Author: ncfclee92

I’ve been finding things a bit tough recently, so a week off work was very welcome. Unfortunately, on only the second full day of my holiday, I woke up with a horrendous sore throat and spent the rest of the week somewhat under the weather, even spending one day in bed.

Still, I was not to be defeated and after a bit of a walk at North Elmham and lunch in the grounds of Wymondham Abbey with an old friend from university on Wednesday, it was off to London on Thursday morning. I had bought my mum and her other half Dave (Stephen to me) a gift voucher for Christmas, enabling them to go to a show of their choice at one of the capital’s theatres. They, in turn, bought their friends one and planned to go to Jersey Boys together. I have loved going to London ever since a school trip to the Natural History Museum in 2006, and am reasonably good at finding my way around the city, so I tagged along as their guide.

We caught our train on time from Norwich and it sailed into Liverpool Street without delay – so far, so good. It was then onto the Tube, headed for Victoria. Our hotel for the night was within walking distance. There are many hotels in London that look like The Grapevine from the outside. It’s common for an old townhouse to have been turned into a hotel. I’d even stayed in one on a visit last year, the Berjaya Eden Park overlooking Bayswater Tube station, and that was fine.

The Grapevine was not fine. A sign on the front door told us to check in at The Sheriff next door, and we received the keys there. Not only the keys to our rooms but to the hotel itself. Despite check-in time being 2pm and it being just past then, I was told that my room (ominously, in the basement) was still being cleaned.

To be fair to them, it was ready within about five minutes and, while the others went to their respective rooms, I descended to the basement. I was to be in room 19A!

Ah. Had the door not had ’19A’ on it, I would have assumed it was a storage cupboard of some sort, and I don’t think that’s an unreasonable leap to make. My hopes were not high as I passed through the door. There was a kind of air lock between it and another door, which thankfully the key I had been given did unlock.

I have never walked into a hotel room and burst out laughing before, but that was exactly my reaction to room 19A at the Grapevine. It was so hilariously bad, so miserable, so dirty, that laughter was all my brain would offer me. Being in the basement, I had feared that would mean no windows, but my eyes were drawn to light coming from behind a pair of curtains. The curtains were drawn, but hanging on to the rail for dear life. Some daylight would improve the situation I thought. I pulled the curtains and immediately discovered why they had been closed.

I wasn’t expecting to see Sydney Opera House, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or even the sea – but my laughter became almost uncontrollable upon seeing the view from my window. I quickly shut the curtains again, deciding that darkness was preferable. My phone received a text.

“Omg it’s appalling” were the words my mother had sent me. Any thought I might have had that it was only in the basement that the Grapevine became more Nits than Ritz was dispelled in an instant. Most people on arriving at a hotel would settle in, maybe have a shower, relax – it turned out that all we wanted to do was leave again as soon as possible, and sure enough as I went back outside mum and Dave’s friends were already on the pavement.

We did that very British thing where we tentatively enquired about each other’s thoughts on the place, just in case one of us was a big fan of having curtains hanging off the walls. Once we’d established that we all thought the place was indeed an almighty shithole, we discussed how we would deal with the topic around my mum, who had booked this hotel in the first place. We adopted a policy of not playing a blame game, instead laughing about the whole situation and saying that it would be fine for just one night.

As we walked towards Buckingham Palace past Victoria Station, I spotted a Greene King pub. I know it’s a bit rubbish to go for a chain when you’re in one of the world’s great cities for food, but after the introduction to the hotel, I was keen to stick with the tried and trusted. Thankfully, the food was tasty and we walked toward the theatre in good spirits.

It still doesn’t feel real that the Queen has died, and this was the first time I’d been to anything royalty related since. My mum had never been this close to the Palace before. We couldn’t walk up the Mall as it was closed in preparation for that Sunday’s London Marathon, so we had to take a diversion that did eventually get us to the familiar sight of Nelson’s Column. The journey took in Pall Mall, a street famous for the many clubs and societies based on it. Men in suits came out of the Royal Automobile Club and the Army and Navy Club, often into sports cars parked outside.

We arrived at the Trafalgar Theatre. It was going well for me. I might have been on the trip as the guide but I am well known for getting myself lost (missing my turn off the M11 to Harlow and ending up in Walthamstow being my most famous misadventure) so to have got everyone safely to the hotel and then to the theatre was a big success. We had coffee and cake sitting outside an impossibly posh-looking cafe opposite – people walked past in bow ties as I sat there in my joggers and wearing an England Cricket jacket.

I wasn’t going to the show myself, partly because I have no interest in musicals. So, having left them at the theatre, I had about three hours to kill in London. I love the place, I have a fairly good knowledge of how to get around it, but I had never really been out in it at night before so decided to stick to well-populated and well-lit areas. I walked about seven miles in the end, taking in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, the West End, the Savoy, the South Bank, Waterloo Bridge, Chinatown and Piccadilly Circus. Here are the photos I took:

I had a great time. As an introvert, one thing I love about London is how I can wander through it anonymously. There are so many people there, all doing their own thing, that no one notices you. I could go anywhere and no one would pay any attention to me. The only trouble was, I felt distinctly rough.

I met the rest outside the theatre around 10pm, was told I looked “crap”, and our plans to go for a drink were abandoned. We made our way back to our lovely hotel in a black cab, no less – the first time I have ever been in a proper Hackney Carriage.

From talking to the others, it appeared that, remarkably, I had actually got the best hotel room. I had a reasonable-sized bathroom, while they were struggling to put into words how small theirs was. I agreed to swap rooms with mum and Dave’s friends, so they could benefit from the extra space. I was upgraded to the ground floor and to room number 1. Was I moving up in the world?

No. I now had a view out onto the street, at least, which was much nicer than the tip I had overlooked down in the basement. But inside, the room was just as filthy and ramshackle. The size of the toilet and shower needs to be seen to be believed, so here’s a picture:

It’s quite obvious that the wardrobes in these rooms had been converted into toilets and showers, allowing the owners to market the hotel as having en suite rooms. I have never seen a toilet so small. My mum could have brushed her teeth whilst sitting on the throne, and we blokes had to stand at an angle to have a wee. That uncontrollable laughter from earlier in the day returned with a vengeance at my first sight of the loo-in-a-cupboard. It was quite a step down back into the room from the toilet, but I had nothing to worry about because if I tripped I would have landed safely on the bed.

Here are some more photos of this marvellous accommodation:

One saving grace was that the bed was clean, and I managed about four hours of sleep, about three more than some of the others. We’d left the Grapevine by 8.30 on Friday morning, having handed in the keys and told the guy on reception what a dump it was.

Our train home wasn’t until 3.30pm, so we had a nice stroll around London, past many of the places I had seen the night before.

We got to Liverpool Street without getting lost. The train home was on time, my job was complete, and none of us would ever forget our 26 hours in London. Or the Grapevine Hotel.