After landing in London Gatwick on Saturday morning and dropping my bag off at my sister’s place, I was whisked away to Oxford on a double decker bus (and yes, I got to ride on the top!). London was experiencing the warmest beginning of October in probably ever, and with temperatures at 28ºC I couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend my first day in England than double-deckering it to Oxford and punting on the Thames.

For those who don’t know, ‘punting’ is the time-honoured tradition of sitting in a low, long, flat-bottomed boat and relaxing while someone who isn’t you pushes the craft along the river by pushing a long pole against the riverbed. ‘Punting’ can also be the time-honoured tradition of pushing a long pole against the riverbed while locomoting some lazy-bones passengers around the Thames in a flat-bottomed boat. For a jet-lagged traveller such as myself, it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon (did I mention was also eating a cornish pasty and feeding the ducks?).

For the record, I did try actually punting, but it didn’t work out so well for me. I’d like to say I spent most of the time careening from one riverbank to the other, but in actual fact, I spent my entire poling experience careening into the same riverbank again and again. Sigh.

Sunday was another hot day which my sister and I spent in Kew Gardens. Their star attraction right now seems to be some ‘aerial walkway’ that puts you ‘right in the canopy’, but to be honest, the tree-top adventure at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver really puts this one in its place and I wasn’t too impressed with it. What I was impressed with was almost half a square mile of garden space with pleasant walks, benches in the shade, water features, and the massive old-fashioned glass houses that house their tropical and temperate plant collections. Spending Sunday afternoon strolling the grounds in Kew Gardens felt like a very English thing to do and was very pleasant indeed.

On Monday I decided to take some time to be a real tourist and take in London’s South Bank. I took a snap at the outside of Shakespeare’s Globe but at £12.50 admission I decided to head back to the Tate Modern where I could get in for free or by donation (encouraged). With eating and other attractions feeling so expensive in London, the fact that their galleries and museums are, for the most part, free or by donation is really helpful to the cash-strapped traveller. I popped £3 in the donation box at the Tate Modern because that’s what I had on me and wandered around the place for two hours. I don’t usually read the title cards/info beside the artwork but I did notice that I was looking at some Picassos, Matisses, and Jackson Pollocks. Just sitting there. On the wall. Y’know, there’s a Picasso. Oh look, there’s another. No biggie. It was pretty cool.

I also visited the Covent Garden marketplace and got my Punch & Judy fix at Benjamin Pollock’s Toy Shop. The shop is worth a look for their paper diaramas and reproductions of old stages, even if you’re not into buying anything.

That evening, my sister and I went to St. Martin´s Theatre and took in the Agatha Christie play, ‘The Mousetrap’. ‘The Mousetrap’ has been running in London for over 50 years and is, I believe, the longest-running play of all time. I would tell you more about the show but the audience is sworn to secrecy at the end of the play so that future audiences will enjoy the mystery for themselves. The play itself was rather delightful but it does leave me with artistic questions about the pros and cons of a show that runs for so long, in the same way. It does not seem as though there is much emphasis on reimagining or rediscovering the play or the characters. And how can there be? Even when the show moved to a different theatre, or had its entire set replaced, it did not miss a single performance. In a way, ‘The Mousetrap’ is more like a moving museum piece than a play. It’s funny, and enjoyable, and I do love a good-old-fashioned murder mystery. But it is a play that speaks to the world and the genre in which it was written, and not to me on a personal level. I’m not sure that I needed it to, though. I love tradition, and I love the idea of physically keeping a tradition alive on the stage.

As delightful as London was, unfortunately it was time to move on and yesterday I flew out to Porto, Portugal. Stories from Portugal to come.

Adventure stats:

Number of necessary items forgotten in Vancouver: 3

Number of above replaced: 1

Number of items lost on trip: 1