Earls, Lords, and Us Common Folk: Another Day in London

If anyone had told me on August 28, 2016 that Klep and I could have walked 45 flights of stairs and a couple of miles during one day, I would have told you that you were crazy.  We did that and more today as we had another good day in London.  Every train station will have some escalators, but they will also have some stairs.  Just for fun, I kept up with the number.  We had several train changes during the day and then, on top of the tube stations, we also “did” parliament today which

means we had to climb a whole lot of stairs to get to the “stranger’s” gallery on the House of Lords side and the “visitor’s gallery” on the House of Commons side.  Had we not illegally taken the lift down from the commons, our total would have gone over 50.

We didn’t mean to break rules.  We were in the lift with the door closed before we saw that we were not allowed to take the lift unless we were escorted.  At the next stop, we got a very nice young man who escorted us the rest of the way down!

The two houses of parliament are a contrast in style.  Both are beautiful, but the Lords is quite ornate with the marvelous gold throne where the queen sits when she addresses parliament.  The windows are all beautiful stained glass and there is nothing as gauche as the bullet proof glass in the House of Commons.  The wood work is lovely in both chambers.  The only thing I saw in the Commons that appeared gold was the mace which I am sure has great symbolic power about the transfer of power from the monarchy to the people.

In the Lords, when we first got there, members were questioning the person in charge of the BBC.  After that, the debate was concerning what the government should do to eradicate the usage of antibiotics in animals except when necessary  because of sickness and what the government should do to encourage the development of ways to cope with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

In the commons, we listened to speeches about domestic abuse and the need to modify and change the court system to help the victims.  Several of the speakers were members from Scotland.

We took a few minutes between the two chambers to share a meat pasty and a pastry in the parliament café+.

After we left parliament, we went in search of Selfridge’s, the department store featured in a BBC show that airs on PBS.  The website I checked this morning said it was almost over the Oxford Circus Tube Station.  Not so.  We finally found it about a half mile away after we passed the next tube station, Bank Street. 

We had some ideas of some things we wanted to buy there, but we did not end up buying anything.  We did go to the top floor and have a light tea…..sundae for Klep; cup cake for me.  My cupcake was

lovely, but I could show them a thing or two about baking a good cake!  The crowd and the noise in the store was anything but conducive to shopping.  Most of the shoppers had the appearance of wealthy Middle Eastern people and we heard very little English being spoken.

We had had enough stairs for the day.  We took a double decker bus back to Museum Street, changed to the one which runs by our hotel, good old 55, and rode with a lot of other commuters back to Old Street.

We had not really had a meal in an English Pub.  We stopped at The William Blake (he is buried nearby) and had an ale and meat pie with mash and veggies.  The gravy was really, really good.

A football (soccer) match started while we were eating bringing up the noise quite a lot.  After supper, a short hop on another #55 put us in front of the hotel, tired, full, and ready to put our feet up