Queen Elizabeth II’s final journey through Edinburgh, lights out as our Covid response changes and rāhui in place near Kaikōura in the latest New Zealand Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
Was London always this busy?
Like so many Kiwis, I did my time in the home of Big Ben, Buck Pal and bangers and mash, but that was back in the mid-noughties.
My colleague, a London virgin also here to cover the Queen's death, returned from his first central London supermarket sojourn unloading like someone who'd mistakenly stumbled through a toddler's birthday bash at Chipmunks.
"You have all of five seconds to look at what you want on the shelf before you're abruptly moved on by people behind you", he* said, conceding that in the trauma of it all he'd forgotten the washing powder and onions.
London is big city busy. Is it bigger and busier right now?
Probably, but it might just be a matter of perspective.
Below the Herald's apartment, Green Park tube station was a scene of mayhem on Sunday, as officials resorted to fences and one poor fellow commandeered a loud hailer to corral those drawn to Buckingham Palace by their Queen's death.
A bottleneck outside the station meant some waited up to two hours to walk just under a kilometre across Green Park to the palace.
"Open the gates," the man with the loud hailer boomed.
"Close the gates," he commanded immediately after.
"Keep moving," he cajoled.
"Step back," he scolded.
Queen Elizabeth, pictured two days before her death, when she met with new British Prime Minister Liz Truss. Photo / AP
It was the very opposite to the world of the woman they were trying to mourn, and the formal response to her death, where everything is happening just so under a plan dating back to the early 1960s.
Sometimes, exasperated, our friend with the loud hailer was reduced to simply repeating the same word over and over.
"No, no, no, no, no."
For London-based Kiwi Danni Booth, the experience was a bit different.
She thought the crowds added to the atmosphere, surrounding her with a supportive community of mourners as she shook hands with the new King outside Buckingham palace the afternoon following his mother's death.
King Charles III held her hand, placing his other on top, and she felt it was him consoling her, rather than the other way around, Booth said.
"He really squeezed it, and I felt that was a comforting thing really."
Kiwi Danni Booth met King Charles III outside Buckingham Palace on Friday. Photo / Supplied
And my Uber driver, who spent hours the night before at his wife's side as they clicked through a mammoth photo tribute that acknowledged every one of Queen Elizabeth's 96 years, barely lifted an eyebrow at the choked footpaths between Green Park and Piccadilly Circus.
The crowds, Tamil Sri Lankan immigrant Nagan said from the front seat of his late model BMW, are "back since Covid".
"But it's not like 2019."
Things aren't always as they seem, especially when you've landed on the moon all rather suddenly and unexpectedly.
Crowds outside Buckingham Palace in London after Queen Elizabeth's death was announced on Thursday. Thousands have come to the palace every day since. Photo / Getty
It's easy, too, to think the late Queen's the only deal in town.
But each of those clogging footpaths and causing headaches for transport staff are navigating their own responsibilities, plans, worries and joys.
Shamelessly eavesdropping for Kiwi accents, I caught a conversation between two women not far from Buckingham Palace.
"I remember the first time we saw her," said one, prompting a loud gasp from her companion.
I leaned closer, ready for another story about someone's interaction with the woman many saw not only as their Queen but also a kind of national grandmother.
