It was another reasonable 8 am start to the day for me this morning. I had slept well again but would need it today, as the anticipated day out with Jae to London beckoned. I collected Jae from Dad’s, much to Jae’s annoyance at having to get up before the day was already half over. Wanting to get a full day of fun and frivolity in London today, we wasted little time making our way to the multi-story carpark at Lakeside Shopping Centre. From there, it’s a short walk across the suspension bridge to the Chafford Hundred train station on the other side of the main road. For today’s travel plans, Jae was to be fifteen years old, which wasn’t a stretch. That little white lie netted us a fare for Jae of just £2, which would cover all train, tube and bus travel for the day. My ticket was a little more at around £12. Not even my boyish charm would convince anyone I was underage.
We boarded the next train, which arrived within a few minutes of us parking ourselves on the platform bench. Once comfortably seated, we were off to Fenchurch Street station, the East London termination point for this train line.
Upon arrival, we exited the station at the front instead of going down the steps midway along the platform and exiting from the side, which I would typically do. For a brief few minutes, that resulted in a bit of disorientation for me. I forgot which direction to walk to find the Tower Hill tube station, which was no more than a two-minute walk around the correct corner. Somewhat embarrassingly, that meant we had to ask for directions. I will live with that shame for the remainder of my days.
When we stumbled into Tower Hill, it became evident that one of our tickets was not working. It was a correctly printed ticket and thus perfectly valid, but the turnstile machines through which you must feed the ticket to enter or exit at any station weren’t budging. I thought it was a one-off glitch when we exited Fenchurch Street, but when the Tower Hill turnstiles also didn’t operate, I concluded the magnetic strip was faulty. Somewhat anticipating this was going to be an annoyance for the rest of the day (there are typically staff on hand for such situations, but they can sometimes also be hard to find if they are assisting other passengers), I decided to see if we could get the ticket re-issued. The friendly staff member at the Tower Hill turnstiles told me that since the ticket was issued by Network Rail and not the tube network, I would need to go to a Network Rail train station ticket desk to get it re-issued. She suggested we head to Morgate to do so. Once we were on the tube train, I decided that Liverpool Street, one stop before Morgate on the District Line, would be just as good an option since that was also a Network Rail station.
Although many tube lines crisscrossing London are conveniently interconnected, it can sometimes be a lengthy walk through hot tunnels and walkways to navigate from platform to platform or to and from the ticketing hall. By the time we made it into the vast ticketing hall at Liverpool Street station, we were both hot and bothered. To make matters worse, when we got to the front of the queue at the ticket desk, they told me they couldn’t re-issue the ticket. Since I purchased the ticket on the C2C National Rail train line, only a C2C train station ticket office could re-issue the ticket. We’d have to go back to Fenchurch Street to get the problem resolved. We decided we’d already eaten through much of the morning on this fool’s errand and cut our losses.
Since around 2009, a brand new train line that cuts through London from East to West has been under construction. The Elizabeth Line was finally opened in stages from around 2022. I’ve watched the progress of this unique engineering project over the years, including a BBC documentary that has aired a couple of times. Some of the new stations are marvels of civil engineering and practically sight-seeing attractions in their own right. I resolved when we decided to visit London to experience the new train line. We stopped at the info desk in the middle of Liverpool Street’s main ticketing hall to see what the best way to do so would be, given we were ultimately making our way to Camden Town. After some initial confusion, we finally figured out that we could board the Elizabeth Line right here in Liverpool Street and ride it to Tottenham Court Road, where we could change to the Northern Line and then travel all the way to Camden Town.
The Elizabeth Line is the epitome of what a modern subway should look and feel like. The trains and platform have automatic doors, making it a much quieter and less windy experience. The trains themselves are longer and wider, carrying more passengers and generally cleaner and more efficient. As someone who has worked in London several times, the Elizabeth Line was a great experience.
Eventually, we found our way to Camden Town and stumbled into the street. It was a bustling and vibrant scene that buzzed with atmosphere from the get-go. Jae and I wasted no time exploring the main drag, popping into numerous alternative clothing outlets.
We found ourselves in a New Rock boot shop. Like many of the outlets up and down the main drag, the shop frontage was spectacularly adorned: in this case, with a massive boot that appeared to emerge from the building’s first floor above the main entrance. Jae quickly narrowed in on some hefty-looking shoes that took her fancy. I damn near soiled myself at the sticker prices, few of which were under £200 and many of which were considerably more. The ones Jae was keen on were a mere £350. Nope, no way, never! That was just not going to happen on my watch – not without some serious haggling, at least. As Jae was window shopping and trying the shoes on, I surreptitiously called Sandy to discuss the potential option of indulging Jae and calling it her Christmas gift for this year. Simultaneously, I started dropping signals to the shop assistant about how much money Jae had to spend and setting expectations for the ensuing haggling tactics I was going to be pulling out. I had low expectations, but I’m also a good negotiator. After several rounds of haggling and back and forth with the shop owner in the back, we ultimately settled on £275, so a £75 discount off the sticker price. This trip being somewhat of an eighteenth birthday gift for Jae, I had previously resolved to spoil her a little for this trip. The fact that we walked away with these alternative-style shoes is evidence of that spoiling playing out Naturally, Daddy was lumbered with carrying the bag with the weighty shoes for the remainder of our excursion to the nation’s capital, which was nice…not!
We slipped into and out of numerous retail shops throughout the rest of the morning and well into lunchtime. Jae picked up a few Slipknot T-shirts as we went. When we were done exploring the main drag, we slipped into the markets and meandered aimlessly around for what seemed like the next 96 hours, nosing at everything in sight. It was a fantastically fun time for me, although I use the word fun here quite wrongly.
Hunger eventually overtook the shopping instinct, so we piled into one of the eatery sections of the market, and each found a food stall that took our fancy. I went with the classic fish ‘n’ chips, while Jae went with the Animals Fries, loaded with cheese sauce and other indeterminate fluid substances.
Now, with full tummies, we resumed the aimless window shopping around the Camden Markets, with Jae sampling various clothes and whatnot from every other outlet. I did my best to let her be, trying to find the balance between letting her indulge herself at the cost of my credit card and responsible spending. A balance of some sort was struck, but I’m not sure where exactly. Jae didn’t get everything she wanted but probably got more than she could have hoped for. There was one tiny boutique shop with some clothing that Jae liked (although not exactly her style, in my opinion) where the young lady shop assistant was clearly a master in the art of making friends, stroking ego and manipulating into buying. I clocked this at the outset but wanted to give Jae some free reign to see how she would handle the situation. If she had her own cash in hand and I wasn’t hovering at the doorway, I suspect a purchase might have been made – the shop would have won the exchange. However, the shop assistant’s insistence they didn’t haggle on the prices put a downer on that prospect. We ended up leaving empty-handed, which was the outcome I had hoped for. My guidance to Jae was that if a skirt was priced at £30, she shouldn’t expect to pay more than £20 for it and should haggle accordingly. I also taught her that the best bargains are to be had at the moment of – and sometimes after – walking away and leaving the shop. To secure the best deal, you have to be committed to walking away, which sometimes means you don’t make the purchase. Admittedly, that’s not an easy lesson to sink in straight away.
A short time after the £30 skirt scenario, Jae walked into a leather jacket shop and fancied a lovely full-length leather jacket that she felt suited her nicely. It was priced at £25, so I suggested she pay no more than £20. Alas, the shop assistant was having none of it, claiming he wasn’t authorised to haggle anything off the asking prices. We tried and tried, but this was one deal that we couldn’t secure. Jae was disgruntled about this for a while. However, it did mean there was enough budget for Jae to make another purchase in another shop not long thereafter – swings and roundabouts.
By now, our legs and feet (as well as my arms and shoulders) were feeling the effects of a marathon shopping spree. We walked back to near the Camden Town tube station and found a chemist, looking for pain killers and some insoles. Jae had the bright idea of wearing her new heavy shoes, so that I wouldn’t have to carry them. That would have been a brilliant idea…several hours ago!
Alas, my dicloflenac painkillers are not available over the counter here in the UK, which explains why I’ve been unable to find any so far in any of the pharmacies we’ve tried. Jae didn’t want to buy the insoles as they would first need to be cut to size. Instead, she took the insoles from her existing shoes and transplanted them into the new ones. That worked a treat. My aching arms and shoulders thanked her for it.
It was time for an early dinner. We decided (or rather I decided) to eat at Wagamama. Since we had the entire London tube network at our disposal, I looked for one conveniently close to a tube station. The idea was to pop into the tube network and then walk to Wagamama from whichever exit point it would be. In the event, Oxford Street looked like the best option. It was just a brief 3-4 minute walk from the tube station exit, so that’s where we went. However, the tube interchanges between the lines we had to travel on were quite the trek. We were again hot and bothered when we rocked up at Wagamama’s. When we walked through the door, a further nasty surprise awaited us. They were closed due to a private event. We were urged to walk to the next one…just a few minutes up the road. That turned out to be a 10-to-15-minute walk, followed by a 10-minute taxi ride! As if that wasn’t bad enough, the taxi’s card reader didn’t accept my card at the end of the ride, so I again had to dip into my precious cash reserves. What was otherwise a perfect day so far was now threatening to be derailed. Hopefully, a decent meal would pull us back on track. Ultimately, we had a lovely dinner at Wagamama. The food was okay, but we both appreciated the opportunity to sit still for half an hour and rest our weary legs.
When we finished at Wagamama, Jae’s eagle eye spotted a nearby HMV shop. My credit card immediately started trembling. Then I spotted a Disney store directly opposite on the other side of the road. At that point, I think the credit card had a cardiac episode. Naturally, Jae insisted we go nose around in the HMV store. Naturally, she found a few must-have items, including T-shirts and posters of her favourite rock bands.
We were in HMV for about half an hour when, for the first time today, I finally buckled (figuratively and physically) and suggested to Jae that we get a move on. I was finding it more and more of a struggle to keep physically upright. I had been suffering from aches and pains since this morning but kept this from Jae as I didn’t want her to feel pressured. This was, after all, her holiday as much as anything, so I wanted her to get the very most from the trip without worry or having to feel guilty for dragging her ailing dad around town. At some point, however, I could only put on a brave face for so long – especially because we still needed to hike around the Disney store across the road.
Fortunately, the Disney store wasn’t terribly big. We spent most of our time on the ground floor looking at hoodies and other apparel with Sandy present on Facetime. As luck would have it, we found a nice hoody, which Sandy was happy with.
The Disney store represented the last spending opportunity of the day. My credit card could finally relax and recuperate. I’m booking it in for a six-month recovery program!
We made our way back to Fenchurch Street Station via Tower Hill. That would have been an uneventful journal, except for a couple of problems. First, it was now rush hour. Due to chronic overloading, we had to give up on attempting to board several trains. Then, there was an incident where I was squeezed half to death by the doors on one of the District Line tube trains as they closed unexpectedly, trapping me. I tried to keep the train doors open while yelling at Jae to get on the damn thing. Notwithstanding these minor hiccups, we eventually managed to stumble into a Chafford Hundred-bound C2C train at Fenchurch Street Station, by which time it was fully dark.
Our day was all but complete but not yet over. We weren’t out of Fenchurch Street for more than a few minutes when the train came to a standstill. After a while, the driver announced that all C2C trains out of Fenchurch Street were delayed because a passenger was taken ill on one of the trains ahead of us.
After some more tedium in an otherwise packed train, we resumed our journey and eventually pulled into Chafford Hundred about an hour after first leaving Fenchurch Street. Back across the bridge into Lakeside, I popped into the shopping centre building to withdraw some extra cash to compensate for losing some of my reserves during the day. Alas, the ATM steadfastly refused to dispense any money. I’ve no idea why.
We found the car in the multistory car park, and I dropped Jae off at Dad’s again before making my way to Kerry’s house. As usual, Kerry and I chatted on the couch for a bit before I wrote up the notes from the day, ready to be typed out in full on the ferry tomorrow. T was a long day and I will sleep soundly again.