London is not the place for good linens....
....unless you have pots of money. I've stayed in some of the worst places in the world here in London. Years ago I was shooting a documentary and encamped in a hotel for a month. It was not cheap accommodation and back then choices in the center of the city were limited. The grand old exterior looked quite presentable when I arrived with a boat-load of equipment, first scout of the crew, and I was bone tired and ready for a hot shower.
But inside was another matter. The halls were painted a shiny hospital green and they seemed to meander in all sorts of unpredictable directions, often ending in unmarked doors and tiny elevators that looked too tiny for an actual person to fit. It took some doing to locate my room which was located a good 10 minutes dead run to the nearest fire exit.
Large and simply furnished, it smelled like bacon and soot with faintly malodorous notes that I stubbornly refused to accept was of a human origin. A tiny V-shaped shower was tucked into a corner that obviously was no use for anything else, including taking a shower. And the bed had one of those ancient flowered covers that were best left elsewhere. One large window looked out onto a grimy scene, rows of backyards with nary a blade of grass in them and I stood looking out and thought of Dickens. Well, I supposed, this was one authentic Londoner experience one wouldn't get at the Dorchester.
I dropped my things and immediately located a vegetable seller on a nearby street who had a few bunches of flowers for sale. I bought a pickle jar, emptied the pickles and arranged a spray of yellow and white daisies in it then and placed my purchase on the room's windowsill. They stood out in bright contrast to the grey beyond.
"Awful!" I emailed the rest of the group, who were coming from Belgium where they were filming another portion of the documentary. Then I started looking around online for something else that was centrally located and reasonably priced. Everything seemed to jump up two-fold and we were only shooting a documentary for heaven's sake so there wasn't anything to be done. Even the budget hotel in the States, like the Holiday Inn Express, seemed to have become luxury accommodations over here. Perhaps they had real showers, I thought dreamily.
Three weeks later my run of bad luck continued when I was given the back row of the plane next to the bathroom and endured six thousand miles of bums and toilet flushings. These days when my wonderful husband bumps me up to the front of the bus for trips I remember those flushes, and the man who had a death-defying cold next to me who sneezed, and sneezed, and sneezed.
Never will I take the Admiral's Club for granted, I promise!
I've had the worst luck in this city, and it stretches back a few decades. The B&B I chose for my first honeymoon (Bob, cover your eyes) had a horrible fitted carpet curling at the edges and a clanking steam heater. The television set had one channel and the wool blankets smelled like mothballs. On that occasion I unabashedly called in a favor from a director who was making a picture at Shepperton Studios and he found us a room in a 17th Century coach inn deep in the Cotswalds to get the awful memory scrubbed from our nostrils. A later trip with a friend yielded a cramped twin B&B accommodation that was above the basement where they served a breakfast best served in basements without very good light. Londoners don't seem to aspire to the kind of antique-laden or windows over the beach and sea kind of luxe B&B we have created as a standard offering in California. I now understand how it was that visitors to my mother's retirement occupation, a creaky B&B in Ontario didn't complain about the frayed towels and darned sheets. They had to have been London B&B owners. Only one traveller did give a scathing review on Yelp, and it was wincingly accurate. BTW, bathroom doors are meant to close, so when your sight is going (bless you, Mum) and you can't see the dust, it's time to hang up the landlady key.
Now I'm in Swiss Cottage. I tried, I really did. I perused miles of photos and reviews through a very reputable private B&B agency, and this one looked very nice. And the couple who run it are very nice. Generous with their time, too, and unfailingly sweet. The host, born here in the area, recommended quite a few wonderful restaurants and the first one I chose was spectacular. Prawns in wasabi sauce, dry-rubbed spare-ribs in chili and garlic shavings. Voted the best chinese food in London a few years in a row. Very pushy "You be done by eight o'clock?" they asked when I arrived at half-past six. Very likely, yes. The food was worth it, though.
But the room, oh, the room. Big and bright, and a window that looks out onto a lovely back garden. Like the jar of daisies on the windowsill so long ago I concentrate on this view. Not on the tattered lace trimming on the faded coverlet, reminiscent of old mum's recycled bed linens. A squeaky mattress and a little tv set with rabbit ears. One tiny pillow. What is with the pillows on this side of the pond? And the shared bathroom, with, oh, thank God, a remnant of shampoo and conditioner in the medicine cabinet because Boots is closed and I have an appointment tomorrow morning. I have to talk myself out of getting online and moving lock, stock and barrel into a whole slew of trendy hotels that now occupy the dreary block I occupied so long ago. But then I pre-paid for the whole week and I'm too thrifty to throw the funds away. Perhaps I'll just leave a little note when I check-out in lieu of my own review on Yelp. 'Please, oh please replace the bed linens with something made this century. Also, recommend you invest in a real tv or remove it altogether and take to nearest thrift store. Thank you, most sincerely yours,' etc. etc.
I'm dreading seeing Lady A's daughter tomorrow, who lives in Notting Hill in a grand old townhouse that apparently gets mistaken for the lovely one Hugh Grant owned in that bookshop movie with Julia Roberts and..., oh, you know the one. That's what her mother tells me, anyway. Another bloody world away from here, and yet only ten minutes by tube.
There are some lovely townhouses on this street. I shall imagine I'm in one of those when I explain where I'm staying. My host told me I can catch a bus down at the corner to get straight to Notting Hill but I absolutely refuse to take a bus. I'm in London! He looked at me like I was barmy but offered a tube alternative that was longer and involved changing from the Jubilee line to the Central line and lots and lots of stairs.
I don't care. I'm not steppin' off a bloomin' bus to visit an Earl's granddaughter.
Blimey, I have to take a shower next. Pray for me.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
But inside was another matter. The halls were painted a shiny hospital green and they seemed to meander in all sorts of unpredictable directions, often ending in unmarked doors and tiny elevators that looked too tiny for an actual person to fit. It took some doing to locate my room which was located a good 10 minutes dead run to the nearest fire exit.
Large and simply furnished, it smelled like bacon and soot with faintly malodorous notes that I stubbornly refused to accept was of a human origin. A tiny V-shaped shower was tucked into a corner that obviously was no use for anything else, including taking a shower. And the bed had one of those ancient flowered covers that were best left elsewhere. One large window looked out onto a grimy scene, rows of backyards with nary a blade of grass in them and I stood looking out and thought of Dickens. Well, I supposed, this was one authentic Londoner experience one wouldn't get at the Dorchester.
I dropped my things and immediately located a vegetable seller on a nearby street who had a few bunches of flowers for sale. I bought a pickle jar, emptied the pickles and arranged a spray of yellow and white daisies in it then and placed my purchase on the room's windowsill. They stood out in bright contrast to the grey beyond.
"Awful!" I emailed the rest of the group, who were coming from Belgium where they were filming another portion of the documentary. Then I started looking around online for something else that was centrally located and reasonably priced. Everything seemed to jump up two-fold and we were only shooting a documentary for heaven's sake so there wasn't anything to be done. Even the budget hotel in the States, like the Holiday Inn Express, seemed to have become luxury accommodations over here. Perhaps they had real showers, I thought dreamily.
Three weeks later my run of bad luck continued when I was given the back row of the plane next to the bathroom and endured six thousand miles of bums and toilet flushings. These days when my wonderful husband bumps me up to the front of the bus for trips I remember those flushes, and the man who had a death-defying cold next to me who sneezed, and sneezed, and sneezed.
Never will I take the Admiral's Club for granted, I promise!
I've had the worst luck in this city, and it stretches back a few decades. The B&B I chose for my first honeymoon (Bob, cover your eyes) had a horrible fitted carpet curling at the edges and a clanking steam heater. The television set had one channel and the wool blankets smelled like mothballs. On that occasion I unabashedly called in a favor from a director who was making a picture at Shepperton Studios and he found us a room in a 17th Century coach inn deep in the Cotswalds to get the awful memory scrubbed from our nostrils. A later trip with a friend yielded a cramped twin B&B accommodation that was above the basement where they served a breakfast best served in basements without very good light. Londoners don't seem to aspire to the kind of antique-laden or windows over the beach and sea kind of luxe B&B we have created as a standard offering in California. I now understand how it was that visitors to my mother's retirement occupation, a creaky B&B in Ontario didn't complain about the frayed towels and darned sheets. They had to have been London B&B owners. Only one traveller did give a scathing review on Yelp, and it was wincingly accurate. BTW, bathroom doors are meant to close, so when your sight is going (bless you, Mum) and you can't see the dust, it's time to hang up the landlady key.
Now I'm in Swiss Cottage. I tried, I really did. I perused miles of photos and reviews through a very reputable private B&B agency, and this one looked very nice. And the couple who run it are very nice. Generous with their time, too, and unfailingly sweet. The host, born here in the area, recommended quite a few wonderful restaurants and the first one I chose was spectacular. Prawns in wasabi sauce, dry-rubbed spare-ribs in chili and garlic shavings. Voted the best chinese food in London a few years in a row. Very pushy "You be done by eight o'clock?" they asked when I arrived at half-past six. Very likely, yes. The food was worth it, though.
But the room, oh, the room. Big and bright, and a window that looks out onto a lovely back garden. Like the jar of daisies on the windowsill so long ago I concentrate on this view. Not on the tattered lace trimming on the faded coverlet, reminiscent of old mum's recycled bed linens. A squeaky mattress and a little tv set with rabbit ears. One tiny pillow. What is with the pillows on this side of the pond? And the shared bathroom, with, oh, thank God, a remnant of shampoo and conditioner in the medicine cabinet because Boots is closed and I have an appointment tomorrow morning. I have to talk myself out of getting online and moving lock, stock and barrel into a whole slew of trendy hotels that now occupy the dreary block I occupied so long ago. But then I pre-paid for the whole week and I'm too thrifty to throw the funds away. Perhaps I'll just leave a little note when I check-out in lieu of my own review on Yelp. 'Please, oh please replace the bed linens with something made this century. Also, recommend you invest in a real tv or remove it altogether and take to nearest thrift store. Thank you, most sincerely yours,' etc. etc.
I'm dreading seeing Lady A's daughter tomorrow, who lives in Notting Hill in a grand old townhouse that apparently gets mistaken for the lovely one Hugh Grant owned in that bookshop movie with Julia Roberts and..., oh, you know the one. That's what her mother tells me, anyway. Another bloody world away from here, and yet only ten minutes by tube.
There are some lovely townhouses on this street. I shall imagine I'm in one of those when I explain where I'm staying. My host told me I can catch a bus down at the corner to get straight to Notting Hill but I absolutely refuse to take a bus. I'm in London! He looked at me like I was barmy but offered a tube alternative that was longer and involved changing from the Jubilee line to the Central line and lots and lots of stairs.
I don't care. I'm not steppin' off a bloomin' bus to visit an Earl's granddaughter.
Blimey, I have to take a shower next. Pray for me.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
posted by vallie at 9:37 AM
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