It was almost time to head back to London, but not before dropping in on my Uncle Kevin’s family again. We somehow managed to cram all our stuff into the backpack (the other one was back in London) and Gran and Grandad drove us to Bognor station. We said our goodbyes and boarded the train, then got off five minutes later in Barnham, to change to the next train to Chichester.

The screen said that the next train would go to Chichester, and when it arrived we boarded. L carrying Jeremy and a shopping bag full of miscellaneous stuff we’d probably need on our travels that day - stuff like snacks and spare nappies and so on. A fellow passenger decided to be a do-gooder and help L with her shopping bag, but instead managed to break the handle, which was probably not the intended outcome, but annoying nonetheless.

There weren’t any seats available on the tiny South West Trains service, so we stood, but thankfully it was only a ten minute journey. We got off at Chichester, and gave Uncle Kevin a ring and he came in his tiny car to collect us. It dawned on me later while reading the small-print on our Britrail SouthEast passes that they aren’t actually valid on South West Trains. Lucky for us the conductor had been nowhere to be seen on that train.

A short drive around the tangled mess of one-way streets of Chichester got us to Uncle Kevin’s house, where he and Liz (and Luke of course, though being a toddler he probably hadn’t helped a lot) had prepared a mass of food for our consumption. We munched, drank, sat, swapped toddler stories and let the kids play and watch Wallace & Gromit.

Kevin showed his sense of humour by asking young, impressionable Isaac if he liked McDonalds. And had he ever had a McHamster burger? According to Kevin, who kept a straight face throughout, they get a hamster, and a large mallet, and BANG! - flatten the hamster, and put it in a bun. Presto, McHamster burger.

When it was finally time to go, we said more goodbyes, and Uncle Kevin dropped us back at Chichester station, where we boarded a Connex train (and theydo honour Britrail Southeast passes) back to London. Well, East Croydon to be precise, as we were going to inflict ourselves upon Uncle Hew for a few more days.

After dinner I gave my old mate Merlin a call. He’d been in London on and off for a couple of years, and I’d dropped in on him the previous year when I was there. He said to come on over, and gave me instructions on how to get to his place in Lewisham. Thankfully I had an A to Z with me, and found the place okay, which just as he had told me, was a block of flats which had a car park that included a line marking where the Prime Meridian was. Very cool. Well, for a car park, anyway.

He showed me all the weird and wonderful music gadgets he had in his flat, which was a big change from the place he’d been living in the year before in Willesden Green. Back in Willesden, he’d only had one room, about 90% of which was filled with a double bed. In Lewisham he had two rooms plus kitchen and so on to himself, which was a vast improvement in terms of space.

We sauntered down the street for a quick ale at the local, and over a pint caught up on the latest news. After that it was getting late, so we walked back to Lewisham station and I made my way back to East Croydon, making the connection at London Bridge by mere seconds, and by the time I got back, thoroughly worn out after what had been a very full day.

• Links: Visit to Merlin’s 1998 / Britrail
  / South West Trains / Connex

Today we explored various towns along the south coast of England. First my grandparents dropped us in Arundel, most famous for either its very impressive castle, or for being the headquarters of the Body Shop - depending on who you ask. Or is that Littlehampton?

We didn’t go into the castle (little kids and the interior of historic homes don’t, as a rule, mix), but we did wander around the town for a little while, judging the picturesque rating to be around about 8 and a half, despite the drizzle. We found the station, picturesque rating 2, and caught a train west along the coast, to the end of the line at Portsmouth Harbour.

Ancient, but armed to the teeth: HMS Victory at Portsmouth Harbour.

There is a maritime museum at the Harbour, but you can walk around most of it at no charge - only the exhibits cost money*. But you do have to go through a Royal Navy checkpoint first, where they make sure you’re not a terrorist. Portsmouth is also a military base, and it’s probably not a good idea to go wandering out of the area open to visitors.

*I wasn’t trying to be cheap, but I try wherever possible not to spend money to get into museums or other attractions that the kids are going to be completely mindnumblingly bored in.

One of Her Maj’s older ships, HMS Victory is on display on one of the docks. It looks most impressive, armed to the teeth with three levels cannons on each side. You get the feeling looking at it that if every cannon went off at once the whole boat would keel over.

Outside the harbour we found a pub that looked like it had a thoroughly decent lunch menu - and it did. So we stuffed ourselves full of food and ale (well okay, not so much ale for the kids) before staggering back to the station, and caught a train back into Portsmouth proper, the town centre, for more wandering around and in and out of shops, of which there were many.

Back on the train, which by this point was like most public transport is at around 4pm the world over: crowded with noisy schoolkids heading home. We got off at Barnham to change to the Bognor Regis train, but had a quick look at the town first. A quick look was all that was needed - there was hardly anything there. A convenience store and that was about it, apart from the station. So after buying some snacks we headed to Bognor, this time not too late to look around the shops there.

My notes of this day are a bit vague, so I don’t even recall what we had for dinner. Not that you probably care. Suffice to say that after a bus ride (for which I bought the tickets with no problems this time) we ended up at my grandparents’ house again.

Just after dark we took a quick walk onto the beach. The tide was out, and on the sands it was dark, it was very cold, and it was windy. Welcome to the English seaside. But by golly, for some reason it was very atmospheric. It’s times like that when the senses are shocked enough to make sure you’re paying attention to your surroundings, that you fully appreciate where you are.

It was time to introduce L and the kids to my most legendary relative ever: the sublime UK in the UK: Uncle Kevin. Grandad and Gran drove us over to Chichester, where Kevin and his wife Liz and son Luke live.

Getting over there was a good chance for Isaac and Jeremy to have a good play - one of few good plays on the holiday. Kids need that sort of thing, otherwise they gradually go crazy. And adults need to prevent their kids going crazy to stop themselves going crazy. They revelled in Luke’s toys, both indoors and out, while we adults chatted and drank numerous cups of tea.

The legendary Uncle Kevin

Gran and Grandad enjoy a cuppa

Then Kevin was due to go to work, so we wandered off into the town centre of Chichester, got some lunch and explored the streets, poked around the very impressive cathedral, touched the Roman wall, nosed around the shops, and dodged a small army of charity collectors (no, we can’t make regular contributions to your charity, we don’t have a UK bank account).

Chichester is thankfully home to a very decent Internet Cafe by the railway station, and I spent a few minutes in there catching up on the news and e-mail from home. The machines and connection were fast; heaps better than the dingy place in Croydon that I’d used a couple of days earlier.

Nearby we found the bus station, and we caught a bus back to Bognor Regis. It was single-deck bus which was a shame - I love the idea of riding a double-decker bus through the countryside, but it didn’t seem worth waiting another 15 minutes for that one. Once in Bognor, we proceeded to wander around the shops there, at least those that were open, which wasn’t very many. There wasn’t much choice for dinner either, and we eventually settled on a Kebab place.

It was after 6pm and getting dark, but thankfully Safeway was still open, which meant we avoided the ugly scene of me on my knees, hammering on the door with tears running down my cheeks, pleading for the love of God to be let in to buy some nappies. We trotted in and stocked up on a handful of supplies, then joined the express line - which turned out to be anything but - they should have called it the Snailspace line. But we did eventually get to pay for and wrap up our groceries, and wandered up to the bus stop.

The bus to my grandparents’ house arrived and we got on, with me, the official fare-payer, fumbling with the currency, and failing to notice where to rip the ticket from the dispenser. But the bus driver was sympathetic, and seemed to understand when I told him I was a long way from home.

Today after much wrestling with my PhoneAway card, I finally managed to get it working (Telstra had provided the wrong local number to dial) and checked our voicemail at home. 14 messages no less, the most immediately significant of which was that the ticket for L that I’d booked through the Ticketmaster UK
web site for a concert with Lyle Lovett that Friday at the Royal Albert Hall had been cancelled - it turns out due to the death of his father. What a bummer. Tell you what though, full credit to Ticketmaster. In the following days and weeks we would discover that apart from the phone message, they also e-mailed several times AND sent a registered letter about it which was waiting at home in Melbourne. Plus a refund of course. Shame about the concert though, L would have enjoyed that.

Letting the kids peek over the fence to look at the sea at my grandparents’ house.

We packed up some of our stuff for a few days on the south coast of England with my grandparents. We took the bus to East Croydon station, and after a quick stop at Safeway and Boots for supplies, got on the train, with me assuring L all the while that we’d be able to buy sandwiches on board. Nup. No trolley service. D’oh! Thank goodness for L’s hastily bought emergency chocolate supply.

We rolled into Bognor Regis about an hour and a half later, and while waiting for my grandparents, availed ourselves of the very excellent (if a little slow on the service) Whistle Stop cafe in the station. Why do all cafes in railway stations invariably get named the Whistle Stop? Aren’t there any better names that could be used?

Grandpa and Gran arrived a few minutes later, and we piled into their Fiat for the drive to their house by the sea, with no close calls at roundabouts this time. After unpacking, we attempted to take a walk along the sea, but it was far too rainy and windy. Ah well. Eventually the rain let up, and after playing with the kids in the garden, we took a walk to the local village shops and got in some supplies - a newspaper, snacks, and some toys to keep the kids at least mildly amused and stop them destroying the house.

After dinner we settled down to a quiet evening of chatting, watching telly, drinking sherry, that kind of thing.

We caught the train into London Blackfriars - an interesting name for a station, though I didn’t spot any black friars walking around it. It was pretty quiet, being Sunday morning, and we strolled along the Embankment, which is a rather less interesting name for what is undeniably, an embankment.

One of London Transport’s youngest drivers, Isaac.

We walked through the Strand, past all the Australian icons - the Qantas office, Australia House etc, to Covent Garden. Our prime goal for the morning was to visit the truly wonderful London Transport Museum. I raved on about it the last time I visited, and it’s still just as good, the ideal spot for kids of all ages etc etc etc and all that usual hype. The kids loved it of course, and we all had a good nose around through the exhibits.

After a spot of lunch we roamed around the rest of Covent Garden. By that time it was much busier - crowds of people milling around the shops, munching on food and watching buskers of varying degrees of talent. A truly awesome rock band had set up outside the museum, and was blowing away the crowds, while inside the main shopping building there was a more refined form of music, a string quartet.

A few streets away, wandering through China Town we came across a dragon, accompanied by noisy fireworks and an honour guard of martial arts people, moving from shop to shop as Chinese dragons often do, blessing each in turn. It reminded me of home in Melbourne during Chinese New Year, in fact.

From there we walked down Charing Cross Road to Trafalgar Square, and Isaac, showing a rare burst of energy, had a good run around chasing the pigeons. We dipped into the Underground station toilets at one point, and I noticed that they had a sign up proclaiming that they had been "Loo of the Year 1996/97". Maybe they’d let their standards slip a little since then - it didn’t look all that outstanding to me. Or perhaps the competition was really shitty?

Down Whitehall towards the river we went. I’d been telling L about how big Big Ben is. It’s a Grand Canyon-type scenario - no matter how many photos you see, you’re never really quite ready to see it in person. It’s big. Hence the name. L seemed a bit doubting, until we came around the corner and she looked up and - "Holey shit!"

We found a park next to the adjoining Westminster, and Isaac and Jeremy had a good run around. Then we caught the tube back to Victoria. Everyone was hungry, so we went into the shopping centre above the station to look for dinner, and discovered that despite the silly name, "Spud-u-like" aren’t bad, as far as potatoes go.

Somewhere on the train between Victoria and East Croydon, one of our Travelcards went AWOL. Thankfully it was only the tail end of a Weekend Travelcard, but it was annoying nonetheless. We put on our "poor tourists don’t know what we’re doing" faces at East Croydon station and the ticket collector let us through the gate. 

There were a few groceries we needed to get on the way back to Hew’s, but we figured we could probably get them at the Safeway near the station. Nope: closed. Another convenience of home, that all big supermarkets are open until midnight every day of the week, obviously didn’t apply. While L went to look around for any open shops, I popped in to an Internet Caf� next to the station.

The computer they gave me was mindnumblingly slow. After ten minutes I’d only managed to read two e-mails, and I gave up after fifteen minutes. As I paid up my £1.50, I asked "Is that computer always that slow?"

"That one on the end is a bit slow, yes."

"I wish you’d have told me that fifteen minutes ago", I replied, and stormed out, silently vowing never to return, a vow I was to break a few days later.

L hadn’t been able to find a single open shop. This was a dire situation: what we needed was baby wipes and nappies. When you’re stuck in a strange land as guests of someone with no little kids, with a toddler who let’s face it - like all little kids - can erupt like Mount Vesuvius in the bottom zone, you definitely need nappies.

We got on the bus (the right bus this time) anyway, and asked the driver if there would be anywhere open. He spotted a late-night supermarket and let us off. Thankfully, they had the necessary provisions, and it was only a short walk to Hew’s place from there.

So if you’re reading, the bloke driving the 466 that night when some Aussie pleaded with you to find a late-night supermarket or chemist, I just want to say thank you Mr Bus Driver, thank you. You probably saved a fellow Englishman’s house from a devastating eruption.

We set off into central London from my Uncle Hew’s place, with Hew in tow. We got off the train at Victoria, and strolled around to Buckingham Palace. Buck House is kind of impressive to people who’ve grown up elsewhere in the Commonwealth, and seen it on the telly every time there’s been a royal wedding. And it’s always a laugh to see the guards strutting around in their very tall hats.

The hotdog sellers were doing a roaring trade (a ludicrous UKP 4 a pop if I recall correctly), though I’m surprised they allow such blatant commercialism so close to the Palace. They appeared to be the only vendors. Perhaps they let just one set of food vendors operate there for fear of a starving tourist populace jumping the fences and ransacking the Palace in search of food. Or perhaps it’s just another way of raising revenue since they got their pay cut. Though I didn’t spot a "By Appointment To Her Majesty The Queen - Greasy Freddy’s Hotdogs" crest on the side of the carts.

So did we shell out these exorbitant amounts of money for mere sausages in buns? You bet - we were starving.

We carried on, following in reverse (if that makes any sense whatsoever) my footsteps the first day I had ever come to London, through Green Park. Then we strolled along Piccadilly towards Piccadilly Circus, looking in shop windows, and stopping off to look at an arts and craft market which was running in a churchyard. Can’t say I saw anything particularly inspiring there, but we did pick up some wacky and tacky English postcards in a shop a bit further along.

The plan had been to meet Josh and Cathy, who were over from Australia on a more long term basis (living, working, the whole bit) at a pub in Bayswater to watch the delayed telecast of the AFL Grand Final. I had a vested interest in seeing Carlton (the Blues) win - I got them in my office sweep. No doubt all my colleagues at home were hoping for the Blues would get a pummelling by the Kangaroos, since I had won the pre-finals footy tipping competition.

I was going to let L and the kids take in some more of London while I enjoyed a few beer soaked hours watching the footy with some mates. I even thought of dragging Hew along for some of this fine Aussie culture, but he wasn’t feeling very well, wasn’t too keen and decided to go home early.

L seemed a bit overwhelmed by Piccadilly Circus on a fine weekend afternoon (well, most people would be the first time they experienced it - Oh the humanity!) and somehow it didn’t quite seem fair to leave her with the kids in the middle of this strange chaotic metropolis. So I elected to ring Josh with my apologies, and we tramped off to find a less chaotic bit of London to explore. I rang Josh later, and he said the Kangaroos trounced the Blues anyway, so there you go.

We explored the shops of Regent Street, nosing through the massively fun toy shop Hamley’s, and also taking a detour around the very fashionable Carnaby Street. The BBC Shop further up Regent Street also got a look-in, and then we went exploring a little more off the beaten path, down an obscure street called New Cavendish Street, which turned out to have almost no attractions at all worth looking at (probably why they don’t mention it, let alone rave about it, in the guide books).

But we did get very close indeed to the structure formerly known as the Post Office Tower. I know it used to be the Post Office Tower because I remember it from that Goodies episode, Kitten Kong. My A To Z labels it as the Telecom Tower, but you can just bet that by now it’s called the BT Tower. The habit of renaming utilities and their associated infrastructure must be a worldwide thing - no wonder my neighbour is confused about who runs the phones.

We found Tottenham Court Road, and a tube station to get us back to Victoria, where we took a train back to East Croydon. Then we got some groceries from the Safeway there, and waited for a bus back to Hew’s house. From the multitude of buses leaving from East Croydon station, I made an educated guess about three I thought we could take, and we boarded one and ended up at the wrong place. Not far off course though, and not far from Hew’s house, so we walked the rest of the way. I made a mental note to try the other two routes next time.

• Links: Josh’s UK diary / BBC Shop / AFL / British Monarchy / The Goodies

Time to leave Birmingham, but first of all we needed to settle the bill. I realised I was a bit lacking in the cash department, so had a quick consultation with "Basil", our host. He apologised for not accepting cards, but gave me directions to a cash machine, and then asked "Are you sure that’s okay?" with the kind of tone that suggested that if it was too hard to walk there get cash, he was almost willing to let us leave without paying.

We found the fabled Natwest machine, just as per his instructions, and returned to cough up the dosh. Then we set off for the bus stop, and caught one of the many going by to Birmingham City Centre. We strolled along Corporation Street to New Street Station, and checked the times of trains back to Oxford (yes, that old make-use-of-the-railcard thing again). We had just missed one, so we took a look around the shopping centre above the station, the (s)wankily named Pallasades Centre. Ultimately, it was just another shopping mall, but it kept us entertained until it was time to get on the train and say, naturally, "So long Birmingham - You’re my kind of town!"

Courtesy of another of Richard Branson’s train sets, we rolled into Oxford a bit later, slurped down a drink and then rolled out again, bound for London on board a very streamlined and fairly empty Thames Turbo express. We bought some sandwiches off the jovial on-board catering bloke, and had munched our way through them by the time we reached London Paddington station.

Back on the Underground to London Victoria, then we wandered around and found the Sainsbury’s not-quite-big-enough-to-be-a-supermarket nearby and bought some food for dinner.

Then we went and did the Victoria shuffle, a little dance without music that sees people gazing up at the departure boards looking for the station they want to get to, then scurrying off towards the platforms when they see it, hoping that there’s actually time to get onto the train before it leaves.

We got to our train, but the on-board announcements left us in some doubt if it would actually be stopping at South Croydon. The quintessential City Gent sitting opposite deftly whipped a timetable from his briefcase and inspected it, and told us that it should do so; and indeed it did. He was very cheerful and helpful, despite Jeremy doing a toddler scream at him (well okay, not at him, but in the vicinity) and us nearly breaking his legs as we manoeuvred the pram past him to alight.

It’s refreshing to know that at South Croydon, the painted signs on the platform saying "MIND THE STEP/GAP" actually warn you of a considerable gap (and step), not just a teensy tiny ant-sized gap of the type elsewhere in London that the signs and railway people seem to be at pains to warn you about. No, at South Croydon, they have a real gap.

From the station we walked back to my uncle Hew’s place. He was almost as delighted to see us as he was delighted to discover that L had volunteered to cook chicken for dinner, which we made very fast work of, before settling into a relaxing evening of wine and telly (vision, that is, not savalas).

• Links: Birmingham New Street / London Underground / Sainsbury’s / Victoria

The first B of the B&B, the bed, was very comfy, and we slept well. The second B was a great big artery blocking cholesterol bomb of the full English variety. Thoroughly delicious, and the ladies serving it were marvellously friendly, and promised to call an ambulance if anybody collapsed with heart failure. They had the kind of Midlands accents that reminded me of the old TV adaptation of Adrian Mole.

As planned, we met Ian, who we would come to know by his nickname, "Jelfie", and piled into a bus bound for the city centre.

I often rave on about Telly Savalas and the voiceovers he did for films in the seventies promoting various English cities for business and tourism. The pictures would show the grey boxes and motorways of what passed for good town planning back in those days, and Telly would wax lyrical about how marvellous it all was.

He would never actually appear in shot, and it was pretty obvious from watching them that he’d done the voiceovers from a long way away; probably at home by the pool in Miami, or somewhere like that. In fact it was doubtful that he’d ever even considered going to any of these places. But he’d sign off with an enthusiastic "So long <city name> - you’re my kind of town!"

Clive James showed a number of these promo films on his show a few years ago. And I’d swear one of them was for Birmingham, promoting its terrifically rectangular grey office blocks and cold grey arterial roads as the best thing in Europe since Spam.

Happily for the citizens and visitors of Birmingham, that’s changed. They’ve seen the light. The city’s getting open spaces, the canals are being re-developed, the ugly ring road is being moved underground, and the grey office blocks are being torn down in favour of groovy curved and colourful architecture. And I think that’s what most English people don’t realise: Birmingham isn’t grey any more; it doesn’t smell, and its streets are bustling with people.

The benefit of being shown around the place by Ian, a very friendly soul who is actually a professional tour guide (heck, here’s a plug for his web site - next time you’re organising a trip to that part of the world and have no idea where anything is, drop him a line) was that he knew where everything was, how much it all cost, who designed it, why it was there, what had gone wrong when they built it, and so on and so forth. We tested him later that day when Isaac announced in his usual abrupt manner that he needed a toilet. "Ian, where’s the nearest toilet?" Without hesitation he pointed up some steps. "Right there, it costs 10p". And there it was, well concealed inside an advertising column.

So we roamed about the canals, through the convention centre, around Victoria Square (England seems to have almost as many things named after Queen Victoria as the United States has named after George Washington) and the museum, and along the city streets. We boarded a double-decker bus, and grabbing the optimum tourist seats (front seats on the top deck) rode to another part of Edgbaston, that is, a part of Edgbaston which didn’t contain our B&B. We went past the cricket ground for which Edgbaston is best known at home, and wandered around some gardens and had lunch.

While waiting for another bus back to the city centre, L performed one of the lightning fast nappy changes on Jeremy that she could well become famous for, on a narrow sloping bench in the bus shelter. A true feat of speed and balance. The bus came a minute or two later, and we headed back to Corporation Street, and then down to the brand-spanking new and very colourful Birmingham Metro, though someone from Melbourne such as myself could be forgiven for thinking it was just a tram.

We boarded the tram, err Metro and took a joyride, wondering how long it would take the locals to get sick of the automated voice announcing the current and next stops at every station.

We ended up in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, where all the jewellers hang out, which makes me wonder if they have proportionately more armed robberies in that area. Just a thought. Then we caught another bus back into the city centre and found a lovely little cafe to have afternoon tea. Or afternoon hot chocolate in my case.

A stroll up to Victoria place and back through the convention centre, then the kids had a short play in a park behind it. Then we started thinking about looking for dinner. It was getting dark and had started raining at this point, but we didn’t have to walk far before we found Pizza Express, which from the name sounds like a cheap fast skanky pizza place, but as it turns out is a medium-priced quite nice pizza place. Pizza for the second night in a row? Why not - we were on holiday!

By the time dinner was over, it had stopped raining, and we caught a bus most of the way back to the B&B, getting off a little early to drop past the shops and buy a newspaper. Ian showed us a back way to the B&B, which took us past a strange little tower built in a previous century for unknown purposes, which together with another nearby may (or may not have; we may never know for sure) have inspired J.R.R.Tolkien, a local lad, to write the Lord Of The Rings-series book "The Two Towers". See, if you didn’t have a tour guide (or at least a fairly detailed book) in tow, how on Earth would you learn such a thing?

We thanked Ian profusely for the day, and promised if he ever got down to Melbourne that we’d give him a tour of some of our local sights, though undoubtedly with less reliable accompanying trivia.

• Links: Birmingham City Council / Tolkien page