From November 8-19, I took a very relaxed trip to the United Kingdom. My agenda—such as it was—was very small: Go to Harrogate for Thought Bubble, the Yorkshire Comic Art Festival, and then spend a week in London, exploring bookstores and visiting favorite haunts. I was successful on both points, but …
I had a tough time on this trip. I couldn’t seem to adjust to the time difference (even with the help of Melatonin, which is illegal in the UK, by the way) and had only about three decent nights of sleep out of ten. I enjoyed being there, but the other thing I found is that going again in just a year’s time is too soon (I was just there in September 2022). I need to space it out more, like every other year, or every third year. Still, I was successful in finding all the books I wanted (more on that later) and all my flights, trains, and commutes to and from the various stations involved were easy and on-time.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll post a whole slew of photos including these from Harrogate—the site of Thought Bubble—and from London, plus a special Christmas decorations post the weekend of Christmas Eve. A lot of these photos have appeared on my Instagram account (@gg9218), so if they look familiar, thanks for following me there. And if you don’t, well … shame on you.
Remember to click on the photos to see them larger on your screen! Let’s start with …
Every journey starts with a plane (or a car or a bus or a boxcar, if you’re a hobo), and mine started in San Diego with a British Airways flight that left my hometown around 6:30 PM (about a half-hour late) and flew direct to London’s Heathrow Airport, arriving at 11:45 AM (about 45 minutes early) on Nov. 9th. I breezed through customs and hopped a train to Paddington Station, where I took the Underground to St. Pancras and walked over to King’s Cross station for the next leg of my journey. While this was very easy logistics-wise, it was very tiring. I can’t really sleep on planes (or trains) so I was up for close to 24 hours straight by the time I made it to my final destination.
But before that happened, I stopped off in St. Pancras to see this incredible holiday book tree that was a co-creation of the station and Hatchard’s bookshop. It sat right outside their St. Pancras store and was truly a site to see … I had first seen it on Instagram, where people went absolutely ga-ga over it, and so was I. It was definitely worth the hype, and I’m grateful to have had the time to stop and take some photos of it.
King’s Cross Station—famous as the Harry Potter train station for Platform 9 3/4—is directly across from St. Pancras and my actual destination for my train to Harrogate. This is one of London’s great train stations and seems to be the gateway to the north; I’ve gotten trains here to Leeds and York, also. I was there during Remembrance Week, the British equivalent of the U.S. Veterans’ Day, celebrating the World War I armistice, hence the giant poppy. Remembrance Day was on Sunday, Nov. 12th.
I left King’s Cross around 3:30 PM and settled in for a three-hour train ride, so I got into Harrogate around 6:45 or so, after dark. Having been there all of one time, I decided I knew the way to my hotel and proceeded to walk only to find myself hopelessly lost. Luckily Harrogate is not very big and my iPhone rose to the occasion and brought me to my destination: The Majestic Hotel and Spa, which is a Hilton property (a Doubletree) and a truly beautiful old place. Hilton took it over a few years back and restored it; I first stayed in it in 2019 when I last visited Thought Bubble. At that point, it was its opening weekend, and things were a bit screwed up to say the least, but this time I had a worry-free stay … I mean, besides getting lost when I got there.
I started the day with a check of my winter outfit in the mirror, as all the cool kids do. The weather outside for my entire trip wasn’t exactly frightful; I’d say over the ten days I was in the UK, the temperature averaged around the mid-40s, but when you’re a San Diego boy for 25 years now (!), even 65 degrees requires a hoodie or jacket, so 40s is damn cold. Still, I had an incredibly beautiful (if chilly) first day in Harrogate (which was Friday, Nov. 10th) and I made the most of it, roaming around this charming town and one of its beautiful parks (more on that in a bit).
That roaming around of course included two bookstores. Waterstones is the UK equivalent of Barnes & Noble (it’s even run by the same guy, James Daunt), but it has a lot more character and charm. Each shop is different, catering to its community. A second indie shop in Harrogate, Imagined Things Bookshop, was in a small shopping arcade when I first stumbled across it in 2019 and I was very happy to see it in its relatively new larger location, all decked out for the holidays. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love British bookshops … but I’ll try when we get to London, okay?
Bettys is a legendary tearoom in Harrogate, part of a chain of five such restaurants in Yorkshire. It was closed down during the pandemic, but it has definitely come roaring back; there were lines every time I walked by it. Unfortunately I didn’t eat here this time, but I loved looking in their shop and admiring the building the Harrogate location is housed in.
I came across this tiny Austin Motor Company delivery truck, parked near Bettys. It was part of a fund-raiser for Remembrance Day.
I am fanatical about this great, monolithic Odeon Cinema in the heart of Harrogate. I’ve never seen a movie there, but I love this giant building, which was opened in 1936 with an auditorium that held 1,647 patrons. Of course, it’s been sub-divided into numerous smaller theaters in our age of multiplexes, but the outside is just amazing.
Valley Gardens is a giant park located near the shopping district in Harrogate and very close to my hotel, the Majestic. I was very lucky to have such a beautiful day to roam around it and the photo opportunities were incredible. Just remember … don’t feed bread to the ducks. They do like cooked rice, though, according to the sign.
My real reason to come to Harrogate was to visit Thought Bubble, the Yorkshire Comic Art Festival. This was my fourth time visiting this show (I first visited in Leeds in 2014 and 2018, and then when it moved to Harrogate in 2019), and it’s a wonderful comics convention, filled with incredibly creative people selling comics, prints, art, books, magazines, and more. I didn’t take any photos inside; it was much too crowded (a good thing) and I didn’t want to be in people’s faces. But that’s me with my friend Lisa Wood, also known as the artist, Tula Lotay. Lisa was the founder of Thought Bubble and ran it up until a few years ago, but she’s still a part of the show these days, just in a bit of a different way. Her latest book Somna, created with fellow artist Becky Cloonan, was just days away from premiering, and she’s a founding member of the new creator-owned comics company, Dstlry Comics, which had a big presence at the show. It was great to spend a little bit of time with her and catch up.
So that’s Harrogate, the first part of my trip, from Friday, Nov. 10th through Sunday, Nov. 12th. Tune in next week for part one of my London photos!
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