Christmas in a London Hotel Room
1 January 2025
The events in this post occurred on December 25, 2024.
While Jack was in the shower, I arranged the cheap-ass felt tree I'd bought at Tesco, and the stash of English goodies around it. The stash consisted of a box of oat cakes, two kinds of Hob Nobs, a pack of Digestives, six candy canes picked up at various locations over the past week, a gingerbread man, a gingerbread reindeer, and a bag containing two chocolate moose for Jack (they were probably reindeer, but close enough).
Across the Euston Road, the train stations were closed and the tube entrances barricaded. There were no red London buses. Traffic was light, with few taxis. There were people out walking, though. And it looked like Black Sheep coffee was open. It was hard to tell from this far away.
We had breakfast in the hotel. I'd expected something different for Christmas, but it was the same stuff.
Jack suggested we take a walk along the Regent's Canal. I poked around Google Maps to find the nearest entrance. If we went east, we'd be heading toward the mouth of the Thames. If we went northwest, it would be more scenic. Many years ago, we'd walked along the canal from Camden Town to somewhere near where we were now. It was long enough ago that I had little memory of it.
On our way to the entrance, which was from a plaza behind the stations, I saw that Black Sheep was indeed open. I almost bought a cup of Americano, but I decided against it.
Behind the station, we paused so I could try to get a good photo of the ghost of ivy that had covered a brick building.
We found the bridge over the canal.
We entered the path from the plaza at Granary Square. Loud music was blaring from somewhere.
It was a slow walk north because I kept stopping for pictures.
Some boats had firewood on their roofs. Others had dessicated plants. Few were tidy.
A couple had stuffed animals positioned to face the path.
The view near the first lock was industrial.
(You'll see this lock again later in this post.)
The lock was near Gasholders Park, where the skeleton of a gas storage tank stood, surrounded by several round apartment buildings where other tanks once were.
There was a map detailing all the infrastructure. Google has an office in here somewhere; we passed it.
More boat gawking:
There are always construction cranes in London.
Some boats had solar panels. Some were plugged into electrical charging stations along the path.
A coot was bobbing along.
One boat was meticulously painted and gave the Instagram address of the artist.
There was no such information for the grafiti artists.
So. Ugly.
We reached a lock at Kentish Town.
Not much farther along, we saw that a chain-link fence would block our path north. We went up a stairway to a bridge over the canal and found ourselves in Camden Town.
Which was crowded.
I don't know why. Nothing was open.
After getting a bit disoriented, we found our way back down.
On the return trip, we spotted a pair of cormorants.
Molly was probably the best-kept boat on the path we took.
I took more pictures of the Gasholders as we passed again.
I heard a guy shouting and looked over to see him turning a crank at the top of the lock we were passing. A second man climbed out from the bottom of the lock. In between, there was a puff of smoke from what must have been the top of the boat.
The smoke rose higher.
A boat slowly emerged as the lock filled with water.
A boat slowly emerged as the lock filled with water.
The lock filled within five minutes. The men came back to open the top part of the lock.
They both leaned against it to start it swinging.
Then the first guy cranked it farther with a long wrench.
Then they both climbed into the boat. I was surprised by this. Does everyone have to let themselves through the locks? Is there training or something? There must be some sort of schedule. The Google is vague on this subject.
They motored north.
Water slowly drained from the south side of the lock.
We exited the canal path at Granary Square. Music was still blaring.
A tree outside of King's Cross station was strung with ribbons of multicolor lights.
Back in our hotel room, we ate the lunches we bought the day before: cheese, bread, and fruit for Jack; yogurt (protein! finally!), apples, and Digestives for me. And Ribena light. Blackcurrant is an acquired taste, I guess.
I'd already planned to do a mid-afternoon lifting session at the hotel gym. I thought it might be crowded, but I was the only one there.
Dinner was at Decimo, the hotel's fancy, 10th-floor restaurant. As we waited to be seated, I took some pictures of the view below.
There were timed seatings and a set menu, but the service was chaotic. The choice was meat or vegan, but a table of two could not have one of each. Jack had emailed weeks ago to verify this, and then said he'd have to cancel. It made no sense. Rather than lose us, they made an exception. The food was good, but there was far too much of it.
Halfway through the ordeal, I went searching for the bathroom, which was on the south side. When I stepped in, I got dizzy. There were mirrors in strange places, and the windows went from the ceiling to below the floor. The sinks were next to the windows. All of London could monitor our handwashing routines.
I went to press my phone against the window for a shot of London looking south. It was a farther reach than I'd expected. I made sure that there was some sort of floor below the window, lest I drop my phone. There was. I didn't.
By now, some of the tables were empty.
Dinner was on the early side, so we got back to the room with time to pack. Jack and I shared a gingerbread reindeer, which I washed down with the remaining Ribena Light.
There were so many little bags of candy to pack that my suitcase barely closed. I stuffed the cheap-ass Christmas tree into the external water bottle compartment of my backpack. That would be certain to turn some heads tomorrow.
There was another thing I had to do before shutting down my iPad. I positioned myself between the window and the curtains to block out light from the room. And then I took one last picture of the Saint Pancras rail station clock tower.
