2019 Christmassy UK Visit

I made my trip to the UK in November, but it wasn’t quite what I planned it to be back in July. It ended up being a very chill trip spent with a ridiculous amount of cups of tea in bed with some of the people I love most.

I was really lucky I didn’t get delayed like last time, but I did manage to book myself a 5 and a half hour layover at JFK on the way there (what an amateur, amiright?), so that was super long. But I made it there in once piece on Wednesday and met up with Lucy to have a Nando’s and work our way out of central London and out to Surrey. We arrived at her house where I was greeted with many a birthday decoration, a pile of presents, and a cupcake. We had takeaway from a really good Indian restaurant and spent the night watching I’m a Celeb with her family.  She then surprised me with a super cute cake, which was adorable.

Thursday was a busy day spent in London looking at Christmassy sights and shopping for somethings. We walked Regent Street, Oxford Street, went to House of Mina Lima, the publishing company who made a lot of the artwork for the Harry Potter movies, saw the Harry Potter and Cursed Child theater, visited Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square and the Christmas Market there, Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park where we rode the eye and wandered round the Christmas market there, back to Regent Street and Oxford Street, then to Carnaby Street, and back home again. Friday we went out again quickly to buy some macarons, went back home to get me packed, and parted ways so I could head down to Exeter to meet Alice for a whopping 18 hours!

My train to Exeter was terrible, there was no place for my case and I didn’t have a seat and the train was PACKED. So I stood for the almost four hour journey down to the south of England and met Alice at a restaurant in the city center. We leisurely enjoyed pizza and beer and went back to her place where we talked and just watched films. We got up on Saturday, watched another film while I folded cranes, because that’s all I do when I am sitting and not using my hands, and I got ready to head back up to London. This time, there was hardly anyone on the train and I got two seats, one for my bags, one for me. It was really sad to leave Alice, but I was happy I got to see her at all!

Tom met me off the train in London on and we hung out in Starbucks in Paddington station for a while before heading to Carnaby Street and Liberty. Both are super pretty at night, but are super crowded, especially when you’re dragging your bag. We headed back to Tom’s for a few minutes so I could put my stuff down and headed back out in East London to have dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. It was delicious. Sunday, we had time before we had to be at the Warner Brother’s Studio Tour, so we went to breakfast with one of his roommates to the café his other roommate works at. We had a Sunday roast, where I ran into the situation that made me stop eating meat (3 weeks on now and I’m doing great), went to Waterstones for the books I wanted to buy, wandered through UCL to see where he used to go to Uni for his Masters, and then we were off to Watford to go to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour!

This was my NINTH (I think) visit, and it was lovely. It was decorated for Christmas and the castle was dusted with snow. It was Tom’s first time, so it was exciting to be able to take him. When we got back to the flat, Tom fried up some halloumi for us, I got all my crap packed, and we got all tucked up in bed and watched some TV.

He woke up early so he could walk to the train with me, where I decided to take the tube because it was cheaper. It was so sad to say goodbye, but I know I’ll see him soon. The best part about this trip was that the majority of my time was spent tucked up in various beds with cups of tea just catching up with some of my favorite people in the whole world. And it was worth every second.

Everything was going well on the way to the airport, I was on track to get there on time, until we arrived at the Boston Manor stop, where someone jumped in front of our train. We had to evacuate and we were evacuated basically right above where the person was. It was traumatizing. I was kind of close to losing my shit. I found a nice American lady, Jenny, who was going to LHR to the same terminal, and she let me share her Uber. It was a really, really upsetting way to start my journey home. We found out on the way that the person had died. And I think about it every single day.

If you ever feel hopeless or like you don’t have anything to live for, please reach out to someone. You DO have something to live for. You are important, you are loved, you are necessary. Please don’t forget that.

Thank you for reading <3

Jes