gave me plenty of time to reflect on the sad decline in passenger train services. Where once existed decent restaurant cars with proper meals served on tablecloths by waiters, now we get sad little kiosks selling disappointing variations on the baguette, inferior push-button coffees and a surplus of sweet drinks. An insult to the food traditions at either end of the Italy-France run.

Things no better in Paris. The train arrived at Gare de Lyon and from there I had to battle Parisian commuter traffic – by now having achieved the afternoon rush hour – finding my way with my heavy bags via the cryptically labelled RER services to the manic labyrinth that is Paris Nord and up mysterious escalators to Gare du Nord, a culinary wasteland if ever there was. And into the desolate and overcrowded Eurostar waiting area.

The trip made me abundantly grateful for the clean and well serviced station at St Pancras whence I had departed only days earlier.. I can’t honestly say which is worse: the European train services with their exhausting station transfers, multitude of stairs and dearth of decent food concessions, or the horrors of budget air travel – which are at least equipped for passengers with baggage – with all those nightmarishly early morning departures, grumpy and unhelpful airline staff and dehumanizing security checks. Staying put in London for a while.

A taste for audiobooks and quesadillas

I’ve been focusing on food so much lately in this blog, and in my life and writing in general, it’s a pleasant change to be around writers here at Wired, and to have a chance to talk about writing as well as food. Because I meet most of my fellow scribes at mealtimes, as usual I’m mixing my interests. And as usual there is a lot on offer at the Vistas buffet, much of it delicious, greasing the wheels of conversation  around the dinner table.

Something I haven’t yet raised  at one of those meals is my passion for audiobooks. I’ve always loved being read to, and this summer I’ve taken a lot of audiobooks out of the library to accompany my jam-making, apple-peeling, blackberry-juicing, kale-chipping and general cooking and cleaning. Now I read it’s a trend in the wider world as well!

When I decided to drive to Banff, I was really looking forward to the many hours of being read to that would allow. But pleasant as it’s been, it’s not been perfect. In preparation for seeing the new film, whenever I’m able, I’m deep into the unabridged (11-cd)  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, read by Frederick Davidson, whose voice seems to fall more than it rises as he nimbly switches characters and mood, so it’s been a challenge to hear, let alone follow, the convolutions of plot in this intricate novel. I wonder if this is a characteristic of British readers in general or if it’s particular to this one’s style.

I didn’t have so much trouble hearing Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel but interrupted it halfway through when I found my attention wandering, and thought that a thriller would be better suited to driving, hence the le Carré. Haven’t yet started on Alain de Botton‘s Consolations of Philosophy but am even more keen to do so after watching his TED Talk (A kinder, gentler philosophy of success).

CBC has produced some fine listening for travellers,whether of the mind or road: I’ll probably start my return journey with a repeat listen to Anna Maria Tremonti‘s excellent 2008 series Diet for a Hungry Planet (with volumes 1 and 2 of Afghanada for backup).

As my Thanksgiving treat today, I went into Canmore to meet Susan and Jennifer for lunch and lots of tea at Communitea. Here’s what the moderately wholesome black bean-avocado quesadilla, plus cup of broccoli soup, looked like on the one hand, and a couple of those OMG-we’re-in-the-mountains kinds of views on the other.

 

 

 

 

 

In poetry news, for those who haven’t heard, the deadline approaches for the £2,500 Fifth Annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize, judged by Susan Wicks & David Harsent (with both judges reading all poems). Prizes: 1st £2,500, 2nd £500, 3rd £250 & 20 prizes of £20 each plus a Spring 2012 Coffee-House-Poetry season-ticket and a prizewinners’ Coffee-House Poetry reading with Susan Wicks & David Harsent on Mon 28th Nov 2011 for all prize-winning poets. Deadline for entries: Mon 17th Oct 2011. More information and PayPal link at Coffee-House Poetry Prizes page.