At some point, you must call your family. You will tell them you’re having a “lovely, quiet time.” You will not mention the soggy sandwich you ate for breakfast or the fact you tried to lick a window at Harrods (it was closed).
You will hear the clatter of their own turkey dinner in the background and feel a pang of nostalgia. Then you hang up, look at the dark street, and think, “Well, this is my story now.” It’s a good story.
The Final, Sleeper-Train Home
The evening is for cozy pub visits that are shut, or a very gentle hotel bar. If you don’t have a room, you watch a film on your laptop under a blanket. It’s index-finger-heavy scrolling through Netflix.
You finally collapse into bed, exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. You realize you walked 14 miles, ate one proper meal, and saw three pigeons fight over a chip. It was perfect.
London on Christmas Day is a city off-duty. It’s a day for slow walks, silly observations, and surrendering to the schedule of a sleeping giant. You’ll complain about it, but secretly, you’ll treasure the weird, quiet peace of it all. Until the tubes come back, anyway.
