A Trailer Full of Tunes

An (almost) uneventful journey home

2011-10-17T15:31:00.006-04:00

I finally got to have a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich, purchased for only £1 from Boots at Terminal 4. It was quite enjoyable. Getting to Terminal 4 was another story. Read on.

My original plan was to save money and take the tube to Heathrow on Sunday, but I realized that planned engineering works on half the tube lines would make that next to impossible. So, I took the #36 bus to Paddington Station and planned to catch the 10:13 a.m. Heathrow Connect (the same train I rode in from Heathrow on). At the station, I went to the area where I'd emerged from platform 10 or 11 on my arrival day, and saw a bunch of temporary barricades in front of the turnstiles there. So, I looked around for a Heathrow Connect ticket office and didn't see one, but did spy the Heathrow Express ticket office. At the window, I asked the ticket agent where I needed to go for the Heathrow Connect, and she told me that it wasn't running due to planned engineering works. Bugger! I then had to pay £18 for a ticket on the (faster) Express rather than the £8.50 that the (slower) Connect would have cost me. But the Express trains run more often and I hopped on the 9:40, which got me to Terminals 1-3 in about 20 minutes. As the train pulled into the platform at Heathrow, we heard an announcement saying, "Passengers for Terminal 4 should exit the train, cross the platform and immediately board the train at platform 2." So I did, following two people who had gotten off my train. Another woman got on behind me, just as the doors shut in her husband's face and the train pulled away, leaving him and their luggage on the platform.

A member of staff was in the carriage near where those of us who got on last were standing, and the woman (an American) started asking him what she should do, as her husband had their tickets. He said that her husband could just catch the next train and they could meet at the end. He phoned someone to alert them to the situation. It then dawned on me that this woman was headed into town, so I asked if the train would be stopping at Terminal 4. No, it wouldn't. We were headed back to Paddington. The two men (also Americans) who had gotten on with me then piped up and said that they needed to go to Terminal 4 as well. The member of staff assured us that we could just get off the train at Paddington, wait a few minutes while they joined some other carriages to our train, and then get back on and go back to Heathrow. About this time the conductor came along, a very nice man who told us that people get confused and make this mistake all the time, especially on Sunday as that is the ONLY DAY that trains going back to Paddington share platform 2 with the trains for Terminal 4.

Back at Paddington, we waited for about 5 minutes before the train left again at 10:25 a.m.. When we got to Heathrow, there was no train yet on platform 2. While I was waiting, I looked up and saw the departure boards above my head, showing the alternating trains. A train pulled in and a different member of staff clearly announced that it was the train for Terminal 4, which got us there in no time. I looked at my watch as I finished checking my bag -- 11:05 a.m., which was probably exactly the time I'd be doing this if I'd been able to catch the Heathrow Connect in the first place.

Everything else about the journey went smoothly, although slowly. The plane to Boston was coming in from Paris, and was delayed due to fog in London. Although we boarded and took off about 1/2 hour late, we landed in Boston pretty much on time. The queues at immigration moved quickly, my bag was one of the first to arrive on the carousel, and going through customs was a breeze, with only a sweater and a book to declare. I had to wait well over 1/2 hour for the Logan Express bus to Framingham, where my car was parked, but our jovial driver Dave got us there in no time flat. I left the Massport lot at about 6:30 and walked in my front door at 8 pm -- exactly 16 hours after leaving Spooner's -- where I was met by much meowing from Sadie.

Note to self: Don't travel into or out of London on a Sunday ever again. And don't blindly follow groups of Americans anywhere. And, as John Betjeman said, always look up.

Expenses:
£18 for Heathrow Express
£1 for tuna & sweetcorn sandwich
£1.05 for bottle of water
$110 to park the car in Framingham
$250 for Sadie's critter sitter

5,958 steps (mostly in Heathrow)
2.29 miles on foot

I yarn stormed London

2011-10-16T02:32:00.011-04:00

It's hard to believe that my nine days in London are almost over. The time went so quickly, yet it was long enough for me to feel the closest to being a real Londoner that I've ever felt.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning, while Spooner was at the steam bath getting all remaining traces of buffalo, pig and soil out of his pores, I took the two yarn bombs that I'd brought from home down to Meanwhile Gardens. I found good places to attach them -- I put a green one with leaf pattern on a metal railing near the pond, and a striped one on a hand-made stick railing in the wildlife garden. As I was sewing them in place, a young man did Tai Chi on the platform above the pond near my first location, and the birds and squirrels scurried and hopped around my feet at the second spot. My friend Helen used to come to Meanwhile Gardens, and to the stretch of canal next to it, often to photograph the birds, plant life, and the reflections in the water. I like to think she would have noticed my yarn bombs straight away, and would have smiled and approved of my creative mischief in her garden.

In the afternoon, Spooner and I went to two art events that bring street art indoors. The first was the Moniker Art Fair at the Village Underground in Shoreditch. We also walked around the car park behind Holywell Lane and looked at what was new on the walls there. Neither indoors nor out was as good as last year, but we saw some interesting things. After that, we rode the bus across London Bridge, walked through Borough Market for some nibbles (much of which was free samples of chutney, cheese and bread from various vendors), and took another bus over to Waterloo to see The Minotaur in the Old Vic Tunnels under the train tracks. Some of it was cool, some creepy, and some puzzling.

Another long bus ride took us to Hampstead for dinner with Greg and Esther at a nice little French bistro where we'd all eaten together a couple years ago. It was a great meal, with lovely company, and a very nice way to end my trip.

I managed to see most of the people I wanted to meet up with, though I really regret not seeing the ones I missed. I ticked off most of the things on my massive list of exhibitions, historic spots, markets and rambles. The places I didn't get to will just have to go onto the list for the next trip. Except for the first couple of days, my back held up and didn't ache. I didn't lose anything or get lost. The weather was decent -- no real rain to speak of, and the final two days were full of blue skies and sunshine. And I didn't wear my rain boots once.

Big thanks to Spooner and all my mates who made this such a fab trip.

Expenses:
£5 last top-up on my Oyster
£2 spinach packet at Borough Market
£10 tix (2) for the Old Vic Tunnels
£17 dinner and wine

17,738 steps
6.99 miles

A grand day out

2011-10-15T03:34:00.009-04:00

The most amazing thing happened yesterday as Maggie and I were getting off the train in Guildford. We were standing in the aisle, waiting for the carriage doors to open, when Maggie whispered, "Look who that is." I looked at the backs of men's heads ahead of us and wasn't sure who she meant until she pointed discretely at the bowler hat in the hand of the gentleman right in front of her. It was Maxwell Hutchinson! My American readers won't appreciate the magnitude of this occasion, but my Brit mates will know him as the architect who comes on the Robert Elms Show on BBC London every week to talk about buildings and history and all sorts of interesting things about London. When we found ourselves on the platform, walking right next to him and the other man he was with, I did something I never do -- I turned to him and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Hutchinson. I listen to you every Tuesday on the radio on my computer in Massachusetts" and I stuck out my hand to shake his. At first he looked a bit taken aback, but then he replied, "My goodness! What are you doing here in Guildford all the way from Massachusetts?" We told him we'd come to see the George Frederic Watts Gallery and the Watts Chapel. He then said, "As long as you've come all this way, you must see the Cathedral." Although we knew this wasn't in our plan, we told him that, on his recommendation, we would try to do. I then said how lovely it was to meet him and we went our separate ways. I, of course, was grinning ear to ear.

The rest of the day just got better and better. Blue skies, bright sunshine, warm air -- the best weather of my visit. Maggie and I waited a few minutes for Ray to arrive by bus from his home in nearby Woking. We then took the local bus to the small village of Compton. Actually, we never saw Compton itself, getting off the bus at the Watts Gallery on a little lane, I assume just outside the village. I didn't know much about G.F. Watts other than that he was responsible for the creation of the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice in Postman's Park in London, a place I visit often and really love. There is a wall of plaques in the back of the park, each made of Doulton ceramic, that commemorates in just a few words an ordinary person who died in the act of saving another. I wasn't aware that Watts is considered one of Britain's greatest painters. Apparently, many Brits don't know of him either, I imagine somewhat because his allegorical or heroic subjects seem old fashioned to our modern eyes.

After seeing the gallery and having lunch in the tea room, we set out on foot for the chapel designed by Watts's wife Mary. This small funeral chapel is said to be one of the best examples of British Arts and Crafts architecture, and Maggie and I had been wanting to see it for ages. We walked all around it, inside and out, gazing at (and photographing) the amazing details. The cemetery there is also lovely and peaceful, on a hillside looking out over fields below. Then a guided tour group of old dears arrived and the spell was broken.

Ray had suggested we take the bus to Compton, uphill all the way, and walk back downhill to Guildford along the footpaths. We couldn't have asked for a better day to do this. Much of our walk was along Sandy Lane, a well-named sandy, one-lane road, which made for some interesting maneuvers when trucks came from both directions, with the three of us sandwiched between them. Eventually we reached the towpath along the River Wey and followed that back into Guildford just as the sun was sinking low.

Expenses:
£13.90 cheap day return ticket for Guildford
£2.20 bus to Compton
£7.50 for Watts Gallery
£5.00 for egg mayonnaise sandwich on granary bread in the tea room
£1.45 for late afternoon beverage

20,966 steps
8.27 miles

A quick update

2011-10-13T14:37:00.011-04:00

I'm writing a second post today because I have to be out the door really early tomorrow. I'm meeting my pal Maggie at Waterloo to take the train to Guildford, where we'll meet up with Ray and go to Compton to see the George Frederic Watts Gallery and the Watts Chapel.

This was the day without a plan, the day to do whatever I hadn't worked in on other days. It turned out to be a day with a lot of seeing but not much walking, which is ok because I know I will more than make up for it on our walk tomorrow. Just before I left home, I read about the new exhibition at the British Museum by Grayson Perry, about whom I knew absolutely nothing, called The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. I'm running out of superlatives, but I must say that this was one of the best exhibitions I've ever seen. I totally enjoyed Perry's "love of stuff." This was all about a pilgrimage made with his teddy bear, named Alan Measles, to Germany and through time to other pilgrimage spots around the globe. But it's all imaginary and done through story telling, connecting artifacts and objects from the British Museum's collection to new objects made by Perry for the exhibition to examine shrines, talismans, totems, and other pieces of craftwork in a new context. It's hard to explain, but it was really fun. Photos from the Guardian here.

From there I wandered through Bloomsbury, up to the Euston Road, where I stopped in to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery (she was the first woman doctor in the UK) and the crypt gallery at St Pancras Parish Church. In the EGA Gallery I learned about the founding of the first hospital in London for women and staffed by women. In the crypt gallery, I saw and heard some cool and creepy stuff that had something to do with the descent into the dark. I then revisited the Wellcome Collection to spend more time in the Charms and Miracles exhibition.

When I was on the Number 7 bus in the morning, headed towards the British Museum, we passed Selfridges with its window displays for the Museum of Everything, which I had on my list of things to see but had forgotten about. So I stopped there on my way back home at the end of the day. It's all outsider art. Nothing special. Kind of ho-hum.

Back at the flat, I warmed up the goat cheese and veg pie that I bough the other day at one of the markets we visited. I'm now going to watch a bit of Downton Abbey and then turn in.

Expenses:
£10 for Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum
£3.40 for tat at the BM shop
£2.20 for a spinach roll at a farmers market in Torrington Square

13,962 steps
5.5 miles

Good mates, good art and good beer

2011-10-13T04:22:00.008-04:00

With those three elements, I'd say it was a perfect day.

Wednesday had an appointed beginning (meeting Judy at Tate Modern) and end (Guess Where London meetup at Craft Beer Co. in Leather Lane), but lots of room in the middle for spontaneous choices and a walk in the sunshine, when it made a brief appearance, along the Southbank. The first (and the best) thing we saw at Tate Modern was Tacita Dean's new Unilever installation in Turbine Hall, which had just opened the day before. I purposely didn't look at any press coverage of the opening, because I didn't want to have any images in my head of what it would be like. It's big and it's fab! We viewed it first from the bridge across Turbine Hall, and then went down below, where people were sitting on the floor to view it and little kids kept running up and touching the screen. It really needs to be seen from both vantage points, as in incorporates architectural elements from Turbine Hall itself and you need to experience it from both angles and in both scales. I'm doing a mental inventory of the four or five Unilever installations I've seen, and I think that this is by far my favorite.

After Judy treated me to lunch, we wandered across the river to One New Change to check out the views from their 6th floor roof garden. Nice view of the dome of St Paul's, but you really can't see much of the City or beyond because parts of the building itself -- which is an ugly shopping centre -- are in the way. While you can get some glimpses of bridges, the river itself isn't visible. And there are no views to the north, which I would have enjoyed. I guess I'll just have to wait for next year's Open House and go to Broadgate Tower if I want panoramic views.

Back across the river, we returned to the Tate Modern. All together, we saw Diane Arbus photos, Contested Terrains (four African artists), and did a quick walk through the very, very grey Gerhard Richter exhibition (my advice is to skip the rooms with the grey stuff and go straight for the color).

A wander in the warm sun brought us to the Hayward Gallery, where we met up with our mate Malcolm and chatted under a festive bunting of white underpants. More white underpants, this time in the form of a large chandelier (called the "Massachusetts Chandelier" -- don't ask me why as I haven't found out yet), awaited us inside -- all part of Pipilotti Rist's Eyeball Massage. This exhibition was great fun -- full of videos, projected onto walls and gauze curtains, onto objects small and large, inside pocketbooks and shells, and even from a tiny hole in the floor. You can walk in and out of the curtains, stick your head into holes to see things in a large box, or lounge on the floor on pillows made of stuffed trousers and shirts. This review describes it much better than I can.

When our eyeballs were thoroughly massaged, Malcolm and I said goodbye to Judy and walked up to Leather Lane (with a quick stop to look at the inside of The Black Friar pub, which I'd never seen) for the GWL meetup. The Craft Beer Co. is a lovely, new-ish pub that serves a great variety of crafted ales (I had one called Winter Meltdown and another called Hophead -- thanks Malc and David for treating me!). As always, it was lovely to catch up with old mates and to meet new ones.

Another note of explanation for my faithful and observant readers: My posts are time stamped with Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5). Please don't think that I'm awake at 4 in the morning writing these -- I'm too knackered to stay up that late or wake that early.

Expenses:
(Judy treated me to lunch and exhibition entry at the Tate Modern)
£2.75 for beverage at the Hayward
£8 for the Pipilotti Rist exhibition

20,975 steps
8.27 miles

A Retrograde Ramble in the City

2011-10-12T03:38:00.005-04:00

Most of yesterday was taken up with future-oriented activities: doing a load of laundry so that I'd have socks and underwear for the second half of my visit, and various errands that Spooner needed to do in order to be ready for his expedition to a farm with his students (leaving today, returning on Friday). One of his missions involved a trip to Citibank to deposit a check. The nearest Citibank branch is in Hanover Square, which put us very close to the Opera Gallery in New Bond Street, where I'd just read that Mr. Brainwash was having an exhibition. We figured this was not to be missed (note that I didn't say "too good to be missed"). It was as we expected -- Mr. Brainwash's work is largely derivative, but in case he shows up in another movie (he was the subject of Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop), I wanted to say I'd seen his gallery show in London. His non-derivative pieces involved using bits of broken vinyl records to replicate black and white posterized portraits of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, etc. Though somewhat creative, these weren't exactly interesting. But there were some things in the gallery by other artists that we enjoyed seeing.

The highpoint of the day was a backwards-looking activity -- Through the Time Tunnel: A Retrograde Ramble, a guided walk in the City. We met up with my Flickr mate David at Tower Hill Station for this two-hour walk backwards in history from the 21st century to Roman London. Our guide, Steven, is an amateur history buff who had worked in the City for 30 years, using his free time to explore and learn about its history and hidden gems. Now retired, he leads seven different walks each week. He showed us the old Royal Mint building, a hydraulic pumping station, the first Peabody estate in London, remnants of a rail line used to bring goods from Shadwell and Limehouse docks to the warehouses in Tower Hamlets, Wellclose Square and Wilton's Music Hall, St Katharine docks, and some bits of the foundation of St Mary Graces (destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries; I had seen a skeleton from this location in an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection several years ago, so it was really interesting to connect it all together). Our walk ended at All Hallows by the Tower, where we saw a Roman tile floor in the crypt. This was only the second guided walk I'd been on (the first was about Jewish radicalism in the East End) -- both were non-commercial, done by local history enthusiasts, and were highly informative and really fun.

After the walk, we dashed off to do the last of Spooner's errands. This afternoon, he and his group of 14-year-olds will take a bus to somewhere in Hampshire, where they'll stay in a hostel, cooking their own meals, and will work for 2 days on an organic farm that has buffalo, pigs, chickens and vegetables. I can't wait to hear the stories when he returns on Friday.

Expenses:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£5 for the guided walk, which goes to Oxfam and Cancer Research UK

13,578 steps (and a lot of bus and tube journeys)
5.35 miles

Groundhog Day

2011-10-11T03:58:00.006-04:00

I'm finding myself retracing steps and revisiting places quite a bit on this trip. Yesterday (Monday) was almost a carbon copy of the last Saturday of the 2010 trip, except without Spooner and Malcolm. I was on my own for the day while Spooner got his hair cut, bought Wellies and made other preparations for his upcoming 3-day expedition with his students to an organic farm in Hampshire. So, I spent a chunk of time at the V&A, then walked up Exhibition Road to Hyde Park, visited this year's Serpentine Pavilion (ho-hum) and the Serpentine Gallery, and then walked up to Bayswater Road.

At the V&A, I saw a great exhibition called The Power of Making, which was all about crafts taken in new directions with incredible results. I also saw parts of the Medieval and Renaissance galleries, wandered through the ceramics gallery in search of an Ai Weiwei exhibition that hasn't started yet, and saw the (free) photography part of the (not free) Postmodernism exhibition.

Lunch -- a cup of lovely roasted veg soup -- was the best part of my stop at the Serpentine Pavilion and Gallery. There's a retro Citroen van, converted to a snack truck, sitting outside the gallery. I'll have a photo up at some point, but meanwhile you can see this one by my mate Malcolm.

Speaking of my photos, here's the story: there's an open wireless network at Spooner's flat, but I can't connect to it because Tony (the owner of the flat who is now traveling around the world for a year) has set it up as a LAN and he has to be here to allow new computers to be part of the LAN. I don't really understand it, but it means that I have to use Tony's desktop computer rather than my netbook, and I'm reluctant to dump all my photos from my camera onto his computer. So, my posts will go unillustrated until I'm home. So sorry to disappoint my faithful readers, but you'll just have to come back here at a later date.

In the evening, Spooner and I went up to the Almeida Theatre in Islington to see Tracey Ullman in a new play. She hasn't been on stage in London for 20 years, and I had high hopes that she'd chosen something really fab for her return. But it's not. I'm no theatre critic, but I know a crummy play when I see one. 'Nuff said. We did have a very nice pub meal at the Charles Lamb before the show, however.

Expenses:
£1 for map of the V&A (yes, they charge for this now)
£3.50 soup and roll at the Serpentine
£9 meal and a half pint of bitter at the pub

22,483 steps
8.87 miles

Market Day

2011-10-10T04:05:00.006-04:00

Sunday is a big market day in London, and we took in three of them -- the Queen's Park Farmers' Market just up the road from Spooner's flat, Columbia Road flower market, and Brick Lane market. We wandered our way down through the East End from Columbia Road to Whitechapel Road, passing through Arnold Circus, starting at the top of Brick Lane and weaving our way in and out of the crowds, back and forth on various side streets -- Bacon, Sclater, Hanbury, Princelet, Wentworth -- checking out the streetart along the way. I'd read a lot about the East End over the winter, including Child of the Jago, The Worst Street in London, On Brick Lane, and re-reading parts of East End Chronicles. I always have in my head dozens of spots that I want to see, and streets that I want to explore, and I never seem to get to all of them. Having now done this on a Saturday (last year) and a Sunday, I'm not sure which is better -- on Saturday, the streets are rather quiet and less interesting, without any stalls, vendors or many people, but on Sunday it's too crowded in places and I get so overwhelmed with just trying to navigate through the hordes of people that I often forget the various places I want to go in my effort to make it through the mob and not get separated from Spooner.

We stopped into two different galleries -- the one that's in the old Rochelle School in Club Row (Arnold Circus) and the Whitechapel Gallery. I'd wanted to go to the Whitechapel to see the hall of mirrors by Josiah McElheny, but was somewhat underwhelmed -- or it was just over my head because I didn't know enough about the intellectual premise behind it all. However, there's a fabulous exhibition in an upstairs room -- the selections from the Government Art Collection, curated by Cornelia Parker, called Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. Throughout the upcoming year, different people will be selecting pieces from the vast art collection of the British government, to be arranged around a theme. The works in the current exhibition are all hung salon style, according to the color spectrum -- Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain is a mnemonic for ROYGBIV. Have a look at the exhibition booklet to get a sense of the range of pieces and the humorous juxtapositions. We enjoyed seeing which government ministry owned particular pieces.

Our evening was a quiet one spent back at the flat -- a glass of wine, a hot bath, and dinner.

Expenses:
£3 raisin walnut loaf from farmers' market
£4 Map of Spitalfields Life, bought at Labour and Wait
£5 Lunch at Meraz Cafe in Hanbury Street
£1 juice

19,216 steps
7.58 miles

A Sweater and a Souk

2011-10-09T04:11:00.006-04:00

Score! When I was packing for my trip, as I folded my 25+ year old cashmere cardigan that always comes with me to London, I realized that it was no longer fit for travel. A small hole had developed in one of the sleeves, and the seams were beginning to come apart under both arms. Regretfully, I left it home, thinking I might be able to find a substitute at a charity shop in an upscale neighborhood. Since our plan for Saturday was to be in Notting Hill, I had jotted down the address of Mary Portas' (Queen of Shops) charity shop for Save the Children, called Living and Giving, in Westbourne Grove. Our route through Notting Hill took us down the Portobello Road (after a stop at Lisboa Cafe in Golborne Road and the newly-renovated public toilets in Bevington Road), through the Saturday market. I passed half a dozen stalls in the stretch by the Spanish School that had a rack each of sweaters, many cashmere, but saw nothing that seemed right. Then, just before the Westway, was a stall of nothing but cashmere sweaters. On the rack of cardigans, I found one that was just a shade darker than the oatmeal color of mine. It fit and it was a good deal at £20. As the vendor explained, and as I knew, it's quality English cashmere, not the cheap Chinese variety that they sell at M&S. Success, and before noon on day 2!

We picked up some food items, looked at some bits of street art, and then got out of the market by turning right on Lancaster Road. From there, we walked up Ladbroke Grove to the top of Notting Hill where the hippodrome was located in the 1830s, and then down the west side of the hill into the old Piggeries and Potteries area, which was, in the mid-19th century, one of the most fetid slums in all of London. The clay soil here, which was responsible for the close of the hippodrome some 6 or 7 years after it opened because the jockeys refused to risk any more injuries to horse or man on the track, was used in making bricks and ceramics. And pigs apparently wallowed in it. Along the way, we saw a 19th century kiln used for firing bricks. Some history of the area during that time is here.

Carrying on, and after crossing Holland Park Avenue, we took a small detour into Aubrey Walk to see the new blue plaque for Dusty Springfield. Next stop was the cafe in Holland Park for some lunch before pushing on to Leighton House. Because there was a Souk Nour being held in the studio of Leighton House, entrance was free. As Spooner examined the books and other goods for sale in the souk, I roamed around the house to look at the jaw-dropping gorgeous tiled walls, ceilings and floors, as well as the silk wallpapers and various paintings.

On the way home to Maida Hill, we stopped at the London West Bank Gallery in Westbourne Grove to see an exhibition (a few interesting paintings). We also stopped at Living and Giving, where I didn't see anything I liked nearly as much as the sweater I bought in Portobello Road. Back to Spooner's for a quick meal and then on to the Shaw Theatre to see Far from Kansas, an offshoot of the London Gay Men's Chorus, perform their popular double-bill of We Could Have Danced All Night and Little Shop of Homos. Good, campy fun.

Expenses:
£2.50 walnut bread (eaten immediately) and custard tart for later from Lisboa
£3.80 veggie pie from the Portobello Road (for when I'm on my own for dinner)
£20 for cashmere sweater
£3 lunch at Holland Park
£4 glass of wine at the Shaw

18756 steps
7.42 miles

Arrived ... and knackered

2011-10-07T13:30:00.006-04:00

Despite my major pre-travel anxiety, the journey went well and I'm here in London. I was a bit nervous because I was flying a different airlines (Delta instead of Virgin Atlantic), from a different terminal at Logan (A instead of E), arriving at a different terminal at Heathrow (4 instead of 3), taking the Heathrow Connect into town instead of the tube, and going to Spooner's new flat in Maida Hill, a part of town I'd only seen briefly from the #31 bus a couple years ago. Some things were better about this scheme (less crowded plane, so I got to spread out over two seats; much shorter line at immigration; far speedier train) and some were worse (inferior in-flight entertainment, jarring bus ride from Paddington to Maida Hill). But I had no trouble finding the flat, no difficulty with the front door lock, and was greeted inside by a trail of post-it notes pointing me to the toilet, computer, power shower switch, and my room -- a bit Alice in Wonderland or Hansel and Gretel.

And despite getting about an hour of sleep on the plane and another hour when I got to Spooner's flat, I boldly ventured forth today and covered a respectable amount of new territory (and a bit of old pavement as well). I left the flat just a few minutes past noon, and headed down the Harrow Road to the Ha'penny Steps, crossed the footbridge, and walked down the towpath past (and a bit through) Meanwhile Gardens. Though I'd never been here before, these spots looked quite familiar -- the blue railings on the bridge, the paths through the gardens, the coots and geese in the canal, the reflections of the buildings in the water -- because I'd seen them so many times in my friend Helen's photostream. London seems empty with her no longer in it. I know I'll think of her often and miss her enormously during this visit.

Continuing on down the towpath, I walked through Little Venice, on the pavement through Lisson Grove (no access to the towpath through some sections here), along the edge of Regent's Park, and up to Camden Town. Weather was kind of variable -- some grey skies and warm, then blue skies and blustery, chilly wind. I took a lot of photos, but haven't reviewed them yet. I'll try to add one or two to this post tomorrow or the next day.

I started out with every intention of walking up Kentish Town Road to Jeffrey's Street to see the new-ish Banksy piece (particularly as his pieces along the canal have been buffed out), but was just too tired by the time I reached Camden Town. So, I decided to do something tried and true. I hopped on the #168 bus, rode down to Euston Station, and went into the Wellcome Collection for a few minutes to see the brand new exhibition -- Miracles and Charms, which is all about Mexican votive paintings, milagros and other amulets of faith and healing. I only had about 20 minutes to spend there, but really liked the exhibition and may try to go back later next week.

Spooner has gone out for the evening to a play. I just took a hot bath and am now making my dinner. I'm going to try to stay awake until about 9 pm, and am hoping to get a good night's sleep and wake up with energy and good spirits for tomorrow's adventures.

Expenses:
$2.40 Mass Pike toll
$22 bus ticket (return) from MassPort lot to Logan
$2.29 bottle of water at the airport
£8.50 Heathrow Connect (single) to Paddington
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£2 for a piece of quiche at Camden Lock Market

21,858 steps
8.62 miles

My Year in Dullsville

2011-09-04T18:50:00.004-04:00

Yes, we had an earthquake, but I didn't feel it. We also had a hurricane, but it brought me only a lot of rain and some small branches down in my back yard. The winter was absolutely dismal, and I'm not going to mention it again ... ever.

One of the highpoints of the year was joining up with Riot Prrl, a knitters' league for positive mischief. I've always wanted to be a yarn bomber/yarn stormer/urban knitter, and I added to Riot Prrl's tree project in Northampton, done for International Yarn Bomb Day (June 11). Since then, I've made a few pieces to adorn some of the street furniture around town. Here's a photo that ScribeGirl took of me working on one of my pieces:

I'm hoping to do a lot more of this in the coming year. It sure beats my previous feminist activist endeavor, which shall go unnamed, and which was cause of much frustration. I'm also working on some pieces to take with me to London in October. My plan is to place them in Meanwhile Gardens, in memory of my dear friend Helen, who I think would have enjoyed seeing them. She often visited that stretch of the Grand Union Canal to photograph the birds, buildings and reflections. I miss her company, her humour, and her inspiration as an activist, a feminist, and a photographer.

Planning for my upcoming trip to London is well under way. I'm hoping to make some new discoveries and to revisit some favorite haunts. I'll be staying in Maida Hill rather than Belsize Park, as Spooner has moved flats. I'm looking forward to walking the towpath along the canal to Camden Town, and to getting to know W9/W10. I promise to post regularly while I'm there.

Art on walls, in the park and on the street

2010-10-17T04:59:00.008-04:00

My last day in London was just as full of adventures as the first. I'm now rushing around to pack and leave for Heathrow, so this post will be a short one. Here's a recap of what Spooner and I did on Saturday:

Saw Shadow Catchers at the V&A. Really fascinating stuff -- beautiful, mysterious and haunting photographs made without the use of cameras.
Met up with Malcolm in the Madejski Garden, walked up Exhibition Road and into Kensington Gardens to see the Serpentine Pavilion and the four reflective sculptures by Anish Kapoor that are sited on the lawns and in the water.
Took the tube to Liverpool Street, walked up to Great Eastern Street, and saw the Moniker International Art Fair at Village Underground. My favorite piece in the show is by a streetartist named Boxi, who I'd never seen before. Spooner heard from one of the gallery staff that Boxi was working on something out on the street, and, as luck would have it, we walked right past it on our way to Old Street. Boxi was putting the final touches on the work (photo above), which is quite stunning.

So, this brings me to the end of my 2010 trip to London and Liverpool. It's been utterly fab, filled as always with new adventures and wonderful mates with whom to explore the city streets, art and history.

It's been good to have my netbook with me, as it's made my blogging easier and I've had access to all my stuff in Google docs, etc. Each night, I've dumped the day's photos from my memory card onto the netbook to take a look at them. I've realized that this computer doesn't have good resolution for editing photos, however. They seem a bit blurry and pixely to me, so I'll wait to get home and put them on my desktop computer before fine tuning them. I think there's a metaphor in there somewhere. Right now, my whole trip is a bit of a blur, with images and recollections running around in my head in a disjointed way. When I get home, I think that things will come into better focus as I really examine the photos from each day and the memories of my friends and my adventures.

Distance: 16,341 steps (6.7 miles)

Expenses:

£5 for Shadow Catchers exhibition at the V&A
£3 for chicken and veg pasty at Liverpool Street Station
£1.23 for Hobnobs to take home
£15 to Spooner for food and booze

A Tale of Two Tates

2010-10-15T15:23:00.006-04:00

It was another day of great mates, interesting art and no rain (although no sun, either). And it was another day in which I neither got lost nor lost any of my possessions.

I visited both Tates with Helen and Judy -- first the Tate Britain in Pimlico, followed by a boat ride to the Tate Modern on the Southbank. The major exhibition at Tate Britain now -- other than the Turner Prize, which I didn't see --is the photography of Eadweard Muybridge. I always thought Muybridge was American, but he was born and buried in England, which qualifies him for an exhibition at the Tate Britain. And I'd always associated him only with stop motion photos of horses trotting and athletes running, but he also did some extremely impressive landscapes and cityscapes as well. The latter were very large format photos, shot on glass plates using a huge wooden camera that he lugged around to capture vistas in Yosemite and panoramas of San Francisco in the 1870s. No sacrifice was too much for his art -- he even chopped down trees if they were blocking the perfect view. The photos are incredibly detailed and beautifully composed, regardless of the era but more remarkably so when you consider the time and the technology.

The next exhibition we saw transported us to an entirely different reality. Or unreality. Coral Reef is a series of small rooms, connected by dirty, narrow corridors, each of which contains the objects of real or imagined scenarios. One room was something like a mini-cab dispatch office, one like an evangelist's reception room, one that reminded me of my car mechanic's shop, which still has the grease and grime of 1975. The rooms were alternately perplexing, disturbing and amusing. Helen, Judy and I chuckled our way through the whole labyrinth.

The boat took us to the Tate Modern in Southwark, where we had planned to see -- and touch -- the new installation in the Turbine Hall. The installation, which opened just three days ago, is by Ai Weiwei, who has filled the hall with 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds. Apparently, it's been wildly popular, with scores of people walking through the seeds, playings in them, touching them, moving them about and -- here's the significant part -- stirring up clouds of ceramic dust. The clouds have been so intense that Health and Safety has closed down access to the exhibition. When we got there, we met up with Ray, another of our Flickr mates, and were only able to view the installation from the balcony above or from behind a rope on the main floor of the Turbine Hall. A member of staff was beside the rope, explaining that they are investigating different means of controlling the dust and hope to have the problem solved soon. Other Turbine Hall exhibitions have also run into H&S difficulties, so they should be used to it at this point. I guess we have to put it down to witnessing a piece of Tate Modern history.

Back in Belsize Park, Spooner and I went down to his local, The George Washington, for birthday drinks with one of his mates. It's now raining -- the first real rain of my visit, which is truly remarkable ... and most fortunate.

Distance: 9,959 steps (4.08 miles)
Expenses:

£1.75 for tea at the Tate Britain
£11 for lunch at Pizza Express
£3.75 for Tate-to-Tate boat

More art, foundlings and a medicine man

2010-10-14T14:56:00.007-04:00

Today's ramble lacked a coherent theme or geography, other than being more or less along the Number 24 bus line. I'm happy to report that, for several days now, I've returned in the evening with all of the items that were in my possession when I walked out the door. Whew!

The day started and ended in the noise and traffic of the Euston Road. I took the tube to King's X/St Pancras and walked down to the Gagosian Gallery, which I'd never been to before. As I approached it, I saw one black cab after another as people arrived or left the gallery. Inside, there were hordes of people -- trendy, arty types -- milling around with champagne flutes or cups of tea. The exhibition was incomprehensible -- something to do with form and light. The trendies were queuing up to put on funny booties, climb some steps and enter a box of colored light. I left in a hurry.

I then meandered down Gray's Inn Road and made my way to the Foundling Museum, getting there just as mist was turning to rain. There, I learned about how Thomas Coram established the first institution in Britain to care for abandoned children in the mid 18th century. In addition to exhibitions about the history of the Foundling Hospital, and about Hogarth and Handel's philanthropy on behalf of the institution, there was a special exhibition called "Threads of Feeling" that had to do with bits of cloth, ribbon or trinkets that the moms had tucked in with their babies when they left them for admission to the institution. The staff always attached the bits to the child's admission form, thus building the country's largest collection of textile fragments from the 1700s and 1800s.

Fortified by another lunch of tuna and sweet corn sandwich and bevvie, eaten in Tavistock Square, I grabbed the #24 bus to Trafalgar Square and went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the 19th century photographs of Camille Silvy. Afterwards, I checked out some of the recent portraits, including photos by Mary McCartney (Linda McCartney's daughter, and a talented photographer just like her mum).

Next stop was St Martin-in-the-Fields, across the street from the NPG. I hadn't been in the crypt since the major renovations that were completed a year ago. They've currently got small models of the six sculptures that are on the short list for the next installation on the Fourth Plinth. There's a golden boy on a rocking horse, a bright blue chicken, an ATM/pipe organ combo that is supposed to make sounds, a cake made of bricks, a war hero guy on horseback who is all decked out in beads and bobbles, and a mountainous island that's actually Britain upside down. I was thinking about going into the crypt cafe for tea and a little snack, but it was really crowded and noisy so I beat a hasty retreat upstairs to the church, where I listened for a while to a choir rehearsal. They weren't doing a classical or religious piece or anything that I recognized, but I worked out that it was something to do with the first scene of Macbeth. It was hard to understand, but I distinctly heard "weird sisters" and "boiling, boiling" and "cauldron."

Back into the grey mist, I took a quick look at the current Fourth Plinth sculpture (photo above) before jumping on the #24 going north, getting off at the Euston Road, and walking down to the Wellcome Collection where I got to have my tea and a lovely apple flapjack pastry. I looked at most of the "Medicine Man" exhibition of Mr Wellcome's collected stuff from around the world, mostly medical or dealing with birth and death. The Collection is currently asking people to donate an object, no bigger than their head, to expand the collection of unique and/or mundane objects. That stuff will be shown starting next week in an exhibition called "Things" that I think could be quite amusing. I'm encouraging Spooner to donate one of his kitschy objects.

Distance: 14,443 steps (5.92 miles)

Expenses:

£4.28 tuna & sweet corn sandwich, apple and bevvie
£5 for Silvy exhibition at NPG
£3.50 tea and pastry at Wellcome Collection
£10 to top up Oyster card

A Stroll along the Regent's Canal

2010-10-14T03:32:00.005-04:00

Yesterday's adventures provided a lovely change of pace and a new vantage point from which to see bits of Islington, Hackney and Bow. I met my pal Maggie at the Angel for a leisurely stroll along the Regent's Canal to Limehouse. Highlights of what we saw included:

The Secret Garden Project in Duncan Terrace
Alfred Hitchcock's gigantic head at the former site of Gainsborough Studios (knocked down and rebuilt as luxury apartments)
I Am Here and the Victorian bath house in Haggerston
Broadway Market, where we saw F. Cooke's Pie and Eel Shop and had a very nice pub lunch (not at the eel shop)
The Ragged School Museum

Along the way, we passed street art and mosaics along the canal wall, old warehouses, several locks, a gasometer, lots of canal boats, Victoria Park and other green spaces, and many people riding bicycles, pushing prams, walking dogs or fishing (not that you'd want to eat anything you pulled out of the canal). Although the busy streets of East London were just above us, it was calm and quiet along the canal and we contently chatted away as we strolled.

After leaving Limehouse Basin, we hopped on the DLR to Tower Gateway and were instantly plunged back into the noise and traffic of the streets of London. Our destination was a bit down The Highway, just past the turn to go to Wilton's Music Hall which I visited two years ago, where Banksy has just painted a new piece. It's only a few days old, and hasn't yet been tagged, painted over or covered in Perspex. Maggie has seen it a couple days ago when the paint was hardly dry. I know that Banksy has his critics, among them the rival streetartist Robbo, but I'm always thrilled to see a new work.

I ended the day with Spooner, Greg and Esther having pizza and drinks up in Hampstead. A very long, but totally enjoyable day filled with interesting sights and good mates.

Distance: 28,670 steps (11.75 miles)

Expenses: £8.40 for pizza and wine (Maggie treated me to lunch, and the museum was free, though I did drop some change into the donation box.)

Mr Hardman, Mr Gormley, Spooner and Me in Liverpool

2010-10-12T14:01:00.010-04:00

Spooner and I are just back from Liverpool, where we had a fab time. Before I write about the great stuff we saw, I have to fill you in on my mishaps. I did something I never, ever do. And then, not an hour later, I did it again. I lost stuff. First, as we were walking from the train station to our hotel, I took the pocket map out of my bag, checked it, and then put it in my back pocket. Two blocks later, when I went to check it again, it was gone. We backtracked and looked for it, to no avail. Not the end of the world, though. We went to the tourist info center and got another (not as nice as the one that I'd ordered from amazon.co.uk, but perfectly fine). I then folded up the spreadsheet of our Liverpool plans and put it in my back pocket. A half hour later when I went to consult it, I found that it, too, was gone. I put this down to wearing something other than my trusty, though not particularly stylish, cargo pants with button closures on the pocket flaps. I've never lost a map, spreadsheet, Oyster card, sunglasses, or anything I've put in my cargo pockets. Spooner says it's down to my age. From now on, screw wearing the nice pants. It's back to the cargo pants where my stuff will be secure.

Our first stop was a tour -- a very long tour -- of the house and photography studio of Mr Edward C. Hardman, a professional portrait photographer who lived and worked in a Georgian house (c. 1780) in Rodney Street. The house is just as it was when Mr Hardman died in 1988, and it hadn't been changed a hair since he and his wife Margaret, who ran the business and was an accomplished photographer in her own right, moved in around 1948 or so. And they never threw anything out, so the house is a real time capsule with clothing, dishes, furniture and even canned goods dating from the 1950s and '60s. It was quite enjoyable to listen to the knowledgeable guides and to peer into the Hardmans' lives and work, but the best was the room with the photos that Mr Hardman took as his avocation -- scenes of pre- and post-war Liverpool, its buildings and its people. (Note to self: do some serious decluttering when back home in Northampton so as not to leave 100 bars of soap or 40-year-old tins of tomatoes when I die.)

On the way to and from Rodney Street, we walked up and down the Ropewalks, which are very old streets dating from when the area was full of warehouses and merchants serving the shipping industry of the 18th and 19th century. Rope was literally "walked" down various streets, the length of which determined where the rope would be cut for the various sailing ships. The cobbles are uneven, the streets are narrow, and many of the warehouses are now derelict.

Monday's adventures saw us at the Albert Dock, the Pier Head, and up the hill to the Walker Art Museum. The Liverpool Biennial is currently going on all over the city, with contemporary art showcased in the museums including the Walker and the Tate, in galleries and the streets.

Spooner and I finished Monday with a train ride (20 minutes or so) north of the city to the Blundellsands and Crosby station and then a short walk to Crosby Beach to see some of the 100 or so cast sculptures of/by Antony Gormley that are standing on the beach and in the water. The installation, called Another Place, was totally lovely to see at sunset, while taking photos of the sculptures and getting muck all over our feet. We both took off our shoes and socks and went into the low water, but I quickly returned to drier sand while Spooner walked quite a ways out into low tide to snap the sculptures. Lots of people were walking up and down the beach, some with cameras, others with kids or dogs. After the sun sank into the Mersey, as we walked back to the footpath and tried to clean off our mucky feet, we passed a man about our age who took one look at us and chuckled, "You're too old for that sort of thing." Yes, we might be, but we were glad that we could still act young(er) and stupid every so often.

Today (Tuesday) was all about the Biennial, including the Tate Liverpool, a stop at FACT, and a really quick look at some of what was on at the Biennial HQ. Then it was back to Lime Street Station for the 14:48 train to London.

Sunday stats: 16,009 steps (6.56 miles)

Monday stats: 22,208 steps (9.11 miles)

Tuesday stats: 11,538 steps (4.73 miles)

Expenses:

£22 for train to/from Liverpool
£77 for my share of hotel
£6.30 Sunday dinner at pub
£7.50 Liverpool tat for pals and myself
£5.50 lunch on Monday
£3.20 Blundellsands return ticket
£7 food and wine for Monday dinner
£3.50 snacks

A Day on the ELL

2010-10-10T02:51:00.010-04:00

Even though I got a really late start (not out the door until 11:30 am), the sun didn't come out, and the train journey through the Thames Tunnel was a bit of a disappointment, all-in-all it was a happy day. My plan for Saturday was to follow the East London Line, which is partially new and partially reincarnated and is a line I've never been on before, from Dalston Junction to Rotherhithe, alternately riding and walking between stations, and exploring some new or new-to-me bits of the East End. The overground train service has greatly improved since I last rode it from Hampstead Heath -- new carriage stock, smoother and quieter.

When I got to Dalston, I discovered that the two stations, one on the older overground line and the brand new one on the East London Line, are a few blocks apart. I took a long route between the two stations, walking through a very bustling Ridley Road Market and around the Eastern Curve Garden, which is where I took the photo above (by the streetartist Stik). From there, I rode down to Hoxton, then visited an open artists' studio in Cremer Street (not planned, but I can't resist an "Open Studios" sign) on my way to see Ben Eine's "The Strangest Week," which he painted on a hoarding the week that David Cameron took one of Eine's prints as a present to President Obama.

Pushing on, I walked down Shoreditch High Street to Middlesex Street to see another brand new Eine mural and the alphabet letters that he's painted on corrugated metal shop shutters along the street. At that point I thought I was running late, so I hopped a bus on Whitechapel Road, not jumping off at the Whitechapel Gallery as I'd planned, to Whitechapel Station. Spooner rang me just as I was getting off the bus, and we arranged to meet in Rotherhithe around 3:30, which gave me some extra exploring time.

I decided to get off at Wapping Station to wander around a bit, without a map but with some images in my head of things I might see there. This proved to be the best bit of the day -- I've always meant to roam around Wapping, but have never gotten there before. It's full of wharfs, stairs down to the Thames (tide was quite high when I was there), cobbled streets, old churches, and although there's lots of trendy (expensive) housing there now, I could easily imagine the place full of sailors unloading the boats, stumbling drunk down the streets, visiting opium dens, thieving and murdering and doing all the other things that 18th and 19th century sailors did, just as Dickens would have seen it.

A tuna & sweet corn panino and a beverage in hand, I hopped back on the ELL, rode under the river and got off in Rotherhithe, emerging from the bright and shiny new station within seconds of Spooner. We had ample time to walk around St Mary's churchyard, see the bluecoat school (bluecoat schools are 18th century charity schools that always have statues of a boy and a girl wearing blue, placed in alcoves above the door) and the watch house (where the watchman kept an eye out at night for bodysnatchers or "resurrection men").

Spooner went down into the remains of the entrance shaft to the tunnel, but I was too creeped out be the looks of the rickety steps and 3-foot high entrance to go in. He heard a lot about how the shaft and the tunnel were constructed, but I'll just read that online. I won't say much about the train ride through Brunel's tunnel except that it was a regular ELL train that did not slow down and had no additional lighting for the occasion as TfL had promised. The guide kept yelling at us about what we would have seen if we could have seen it.

We decided to separate ourselves from the group when we arrived at Wapping Station. We walked down Wapping Wall to the Prospect of Whitby, the oldest riverfront pub in London, for a pint. Along the way, a couple asked us for directions to the Wapping Project. I told them to keep going down Wapping Wall and it would be on the left, hoping that was correct and that they wouldn't be wandering lost around Shadwell Basin due to bogus directions from an American who didn't have a map and had never been there before. But I was right -- the Wapping Project is actually just across the street from the pub. It's a Victorian hydroelectric power station that's been converted to a restaurant and art/performance space. We were very glad that we stopped in -- it's quite cool and would be a lovely place to have dinner sometime when they've lit all the candles that are placed on top of the remaining engines and other machinery.

Our last stop was back at Hoxton Station. From there, we walked to the garden of the Geffrye Museum to see a fiber optic installation called "Sitting the Light Fantastic" by Kei Ito. Fortified by a quick dinner at Song Que, we headed for home and were back in the flat by 8:30 pm. It's now 12 hours later, and time for us to pack and leave for Liverpool. No blog posts until I get back into town on Tuesday.

Distance: 9.88 miles (24,080 steps)

Change

2010-10-09T04:47:00.010-04:00

One of the first things I saw as I walked west on Old Street from the roundabout was this new piece by Eine, spelling out CHANGE in an area that certainly is changing (it used to be quite dodgy, but is now upwardly trendy). I decided that "change" would make a nice theme for my visit. Bits of London are so old and seemingly unchanging. Because I'm here only once or twice a year, I sometimes think that everything should be just as I left it on my last visit. But it's an organic city, in a constant cycle of destruction and renewal, for better or worse. It's been through fires, bombings, slum clearance, economic booms and busts, buildings falling into dereliction or being gentrified. I'm walking around with new glasses -- both literally and metaphorically -- and noticing what's changed, what's gone and what's new.

I met up with my pal Mondoagogo at the Museum of London for a hands-on experience with ancient London. We did a workshop in the archaeology department, learning about how they sort and catalogue the millions and millions of ancient bits that are kept in their massive archives (the largest in Europe) in Hackney. Our task was to dump out bags of dusty bits of pottery that had been dug up in 1975 in a dig under the nearby General Post Office. Some bits were pieces of Roman amphorae and other bits were medieval. To our surprise, they are all mixed together and catalogued not by the era in which they originated but by the "context" in which they were found. So we wrote out labels for "GPO75" and the strata number of the layer the bits came from. The Museum of London relies on hundreds of volunteers to help with maintaining their archives. So, a new activity for me, handling old bits that have seen the light of day due to the regeneration of a building site.

The Boris Bikes are new since I was last here. It's the central city cycle hire scheme that's recently been launched by Mayor Boris Johnson. Bike stands have popped up all over the central areas, and the bikes themselves are another opportunity for corporate branding. They should probably be called Barclays Boris Bikes, but that's just too much.

Here's another change I saw in Chiswell Street. This ghetto rat stencil, by Banksy, has been here for years. Banksy's original had "London doesn't work" on the placard. Robbo, a rival graffiti artist, has been leaving his mark on various Banksy pieces. There's a whole history of the feud between Banksy and Robbo that's not worth going into.

As a change from the usual pub meet with my mates from Guess Where London on Flickr, we did a pub quiz. Nine of us formed two teams for a quiz sponsored by Londonist. The quiz was quite hard, and though neither of our teams won, we had a respectable showing. We came in 4th and 6th, losing only to teams made up of professional London guides (ringers!).

Distance: 7.96 miles (19,404 steps)

Expenses:

£20 to top up my Oyster card

£10 for dinner at Mildred's (vegetarian restaurant in Soho)

£2 pub quiz entry fee

£3 for tea at the pub quiz

Get me to the airport, put me on a plane. Hurry, hurry, hurry, before I go insane.

2010-10-07T10:32:00.002-04:00

The Ramones were singing "I Wanna Be Sedated" on the radio this morning as I drove to work. When they wrote the song, they were itchy to get out of London. I, on the other hand, and anxious to get there. Anxious as in I can't wait, and also in that my pre-travel anxiety level is sky-high. Did I remember to pack everything? Will everthing be ok at home while I'm gone? Will my wonky knee hold up? I'll settle down as soon as I'm on the plane, but will then be nervousy about getting from Heathrow to Belsize Park on the tube. I usually take the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square, where I change trains after climbing about 30 steps to the Northern Line platform. For me, that change at Leicester Square is the absolute worst part of the journey. This time, to cut down on the number of stairs that I have to negotiate with a suitcase and a 10-pound messenger bag, I'm going to change for the Victoria Line at Green Park, and then for the Northern Line at Euston. This will add about 10 minutes to the journey, and will probably involve more walking between lines at Green Park, but it's worth it to cut down on stair steps. I'll still have to climb about a dozen steps to get to the lifts at Belsize Park (it's one of the deepest stations in London) and then a miserable 51 steps up to Spooner's flat.

After a nap and a shower, I plan to head out to the Museum of London, where I'll meet up with Mondoagogo to do a hands-on workshop in the archaeology department, handling bits and pieces of antiquity that have been dug up around London. From there, it's on to the pub quiz at the Royal Institution. I hope I can stay awake.

Keep watching the blog for tales of my adventures in Blighty.

July Recap

2010-08-15T10:10:00.008-04:00

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, so here's a quick recap of July adventures.

Spooner was here for a couple of days -- days that had to be the hottest and muggiest on record. To beat the heat, we drove up to North Adams to Mass MoCA. It's sort of a tradition that we go every summer that Spooner is stateside. There was the usual range of exhibitions -- some really cool, some creepy, and some that just left us scratching our heads. More photos here.

ScribeGirl also blew into town on part of a whirlwind roadtrip to New England (optimistically thinking it would be cooler here -- if just marginally so -- than in North Carolina). We drove up to Turners Falls, an old industrial village with a canal and factories dating from the 19th century. Blue skies, puffy white clouds, a bit of a breeze, and industrial decay -- all perfect ingredients for a photo ramble. We picked up a map at the Great Falls Discover Center and followed the historic walking tour. Photos here.

Pub Quiz!

2010-08-06T18:24:00.004-04:00

I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself! I just read that Londonist is having a pub quiz on the evening of my arrival day in London. I've been wanting to do a pub quiz since I first learned about them, and I'm totally in awe of the stellar performance of my mates at the last quiz that Londonist sponsored. This one will be at the Time and Space bar in the Royal Institution -- a place I've been wanting to see. The entry fee of something like 2 quid per person will be donated to a charity.

I put a post about the event on the discussion board of Guess Where London this morning, and we've got six or seven people already who want to be on the team(s). Now, I'll have to spend the next two months brushing up on London trivia if I have any hope of a respectable showing (I've got time, as I usually spend August plotting my Open House plan of attack, but I'll be missing Open House this year.) Time for me to dust off Eccentric London and to go through all the cards in my What Happened Here? deck. Although the prizes will no doubt be fab (if they are anything like the last prizes, which included several Time Out London photo books and a tea towel), I'm really in it for the fun and for spending time with my mates. Really.

Meanwhile, my Liverpool research is progressing nicely. I've found us some really cheap train tickets (£11 singles), and have booked us into a purpose-built apartment type hotel at Liverpool One. I've been reading Walks Through History: Liverpool, and Real Liverpool just arrived in the mail today. We'll be there for only 48 hours, so I have to figure out how to pack the most stuff into that limited time. It's sure to be brilliant.

Camera Woes

2010-06-03T10:45:00.006-04:00

Yes, the Canon A620 is broken again. You may have read my previous post about the lens assembly issue I had when I was in San Antonio, and my subsequent meltdown. As soon as I got back to Massachusetts, I took the camera down to Precision Camera Repair in Connecticut. They replaced the lens assembly, charged me $140, and had it back to me in about 10 days (during which I was in agony to be without a camera). I won't go into all the details, but it has now (in less than a month of use since the lens repair) developed another problem that I suspect is the CCD sensor failing. I'm going to contact Precision Camera to see what they have to say about it, but in the meantime I've taken the plunge and ordered a new camera. After much debate between a Nikon D5000 DSLR and a Canon G11 point and shoot, I've decided to go with the G11 on the recommendation of my pal Maggie Jones who just bought one and has great things to say about it. As much as I would love to have a DSLR one day, I think the G11 makes sense for me right now -- it costs less and will be much easier for me to carry around with me on my travels. It should arrive from B&H Photo tomorrow. Sad as I am about the A620, which gave me over 4 years of service and probably 20,000 images, I'm psyched about moving up to something a bit better. The G11 has the articulating LCD screen that I loved in the A620, a great lens, and will probably give me a lot less noise at higher ISOs. Keep an eye on my Flickr photostream as I put it through its paces.

Catastrophe and Charreada

2010-04-19T08:34:00.008-04:00

On the third day, the skies cleared, we started following the Texas Star Trail, and my camera had a catastrophic mechanical failure. The day began so very nicely. Our first stop was the Alamo, which I'd never been inside. From there the walk proceeded through downtown, past many, many historic buildings. Molly read from the Texas Star Trail brochure as I happily snapped photos of it all. Somewhere on Commerce Street, around building #30 of the 70-some on the trail, my lens stuck in the extended position, the LCD went black, and E18 appeared on the screen. Thus started my total meltdown freakout, which involved stops at two camera shops (one not a Canon dealer, the other closed on Sunday), followed by internet research back at Casa Rosenbeans. Turns out this is a very common error in Canon PowerShots, and it usually entails a repair that can cost anywhere from $100 to $200. I'll be taking a trip down to Enfield, CT next week to drop it off at Precision Camera. Thankfully, we have an excellent camera repair facility in the area (it used to be in Chicopee).

I think I'm almost as addicted to my camera as Molly is to her iPhone. I was despondent at the thought of not having mine for the last two days of my Texas trip. Molly is letting me use her Canon PowerShot SD750 for the duration -- it doesn't have the manual controls that my A620 has, but it takes pretty decent pictures, so I'll be ok.

We spent the afternoon at the Charreada -- a Mexican rodeo at Rancho del Charro on the south side of the city. It was all very colorful and cool, with traditional costumes and various competitions. All the riders -- men, women, and some rather young kids -- rode into the ring for the opening procession, and then the events follow. I really liked the women's precision riding. Men's events included horse reining and bull tailing (chasing after a running calf and pulling its tail). I think there were also some roping events, but we didn't stay for that.

We returned to Casa Rosenbeans for a totally different activity -- hooping. Molly was interested in trying it out, so two of her son's friends came over with their hula hoops. The girls had made their own hoops, and they were a bit different in size and weight than what I'm used to. Molly got a good introduction to basic waist and hand hooping, and she did really well. Later, her friend Noemi came over and tried it out -- she was a total natural and was hooping away in no time flat. I think the two of them may be the latest recruits to the wonderful world of hooping.

Today (Monday), we're going to SAMA again so that Molly can do something with her docents while I walk the River Walk in the opposite direction from our Friday and Saturday wanders. We'll then do a tour of a historic Victorian house in the King William District. Tonight is the River Parade.

¡Hola de San Antonio!

2010-04-18T08:58:00.010-04:00

We have been experiencing a deluge of Texan -- if not Biblical -- proportion. In between downpours, we've managed to work in quite a few activities in the past two days, although we've had to do a bit of adjusting of plans on the fly.

On Friday, we went straight to SAMA (the San Antonio Museum of Art), where we looked at the psychedelic art exhibition and were joined by Amy S. for a lovely lunch on the covered patio of the museum's café, which overlooks the River Walk. It's just as well that we abandoned our idea of taking the river taxi to the museum -- all the while we were eating lunch, not one single river taxi came by. By the end of lunch, the rain had let up enough for us to walk a bit of the River Walk around SAMA. This is a new section of the River Walk, just opened last year, which included various art installations in the underpasses and along the walk. Near SAMA, we saw a couple dozen giant fiberglass fish (supposed to be long-eared sunfish, native to the San Antonio River) hanging from the I-35 underpass, and a grotto with stalactites and a scary face, made by a famous faux bois studio in San Antonio.

With the skies reasonably clear, we headed down to Mission Concepción to take a quick peak at the newly-restored chapel, and back downtown to El Mercado for a bit of shopping, and to a tweet-up at the Southwest School of Craft and Art where we got some free food and a sneak preview of several booths in the Fiesta Art Fair.

We awoke Saturday morning to the most horrific rainstorm I'd seen in years. Thunder, lightning, black skies, and rain like someone had opened a gigantic fire hose on the city. For the second day in a row, our plan to walk the Texas Star Trail was scuppered by the weather. We waited around until the torrential rains abated a bit, and went to the Pearl Farmers Market, which thankfully was under tents. Things looked better weather-wise after we'd done the fruit and veg shopping, so we optimistically headed for the Art Fair, which wasn't crowed and was quite pleasant despite the by-then misty spritz. The rain had seriously delayed the set-up of the sound equipment for the music stage, however, but loyal fans that we are, we waited for Miss Neesie and the Ear Food Orchestra to play the first few songs of their set.

A little before sunset, Molly and I returned to the I-35 underpass on the River Walk to see the fish lit up and to wait for the bats to come out. At 7:55 p.m., they emerged in groups and started swirling around, out and then back under to bridge, before taking off in search of their dinner. There aren't as many bats as live under the Congress Street bridge in Austin, but this was the greatest number of bats I'd ever seen at one time so I was impressed. We noted that the air smelled of guano and were careful to stand away from their flight path so they wouldn't poop on our heads.

That pretty much sums up days one and two in San Antonio. Stats (steps and expenses) to follow. Adios.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

2010-04-16T10:19:00.002-04:00

$20 to check baggage.
No free nibbles.
Turbulence.
Chatty Cathy, cut the string!
Love my new neck pillow.
Miles between gates at DFL.
Rain.
I have arrived.

"Did you ever see Dallas from a DC9 at night?"

2010-04-12T18:19:00.006-04:00

Torch of Friendship and Hemisfair Tower, San Antonio

So sang Jimmy Dale Gilmore, a true Texas troubadour if there ever was one. I don't think I'll be on a DC9, but I will be flying over Dallas at night when I go down to visit Rosenbeans and take in a bit of Fiesta San Antonio. It's been three years since my last visit, and five since I last went to Fiesta, so I'm quite psyched.

Rosenbeans will be my personal San Antonio Tour Guide (she's a certified professional). We've been working on a spreadsheet for the trip with her suggestions and some of my ideas. I want to take advantage of her expertise and knowledge of All Things San Antonio, so I thought we should do the Texas Star Trail, a 2.6 mile self-guided walk around the historic downtown, starting and ending at the Alamo. We'll take a river taxi from downtown to the San Antonio Museum of Art, where Rosenbeans is a docent, to see an exhibition of psychedelic art. SAMA is housed in a former Lone Star Brewing factory, and nearby, a former Pearl Brewery has been turned into the Pearl Farmers Market -- we'll be checking that out as well.

We've chosen several events from the Fiesta schedule -- some old favorites, including the Fiesta Arts Fair and the River Parade, as well as a couple of new-to-me things, including a Charreada and a tour of a Victorian house.

I'll be taking my mini laptop so that I can blog a few times from Casa Rosenbeans. And I may even be able to upload some photos to Flickr while I'm there. Be watching the internets for more about our adventures.

Cosmic Shift

2010-02-10T18:29:00.006-05:00

I know it's not down to global warming or a change in my diet, so it must be that the stars and planets are somehow realigning. For years I've been an avowed non-joiner, but lately I've found myself signing up for activities. Not just any activities, mind you, but ones that involve exercise and/or participating with people I don't (yet) know.

First came the Pilates lessons, and then the hooping classes, which I'm going to keep doing. I've roped another pal into coming to hoop class with me this coming Sunday, and I'm trying to twist the arm of another pal.

The latest is that this week I became a charter member of the Northampton Camera Club. Six people attended the initial meeting of the club, and we agreed to try to meet on a monthly basis to share and critique photos. We may do some assignments that we can work on in between meetings, or we might have some group photo rambles. The whole thing is pretty much TBA at the moment. No one else in the group uses Flickr, so my task is to walk them through the process of getting an account. And I'm to set up a Flickr group for the club.

And if this wasn't enough, I'm thinking of joining an almost-weekly knitting group that meets in one of the downtown Noho pizza parlors. I don't know what's gotten into me with all this joining.

Deep Midwinter

2010-02-05T15:42:00.008-05:00

It's cold here. Really, really cold. It would be one thing if we had lots of fluffy, white, snowy loveliness to look at from inside our warm houses, but no. We haven't had a proper snowfall in weeks, and what we've got on the ground is in dirty, frozen blobs at the side of the road. All this cold makes it physically and psychologically hard to do much of anything but watch tv (I'm almost through all of Six Feet Under and am just beginning Season 1 of Glee), knit and play around on the internets. Each night when I settle down on the sofa with my knitting, I ask myself, "What shall it be tonight? A funeral or a musical number?"

I finished my big, warm cardigan a couple weeks ago and then quickly made some yoga/pilates socks for myself. Turns out that they are also the perfect thing to wear to my Hoop Fit and Flow class as they keep me warm and stop me from sliding all over the wooden floor when I'm trying to hoop. The folks at Hooping Harmony had a sale in January on their super bling hoops. I couldn't resist, and bought a birthday prezzie for myself. The hoop and the socks are actually closer in color than this photo would have you think. I might not be the most physically coordinated hooper, but at least I'll be color coordinated.

When I got home from hoop class, I tossed my socks on the bench next to the back door. They landed next to this striped fleece beanie and I realized that the colors are nearly a perfect match. So, back I went to WEBS to buy more yarn for a scarf to wear with the beanie.

This Sunday is the annual Super Bowl Escape at WEBS. All afternoon, knitters who want to get away from football will gather at the store for knitting circles, door prizes and nibbles. I'm looking forward to going with a few of my pals and meeting some other Noho knitters.

I hear that another winter storm is going to slam into the Middle Atlantic states this weekend. Everybody stay warm out there -- or stay in and knit yourself something warm.

Hoops

2010-01-18T10:30:00.007-05:00

No, not basketball or rolling barrel hoops with sticks. Hoops as in hula hoops. I recently took my first Hoop Fit and Flow class -- I survived and I'm here to tell you about it.

First, let me put this in context. My first experience with any kind of movement class was a disaster. I was five years old, and my mother signed me up for ballet class. It was soon clear that I was lagging far behind the other five-year-olds and wasn't having any fun. So, after six weeks, the teacher spoke to my mother and counseled me out. Gym class throughout my school years was also a miserable experience. I was a bit smarter about it by the time I got to college, where I completed my PE requirement by taking duck pin bowling and archery, both of which involve eye-hand coordination but not much in the way of gross motor skills or grace.

Fast forward to 2010. Why in the world would I want to take a hoop dance class, you ask? Not knowing if this would turn out to be a good idea or something resembling an I Love Lucy episode, I went to a free demo. I found I was able to do the basic moves without embarrassing myself too much, and I actually liked it. So, I signed up. The classes are taught by Laura Marie and Ariana from Hooping Harmony and are held at The Fix in Northampton, where I take Pilates lessons.

The class was everything they said it would be -- you burn calories, get your heart rate up, gain coordination, build skills and have fun. Of course, I dropped the hoop about a zillion times and, when doing arm and hand stuff, sent it flying across the room. But I was better at it by the end of the class and I didn't hurt myself or break anything. Classes are every other Sunday, from 2 to 3:15. I'm hoping some of my mates will come along and hoop with me. If I can do it, anybody can.

Finishing Just Under the Wire

2009-12-31T15:37:00.003-05:00

I didn't start 2009 with any New Year's resolutions. I never do -- it would be an act of utter futility. But I did come into the home stretch of the year with a bunch of things I wanted to finish up. And I did. Here's what I managed to get done since Thanksgiving:

Finished uploading London photos to Flickr.
Finished uploading North Carolina photos also.
Put postal code tags on all the photos in the London Street Names group that were missing said tags.
Knit three pairs of yoga/pilates socks and about a dozen flower or leaf bookmarks for my pals' crimbo prezzies.
Entered donations in the donor database of the women's org I volunteer with; exported list for next mailing.

While I don't plan on making any resolutions for 2010, I do have a few ideas floating around in my head of things that I'd like to accomplish in the coming year:

Get back to working on the heavy sweater I'm knitting and have it done while it's still wicked cold outside.
Knit a few other things in my Ravelry queue, especially things that will help me to de-stash because it's getting a bit difficult to get into my storage closet with all the bags of yarn from Webs everywhere.
Start some theme threads for the London Street Names group.
Read the excellent new books that people gave me -- Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, Walking London, Offshore, The Secret Language of Knitters and the London Knowledge card deck called What Happened Here?
Start planning the next trip to wherever.
Take hoop exercise classes (well, take a class and see if I survive before committing myself to more classes).

Here's wishing the best for 2010 to all my mates. I hope that your wishes come true and that you reach your goals, however modest or grand they may be. And I hope to see many of you in the new year, either in person or on the internets.

My clogged drain and sore ankle

2009-10-29T11:36:00.003-04:00

Yup, those things are related. I admit to having had two (small) glasses of wine before embarking on this folly, and I seem to have taken a large dose of stupid. This all happened Monday evening. First, I shoved a bunch of stuff -- broccoli stem peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds and onion peels -- into the garbage disposal. (That was Stupid #1) It seemed to be happily chewing up all this stuff, though, but then I saw that the water was rising in my sink, so I shut the disposal off. I reached into it to feel around to see if there was something stuck -- nada. I got out the little Allen wrench thingie and put it into the hole on the bottom of the disposal -- it turned around just fine. So, I brilliantly thought I should use the plunger. My first attempts were futile -- standing in front of the sink, I couldn't get enough leverage to push the plunger down. I pulled one of the wooden bar stools up to the sink and knelt on that. Still no leverage. Now, here's where Stupid #2 happens: I stood on the bar stool, pushed on the plunger, and I went flying to the floor. I landed with my weight on my right foot before I toppled over onto my side, bruising my elbow and left knee in the process. Much, much arnica and ice later, I'm walking ok but it hurts a little to flex my right foot when I go up or down stairs. Stupid #3 was putting half a bottle of Drano down the disposal. It didn't work. I've called the plumber, and he will be making a house call ($70/hour) tomorrow.

The Little Differences, Part II

2009-10-23T16:25:00.006-04:00

My mate Maggie reminded me the other day that it's been a while since I've written about my observations on the differences between the UK and the US. Here are some things I noticed on my recent trip:

At Heathrow Airport, you can actually buy tasty, healthy, reasonably-priced food to eat as you while away the hours before your plane takes off. In addition to the ubiquitous pre-made sandwiches in triangular boxes (my favorites are egg and cress or tuna and sweet corn on brown bread for about £2.25), you can buy real Greek yogurt with sliced bananas, honey and grape nuts for £1.85. For bevvies, there are various kinds of juice, vitamin water, or coconut water in addition to all the sweet soda crap. When I was in the Minneapolis airport back in May, I walked about a mile down the concourse in search of something edible that wasn't full of sugar, carbs and fat before settling on a pasta and pesto chicken salad that was overpriced and not very good. Similarly, in the Atlanta airport I recently forked over $8 for a Wolfgang Puck turkey and pesto sandwich, also not very tasty and with nearly enough calories to meet my daily requirement. America is seriously in need of better airport food options.
On the other hand, I couldn't find saline nasal spray in a little squeeze bottle (about $3 at any pharmacy or grocery store in the US) anywhere in London. After my long flight, I landed with my sinuses totally dried out. I wasn't stuffed up and didn't need a decongestant spray. I just wanted to soothe and rehydrate my sinuses and prevent nose bleeds. I went to two Boots stores and spoke to the chemist in each. The only thing they had to offer me was a big can of aerosol stuff for £6.85 -- too much quantity and too much to spend for what I needed. My next stop was Revital, the health food store in Belsize Park. I though surely they'd have something like little packets of salt and a squeeze bottle, but no. The woman there looked at me like I was nuts and finally said, "We don't need that here. It's always humid."
When your mates in the UK greet you, they often ask "Are you alright?" My immediate reaction to this was to think I must have an open wound on my head or look like I was totally stressed out. I then realized that this is shorthand for "How are you doing? Are things going well?" and just replied, "Yes, thanks. I'm having a lovely time."

I'm sure I'll think of more little differences and will update this list from time to time.

Firsts

2009-10-21T14:00:00.007-04:00

When I was visiting the swamp, I kept reading of various firsts. New Bern lays claim to quite a few, including:

It was the first permanent seat of the colonial government of North Carolina; later it became the first state capital of NC.
The first printing press in NC was set up there in 1749, and the state's first newspaper published two years later.
The first free public school in North Carolina was established there in 1766.
It held the country's first celebration of George Washington's birthday.
The world's first practical torpedo was assembled and detonated there in the 1890s.
First Jewish synagogue and RC church in North Carolina.
The Masonic Theater is the oldest theater in America in continuous use.
Pepsi-Cola was first concocted there in 1898.

Nearby Washington boasts of being the first town in America named after George Washington (when he was just a general and yet to become the first president). And Bath touts itself as North Carolina's first town, first port, and the location of the first public library in the state.

Now I can claim a personal first that took place in New Bern: my first time in a kayak. ScribeGirl told me we'd be taking the kayaks out on Brices Creek, so I came with various bits of gear that I'd need. I usually avoid pursuits that require special gear (and strenuous activity, particularly if it makes you sweat), but I was game to give this a try. So, I took Spooner's advice and bought nylon pants (capris that I got off the half-price end-of-season rack at The Mountain Goat, a shopping trip that took all of 15 minutes) because he says to avoid cotton clothing when boating. ScribeGirl said I'd need waterproof shoes -- not flip-flops because, if the boat flipped over, they would flop off my feet -- so I brought my stylish sling-back Crocs. And knowing of Rosenbeans' various mishaps with electronics landing in the drink when kayaking, I got a super waterproof pouch for my camera. We were out on the creek for about an hour, paddling past trees with Spanish moss waving in the breeze. It was pretty fun, as exercise goes. Perhaps my first time kayaking won't be my last.

NC Backwaters

2009-10-16T10:00:00.007-04:00

View NC Backwaters in a larger map

On Sunday, ScribeGirl and I climbed into the big-ass truck and hit the road for a day trip through the cotton fields and low country, visiting three little towns on the water. We passed a lot of interesting rural decay -- houses with porches falling off, barns with roofs caved in, rusty and crusty autos and farm machinery -- but we don't have any photos to show of this stuff. As ScribeGirl pointed out to me, when the house falls apart, the people move into a trailer on the property. So, while the buildings looked abandoned, there were usually people nearby -- and where there are people, there are often hounds and shotguns that we reckoned would make an appearance if a stranger came into the yard. So we stayed in the truck.

We did make stops in three small towns along the water -- Washington and Bath, along the Pamlico River, and Oriental, the sailing capital of North Carolina (and also a commercial fishing harbor). Our plan was to start with a visit to the NC Estuarium in Washington, but unfortunately it was closed. The whole town of Washington looked pretty deserted (was everyone in church?), but we found a cafe that was open and had a leisurely breakfast there before roaming the empty streets in search of photo ops.

Back in the truck, it was a short drive to Bath, another sleepy little backwater town that has a ton of history. Here, the visitor center was closed so we couldn't get a copy of the self-guided walking tour, but there are historic markers everywhere to point out the 18th century houses and church. The town is only three blocks long and two blocks wide, so we probably saw most of what there was to see.

Our next stop was Oriental, a lovely little town further down the coast. There we found The Bean Cafe, which had good ice cream and free wifi. Friendly townsfolk greeted us as we walked onto the porch of The Bean and, since this is the South where the livin' is easy, no one rushed us out of the cafe or limited our time on their wifi. In the fading afternoon light, we explored the fishing docks and found some excellent photo ops before heading back to New Bern (photo by ScribeGirl):

BTW, ScribeGirl has started a blog called Croatan Chronicles, which she promises to fill with tales of her relocation to the flatland of eastern North Carolina.

Greetings from Old Swampy

2009-10-12T16:59:00.006-04:00

I stand corrected. The swamp isn't swampy at all. It's actually marshy. And all my worries about varmints (snakes, gators, giant insects, hounds) have thus far been for naught.

I'm in New Bern, North Carolina, staying with ScribeGirl at the house that she and Tim will live in after their imminent retirement. The big attraction this weekend is Mumfest, which is a celebration of chrysanthemums and autumn but seems to involve a lot more vendor tents than actual mum plants. To avoid parking the big-ass pickup truck in the crowded town, we parked on one side of the river and rode the Mumfest ferry to the other. From the dock it was a short walk to Tryon Palace, the home of the first governor of North Carolina, where we strolled through the lovely grounds that were open free of charge for the fest. Lots of beds of mums there, and manicured hedges, statuary, a beautiful kitchen garden, and views of the river. Unfortunately, the river stinks to high heaven at the moment due to a massive die-off of little white fish, but I won't dwell on that.

The highlight of our Mumfest activities was a guided tour of the Cedar Grove Cemetery. We learned bits about the lives and deaths of New Bernians of note, albeit not in chronological order so it was kind of hard to get a good historical overview. The cemetery has graves dating back to the early 19th century, and people are still being interred there today (mostly in the newer part across the street, although one older woman on the tour showed us the spot that will be her eternal resting place), so in a relatively modest space we saw 200+ years of townsfolk. Light was fading as the tour ended, and raindrops had begun to fall, so we skedadled back to the big-ass truck with a plan to return later in the weekend to take more photos.

Stats

2009-09-24T14:32:00.002-04:00

Here are the cumulative stats from my London trip:

82.25 miles walked (from getting off the plane on the 13th to getting on again on the 21st)
~£160 spent on food, bev, admissions, and Oyster card (tube and buses)
825 photos taken
8 Open House venues seen
6 hand-knitted items distributed
1 more of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries checked off
No blisters
Countless discoveries and good times had with my mates

Now that I've unpacked and done laundry, I can start putting the photos on Flickr. This is a long process, so be sure to check my photostream regularly.

Goodbye, Blighty

2009-09-21T02:47:00.007-04:00

Just a quick post before I finish packing and head to the airport for the long journey home. Spooner was out the door at 6 this morning -- he's taking a dozen teens to Scotland, where it's pouring rain, for four days of hiking and kayaking. We made two more trips to Cotswold (an outdoor outfitter store similar to EMS) yesterday, one in Covent Garden to return socks purchased on Saturday, and one in Piccadilly in search of some nylon pants (that's pants in the American sense of the word; trousers to you in the UK). We also went to a North Face store and one other outfitter; after we split up in the afternoon, Spooner returned to Covent Garden and now has the perfect nylon pants.

After the first trip to Covent Garden, we walked through Trafalgar Square to see another nutter on the plinth. This one was wearing an unattractive rabbit head and making paper airplanes, some of which were launched from the plinth. Below the plinth, a giant game of chess was about to get underway -- something to do with London Design Week -- and across the way, the bells of St Martin's were peeling. All this under a blue and sunny sky. Lovely.

We made our way down Whitehall to see the Foreign Office & India Office, a very popular Open House venue. We walked right in, after having our bags checked by some odd sort of machine, and joined hundreds of other people wandering around in awe of the magnificent building. It's so vast that it didn't even feel crowded, although it was a little difficult getting the good vantage points for photos. In addition to administering the Empire, the Foreign Office provides assistance to British citizens when they are abroad -- passport replacement, assistance in natural disasters, etc. In one of the lovely 19th century conference rooms was an exhibition with video advising Brits to behave when they travel to foreign countries, i.e. no ASBOs abroad. Each room was more splendid than the last, culminating with a dead gorgeous staircase designed by George Gilbert Scott -- gilded bits everywhere, and gigantic murals depicting Britain's domain over the four corners of the globe.

We then walked over to the House of Commons in hopes of seeing Westminster Hall, but the queue was 45 minutes long, so we pressed on, walking through St James's Park where we saw many more unidentified feathered objects and a fairytale view of Whitehall from the bridge in the middle of the park. On our way up to Piccadilly, we passed a mason's hall that was an Open House venue and looked in to see the inner sanctum and to use the loo. After Spooner's unsuccessful shopping in Piccadilly, we wandered into Soho in search of lunch. I wanted to go to Mildred's in Lexington Street (said to be a fab vegetarian restaurant), but it was closed so we went to Red Veg, an old favorite in Dean Street.

After lunch, we went in separate directions. I was headed to Park Road (the west side of Regent's Park, just above Baker Street) to see one more spot on my Open House list -- the Rudolph Steiner House, the only example of expressionist architecture in London. I stopped first at the Photographers Gallery to see a small, but very good, exhibition of photos by Andre Kertesz called "On Reading." Then I tried to get a bus from Regent Street that would have taken me to Baker Street Station, but the bloody bus never came and I had to walk the whole way. I got to the Rudolph Steiner House just in time for the last tour. (More details on this when I add links and photos.)

It's been a wonderful trip -- lovely friends, fun adventures, new discoveries, (virtually) no rain and no blisters. Next post will be from stateside, and photos will appear on Flickr in batches over the next several weeks.

Cheers, mates!

Distance covered: 22,229 steps (9.08 miles)
Expenses:
£10 to top up Oyster card
60p roll
£4.90 lunch at Red Veg
£2.50 thank you card from the Photographers Gallery
£2.50 apple crumble from Chamomile (to take to Spooner's for our dessert)
90p that I gave to a bloke on Marylebone Road who needed it for his bus ticket

Knackered

2009-09-20T04:34:00.006-04:00

My back, legs and energy level had been holding up really well until mid-day yesterday when I hit the wall. My back was sore and I was having trouble putting one foot in front of another, so we cut out 2/3 of the Open House plan, added a mission to the outdoor outfitter store in Covent Garden so that Spooner could get some things he needed for his trip to Scotland with a bunch of teens, and made it a shorter day. Here are the Open House venues we did see:

St Martin's Gospel Oak
Little Green Street
Cecil Sharp House (HQ of the English Folk Dance & Song Society)
Jestico & Whiles (an architecture firm)
Alexandra Road housing (the last large social housing estate built in London; the queue was long, so we didn't go in the flat but did walk through the estate)

We stopped for a pint at the Washington (Spooner's local), had dinner at the flat and then went to the Comedy Theatre to see Prick Up Your Ears, which was good but wasn't really a comedy.

After a long soak in Spooner's lovely tub, I feel ready to tackle Open House again today.

Distance covered: 22,386 steps (9.18 miles)
Expenses:
60p roll
£2.74 sandwich and bevvie at Fresh and Wild
£2.90 pint of Fuller's London Pride
£1 another beverage

Immortalized on Walls

2009-09-19T03:18:00.004-04:00

Most of yesterday's adventures will be shown in photos (now on Flickr). It was a morning of solitary roaming through Southwark to see more Dickens sites, most notably the one remaining wall of the Marshalsea Prison where his own father was imprisoned as a debtor and where much of Little Dorrit is set. I also saw places where gaols had once been, and saw Dickens immortalized as a primary school and Little Dorrit as a street. Near the beginning of the walk, I stopped into Borough Market to get portable food -- a spinach and goat cheese tart and lovely banana cake.

By early afternoon I had reached Waterloo to begin my walk through Lambeth to see the various projects of Southbank Mosaics. I started by circling St John's churchyard, where there are several mosaic benches and some other sculptural works in progress. I cut down Lower Marsh Street and nipped into I Knit and to Crockatt & Powell Booksellers -- didn't buy anything at either, but was tempted at the bookshop (50% off going out of business sale, which is quite sad as this independent bookseller is a much-loved institution in the neighborhood). On my route, I found about half of the mosaics I was looking for. The ones I didn't find included seating and a mural in Archbishop's Park (I think they are in the kiddie play area, and it's uncomfortable being a lone adult with camera in a playground) and a fountain that I thought was at the junction of Lambeth Palace Road and the Albert Embankment, but I sure didn't see it.

What I did find were the mosaics in four street underpasses (going under the railway tracks that lead into Waterloo Station). The first was Salamanca Street underpass, where the mosaics commemorate the Battle of Salamanca, the Spanish city itself, and the Duke of Wellington. Next was Black Prince Road, where the mosaics have to do with the Black Prince himself and with Doulton ceramics (the former Doulton factory is in this road -- the facade is still decorated with impressive tilework). Working my way back towards Waterloo, I next saw the Blake mosaic murals in the Carlisle Lane underpass. Blake, who lived for 10 years in nearby Hercules Road had written that he wanted his works to be enlarged and hung for the public to see. I think he would have approved of the mosaics.

I knew that I'd see the mosaic I worked on (by putting in a half a dozen glass bits) in the Centaur Street underpass, but I got the best surprise -- at the very end of the row (the west end, as I was coming from Hercules Road) is a plaque that names all the people who worked on the mosaics of Project Blake, including my five mates and me. So, my name is now on a wall in London. I'm chuffed.

The day ended with tea near the Coliseum with a Flickr mate, and then back to Belsize Park for drinks on Greg and Esther's roof terrace and a great dinner at a French restaurant.

Our plan for the weekend includes working in a bunch of Open House locations (all north of the Euston Road for Saturday, south of it on Sunday) and theatre tonight.

Distance covered: 32,655 (13.40 miles)
Expenses: 50p to use two loos (one in a church -- they shouldn't be charging)
£2 spinach and goat cheese tart
£2 banana cake
£4 Garden Museum
£10 to top up my Oyster card
£20 drinks and dinner

Clerkenwell: London's Little Italy

2009-09-18T03:05:00.005-04:00

Yesterday's ramble had two themes: (1) Dickens sites in Clerkenwell and (2) imagining that my grandparents had left Milan for London (Clerkenwell is the old Italian enclave) instead of the wasteland of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Clerkenwell is a fairly discrete area, but despite that I managed to log 10 miles on the pedometer while zigging and zagging down little streets and passages. Plus, I had to backtrack a couple of times after getting turned around -- although this area isn't quite as confusing as the City, it's just as old and a bit of a rabbit warren.

I actually started the day in the City, at the art gallery in the Guildhall where I saw the post-war photos of freelance photographer John Gay. The images of the English countryside, Highgate, London train stations, etc., were striking -- he was brilliant at finding interesting details and angles, at following the light, and at capturing people in wonderful moments. The exhibition itself was a bit of a disappointment, however. John Gay left his thousands of negatives, mostly 2 1/4 or other large format, to English Heritage and they could have made lovely prints on photographic paper from those negatives, but this exhibition is of digitally made blow-ups.

As I wandered through Clerkenwell, I passed former monasteries, a huge plague pit, the Clerk's Well, craft studios, the place where Oliver Twist was nicked, the court where Mr Bumble appeared before a magistrate, old craft works buildings, and Dickens' bank. The Italian community was in evidence everywhere: dozens of Italian caffs, a Vespa dealer, a shop selling high-end Italian men's clothing, and a horse-drawn Victorian hearse outside St Peter's Italian Catholic Church in Clerkenwell Road. I ate lunch at Gazzano's deli in Farringdon Street, one of only two Clerkenwell delis still in the hands of the original family.

Fortified by a tasty panino, I braved the Bloody Barbican. I'd been around it before, but had never ventured INTO it. Gack! It's vast, with a labyrinth of highwalks running around the lake, school, church and housing blocks. It took ages to find the art gallery in the Barbican Centre, where I saw Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet. Think Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes and plants growing sideways. My escape from the Barbican left me needing a sitdown and a snack, so -- after a brief detour through Postman's Park -- I met up with a Flickr mate in another Italian caff in Smithfield. Pushing onward, I made a brief stop at the Holborn Library to see an exhibition called King's Cross Voices (a photography and oral history project about people who had lived and worked around King's X). When I realized that most of what I was looking at and reading is on a website, I cut it short, walked over to Russell Square and caught the 168 bus back to Belsize Park.

The day ended with meeting another Flickr mate for a glass of wine before doing some grocery shopping at Budgens and heading back to the flat to make my dinner. I nearly fell asleep with my head in my plate.

Distance: 24,828 steps (10.17 miles)
Expenses:
£2.50 for the Guildhall art gallery
£6.40 for a panino & limonata (a bit more than I usually spend, but worth it)
£8 for the Barbican art gallery
£7.50 for drinks
£7.94 for groceries

A Lesson in Social History

2009-09-17T03:14:00.011-04:00

Wednesday was a day without a set itinerary, although it had a planned beginning (the Geffrye Museum), middle (E Pellicci's Cafe) and an end (the Flickr meetup at the Mitre Pub). I was slowly making my way from Hoxton Square to the Geffrye where I was to meet two of my mates, snapping pix along the way, when I ran into Maggie who was doing the same thing. We continued on and met Malcolm in front of the museum, in plenty of time for the noon tour of the almshouse.

Here's what I've learned in a nutshell: I had long been conflating almshouses and workhouses, not realizing that these were very different facilities for the poor in England. Almshouses were established by benefactors -- a wealthy patron, a parish, or a guild -- to care for the "deserving" poor, particularly those from their own community. The almshouse we saw was established in 1714 by the Ironmongers' Company with a bequest from Sir Robert Geffrye, who had been the master of the company and Lord Mayor of London. The purpose was to provide safe, clean, modest housing for elderly members of the company, their widows, or other similarly deserving individuals who were vetted by the review board. You had to be at least 56 years old to live there, and of good character. There were various rules about going to chapel, being in by curfew, and keeping yourself and your room clean. Pensioners received an annual sum to live on, which some supplemented with personal assets, and coal for their grate. Each resident lived in a single room, which was ample size for a bed, table and chairs and a chair or two in front of the grate. Rooms also had a small pantry for storing dishes and food, which the residents purchased from vendors in the area and cooked for themselves. Each entry door led to four such rooms, and the copper boiler for water in the cellar was shared by the four units. Originally there were two privies in the back garden, and toilets were installed in the cellar (one per entry) in the late 19th century. This almshouse provided housing until the early 20th century, by which time the Shoreditch area had become less salubrious and the almshouse was relocated to somewhere in the countryside.

The less deserving poor were relegated to workhouses -- large institutions in which they received extremely minimal shelter and food in return for their labor in the workhouse laundry or whatever else it was that they did. After touring the almshouse, we walked a little bit up Kingsland Road and walked through the ground floor of a workhouse, which is now a large outpatient facility run by the NHS. While the idea of the almshouse was that the elderly residents would live out their days in modest comfort, the purpose of the workhouse was to get the poor off the streets and reform them through labor. Once someone entered a workhouse, I'm not sure what they had to do to get out. Nor do I know what happened to people who became unable to do the labor assigned to them. I'll try to find out more about this.

Our lunch destination was E Pellicci's, a Grade II listed cafe established in 1900 and still managed by the same Italian family. It's a tiny place on Bethnal Green Road with art deco marquetry paneling and Formica-topped tables. We all ordered the food of our own people. Maggie and Malcolm opted for traditional English fare (steak and kidney pie), and I got a mozzarella and tomato panino on ciabatta and a limonata.

The afternoon saw us continuing our ramble through the East End. We must have looked like we were doing a strangely-choreographed dance -- sometimes turning in three different directions to point cameras at different things, and other times turning in unison to zoom in on the same thing. Our photos will show graffiti, galleries, churches, bells and street name signs. No birds today.

An easy bus ride took us to Holborn for the Guess Where London meetup. As always it was great to see people from the group, to greet old friends and put new names with faces.

Distance: 24,848 steps (10.19 miles)
Expenses:
60p for another raisin and hazelnut roll
£2 admission to the almshouse
£6 for sandwich, beverage and tip
£1.20 (all the change I had) donation at the Whitechapel Gallery

Our Feathered Friends

2009-09-16T02:50:00.009-04:00

Birds have never figured much on my radar screen. Occasionally over the years, I've gone on walks with my pal ST, who is an avid birdwatcher, but it never took hold with me. I thought there were four types of birds: black, brown, white and pink. For whatever reason, I'm suddenly more aware of the varieties and differences, and on this trip I've been seeing birds all around me that I've never noticed before.

In Hyde Park, I saw strange birds hopping on the ground. They were the size of a large pigeon, white on front, black on their heads, and blue on the back. Spooner says they are magpies, which I'd heard of but I had never seen (I thought magpie was another name for crow). Also in Hyde Park, as I sat at the tea house munching a snack, little speckled brown birds kept pestering my by getting right up on the table next to me. I now know that these are European starlings.

The most exciting bird sighting came on my day trip Tuesday with my mates Helen and Judy to Henley-on-Thames. Weeks ago, when I read in the guidebook that we might see red kites flying over the fields along this walk, I pictured children flying kites like on Parliament Hill, all of them red per some local custom. That was incorrect. Red kites are birds, some kind of raptor I think, that once were nearly wiped out in this area but have been reintroduced in the Chiltern Hills and are coming back nicely.

The grey and overcast day started at Ladbroke Grove station, where I met Judy and Helen, who had gotten a car from her car club for the day. We headed northwest out of London on the A40, past the Hoover Building, which I recognized from my bus trip down from Oxford for a day in London in 1998. Henley-on-Thames is about an hour out of London, going through rolling hills, fields and woods to get there. We found it quite easily, parked the car, used the loo, and started on our walk, first going across the Thames and then heading north into a strong, chilly headwind as we walked along the Thames Path. This stretch is not particularly interesting -- some big, posh houses and some boats, but not much else. To get out of the wind and in hopes of seeing something more interesting, we turned right onto a footpath just before Temple Island. And not two minutes later, we saw the first red kite, swooping around the trees over a farm. After the wee village of Remenham, with an interesting old stone and flint church (St Nicholas Remenham) and churchyard containing some creepy statuary fit for the Dr. Who episode "Blink," we turned north along a narrow road. This put us a bit higher than the farms and fields below us, and we were able to see the back sides of some red kites -- kind of pink and white, much lighter than they look when you see their bellies as they fly over your head. It was exciting to watch them, first below us, then above. At some point on this road, we saw a stile over a fence, and even though we didn't have to cross it, my mates encouraged me to climb over it so I could say that I had done, seeing as it was my first encounter with an English stile. We plodded onward until we reached another small village (Aston) and stopped at the Flower Pot pub for a nice lunch.

Fortified by our lunch, we headed back to the Thames Path, passing by a couple of farmyards with chickens, ducks and a very large sow. Not quite Cold Comfort Farm, but similar. Turning left at the Thames Path, the wind was now at our backs, pushing us along, first to Hambleden Lock and then back to Henley. We saw more feathered friends along the way -- coots, ducks, swans, Canada geese and cormorants. Helen saw a kingfisher, but I missed it. The rain that had been threatening all day held off until we were a half mile from the end of our walk (it was torrential by the time we drove back into London).

Much thanks to Helen and Judy for my day in the English countryside, for showing me my first footpath, stile and red kite, and for listening to my endless prattle of "Wow! Look at that!"

Distance: 21,110 steps (8.66 miles)
Expenses: £5.15 for an egg & mayo sandwich and half pint of bitter

The Dead, the Gasometer, and the Line of Beauty

2009-09-14T12:57:00.012-04:00

After a great night sleep on the inflate-o-bed that I bought for Spooner from amazon.co.uk (because he doesn't do online shopping -- what's up with that?), and waking up sans jet lag, I set out for what I thought was going to be a relatively easy first day on the pavement. Crikey, was I wrong about that. I've just walked back into Spooner's flat, poured a glass of his Scotch, and looked at my pedometer. I walked 28,688 steps today (that's 11.76 miles), so it's no wonder that I could hardly drag myself up the 50 steep, windy, treacherous stair steps to the flat. My feet are sore, but I don't have any blisters and my back held up really well. (I must remember to do my stretches at least once a day while I'm here.)

My day started with a short, brisk walk up to the Hampstead Heath overground station. Rosenbeans will remember that station -- the network used to be called the Thameslink, and you couldn't use your pre-Oyster travel card on the line, so Rosenbeans and I would get the train between Finchley and Frognal where we were staying and Hampstead Heath near Spooner's first flat, trying to avoid having to pay the fare to the ticket collector on the train. Now you just use your Oyster card. I got off at Kensal Rise station and realized that I hadn't a clue how to get from there to Kensal Green Cemetery, but I did know it was on the Harrow Road. Seeing that I was literally on a rise, I walked downhill and got to the Harrow Road soon enough. The gates were open and I walked into the cemetery. Not 5 minutes later I ran into a woman who started chatting. She clearly knew her way around, and I did not. I said that I did know that Charles Dickens' beloved sister-in-law was buried somewhere near the entrance, and she showed me right to her grave, not 20 feet from where we were standing. Dickens really wanted to be buried next to Mary Hogarth, his wife's sister, but the family prevailed and buried Mary in the Hogarth family plot, sans Charles. He did pay for a nice marker for her.

At the suggestion of the woman I met in the cemetery, I went back to the office and bought the £2 guide to who is buried where. I could easily have spent half a day in the cemetery, but I cut it short after finding Marc Brunel's tomb, on which someone had just recently laid a bouquet of lilies, and not finding Wilkie Collins or Anthony Trollope. I can now check off #3 on the list of the Magnificent Seven.

Leaving the dead in the shadow of the gasometer, I crossed the Grand Union Canal and started my walk through Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill. I saw nearly everything on the walk that I had mapped out, and I'm so glad that I did this on a Monday, i.e. non-market day. I found two decent, though very different, loos along the way -- one just inside the main door of Sainsbury's at the start of my walk, and the other a Victorian subterranean public loo. So many of the public loos in London have been closed, and the ones that remain open are usually Gents', so I felt that I really HAD to use the Ladies' under Bevington Road, just off Golborne. It was clean, safe, cost 20p to get into a stall, and had a lingering wiff of Victorian bog pong that seemed right.

Along my route I saw many things recommended to me by my Flickr mate Malcolm, and found the places referred to in The Line of Beauty -- the pub where Nick and Leo meet, the house in Kensington Park Gardens where the Feddens live, the private garden itself (which is most likely Ladbroke Square Gardens and not Kensington Park Gardens), the cinemas at Notting Hill Gate, and ended my walk on Rotten Row in Hyde Park, which Nick walks along after leaving Lowndes Square (which I skipped seeing) near the end of the book. In between these noted places, I saw photos on a wall, mosaics, a tiki bar, bootscrapers, some interesting doorbells, a reflective pavilion, and picked up a few conkers. When I reached the point where I could walk no more, I exited Hyde Park, hopped the tube at Knightsbridge, and called it a day.

Pedometer reading: 28,668 steps (11.76 miles)
Expenses:
60p for a raisin and hazelnut roll to munch through the morning
£2 for the cemetery guide
£3 for a tuna and salad sandwich on brown bread and a bottle of water
£1.60 for a chocolate croissant at the tea house in Kensington Gardens

In England's Green and Pleasant Land

2009-09-13T13:28:00.006-04:00

I can't believe that I'm still standing, let alone writing this post, given that I slept all of an hour and a half on the plane and didn't nap when I reached Spooner's. It took me over an hour to get through immigration at Heathrow -- it's usually about 20 minutes, but this is a particularly busy time because international students are all arriving for the fall term and, let's face it, this is a great time of year to be in London.

We actually worked in a lot of stuff for a half day of exploring, with one person only semi-coherent and semi-oriented. We took the tube to Moorgate and then headed over to Liverpool Station so I could use the loo (note to self: the loo costs 30p). I'd heard about the Raven Row Gallery on the Robert Elms Show on BBC London, so I wanted to stop briefly there. It is in an absolutely wonderful Georgian house that once had shops on the ground floor, behind beautiful bowed windows. The gallery is the inspiration of Alex Sainsbury (Son of Sainsbury's) and features new contemporary artists. But the building itself is the real work of art, and worth seeing no matter what is on in the gallery. Everything has been painted the same ivory color, which might sound a bit monotonous and boring, but it really serves to highlight the lovely bones and bows of the house and the rooms.

From there, we went to Dennis Severs House, a totally different type of back-in-time experience. The house is in Folgate Street near Spitalfields Market, and was once the home of Huguenot silk weavers. Dennis Severs purchased the house in the 1970s, saving it from the wrecking ball. He lovingly filled the rooms with what, in his imagination, depicted the lives of the (imaginary) Jarvis family during different times in the 17th - 19th centuries. The rooms are absolutely chock-a-block with stuff -- half-nibbled biscuits, clothing, furnishing, pets, chamber pots, etc., etc. But that's not all. Dennis Severs actually lived in this house for 20 years. A house without electricity, central heating, plumbing (there is one cold water tap in the basement kitchen), or a bathtub. Since his death, friends of Dennis Severs have maintained the house as he would have wanted it. The idea is that visitors will walk around from room to room, silently experiencing the house and its inhabitants. You sense that someone has just left a room or that you are intruding on a private moment. The whole thing is meant to be a multi-sensory, time transport experience that can be yours for £8.

We did a little more rambling in the East End: Spooner shopped for spices in Brick Lane, I looked for street name signs and street art, and we stopped for snacks at the Albion Cafe (corner of Redchurch and Boundary Rd). Quite a lot, really, for an arrival day on little sleep.

Tomorrow: Kensal Green Cemetery and Notting Hill (weather permitting)

Distance covered: 16579 steps (6.8 miles)
Expenses:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£8 for Dennis Severs House
£4.10 for snacks at the Albion Cafe

Blake and Mosaics in Lambeth

2009-08-23T08:47:00.012-04:00

View Lambeth in a larger map

Whew! I finished my last map for the London trip. This walk is primarily about the life of William Blake, who lived in Lambeth from 1790 to 1800, and the Southbank Mosaics project that commemorates his work. The goals of Southbank Mosaics are to beautify the streets around Waterloo and to provide skills to marginalized people of the area. Hundreds of members of the local community have also volunteered their time on Project Blake, working on the mosaics and recording Blake's poetry. A few of my Flickrmates and I volunteered for an afternoon last year, mostly sorting donated tile into bins by color and also putting a few glass pieces into Blake mosaics that were in process in the studio. The panels we worked on are now hanging in a railway tunnel in Centaur Street. I really haven't read much of Blake's poetry, except for "Jerusalem" and the one about the tyger, but I'll read up.

A visit to Lambeth must include a stroll down Lower Marsh Street, where there are many vintage clothing shops, market carts in the street, and I Knit, the best knitting shop in London and the only one in the UK with a liquor license. You can hang out on their sofas, work on your knitting project, and have a glass of wine or beer. Northampton SO needs something like this.

On this walk, I may also spend some time at the Garden Museum and the second hand book stalls by the National Theatre. The Tate Modern and the Hayward Gallery are close by -- both good places to go to use the loo or get out of the rain.

Dickens in Southwark

2009-08-20T11:14:00.005-04:00

View Dickens in Southwark in a larger map

I've made yet another walking tour map. This one follows nearly verbatim and step-by-step the Dickens in Southwark walk on Richard Jones's London Walking Tours website. I'm not sure if I'll climb the 311 steps to the top of the Monument at the beginning of the walk (nah, too chicken) or pay to see the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret at St Thomas Church. I've got this planned for a Friday so that I can buy portable food for the day at Borough Market. The banana cake and brownies from Flour Power City Bakery there are to die for.

The last walk I need to map out is Blake in Lambeth before I start plotting out our plan of attack for London Open House weekend. I hope my loyal readers aren't getting too bored by these maps. I've made them public on Google maps, and I surprised to see that they're getting quite a few views, so I'm curious if other people are actually printing them out and using them. If you do, please leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you.

Ladbroke Grove to Notting Hill Gate

2009-08-09T11:22:00.007-04:00

View Ladbroke Grove to Notting Hill Gate in a larger map

Now that I've gotten the hang of making my own Google maps, I'm having a lot of fun plotting out my London adventures. Usually when I walk around London, I carry a map book as well as narrative descriptions of a particular walk copied from a book or two, and maybe another map that I've printed from the web. It's rare that I follow any one prescribed course, as I'm generally trying to cobble together bits of different ones and work in other things of interest to me along the route. Now that I'm slipping into my dotage, I tend to forget some things in all this checking back and forth between my papers (and I look like a fool standing on a street corner, leafing through everything and trying to work out where I'm going next). With my own customized maps, I'm hoping to see more of what I want and look less of a prat doing it.

I'm planning to start this walk at the gates of Kensal Green Cemetery when they open at 9 a.m. I'll roam around the cemetery for a while (this will be the third of the Magnificent Seven that I'll see), and then cross Regent's Canal into Ladbroke Grove. From there, I'll wander down Portobello Road, which I hope won't be so crowded as I'm planning this for a week day, and into Notting Hill. I've mapped out some of the places in Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (2004 Man Booker prize winner, and also a great miniseries). After that, I'll head toward Hyde Park for a walk through Kensington Gardens and over to the Serpentine Gallery. Weather permitting, of course. If it rains, I reckon I'll spend the day at the V&A and the Natural History Museum.

Of Monks and Thieves: A Walk Around Clerkenwell

2009-07-20T14:15:00.008-04:00

View Clerkenwell Walk in a larger map

For the past two years, I've been saying that I'm going to do a walk around Clerkenwell, but I haven't gotten to it yet. When I next go to London, I'm bound and determined to work it in. I've read several different walks (in Time Out London Walks and an online walk of Dickens' London), and made my own walk on Google Maps. It starts with the Priory of St John, continues on to Bleeding Heart Yard (mentioned in Little Dorrit) and Clerkenwell Green, passing several locations in Oliver Twist, then goes through Exmouth Market, down a lovely old Georgian street where Dickens' bank was located, and ends up in Whitecross Street. I've worked in several places to stop for food and beverages, including one of the few remaining Italian delis in the area, and Whitecross Market where there are specialty food vendors on Thursday and Friday. Since the walk starts and ends at the Barbican, there's an opportunity to stop in there to see what's on in the art gallery. And if it starts to pour, the Museum of London is a close by place to take shelter.

Bears! Oh, My!

2009-07-16T19:07:00.012-04:00

There usually isn't much happening on the sad streets of Easthampton. Unlike Amherst, it lacks a lovely town common. It has none of the trendy stores that draw people to Northampton. And it seems that the recession has hit the streets of Easthampton harder than the other towns, if the "For Rent" signs are any indicator. In Easthampton's defense, however, I must say that the open studio days at the numerous artists' studios in a couple of the former factories are a huge draw, and the watch repair shop comes highly recommended. But now, Easthampton's got something that no other local town has -- it's Bear Fest.

The bears got their start several months ago when they were distributed to local artists. Here are some of them, waiting to be picked up by their artists:

I snapped the naked bear below back in March, as it posed in the window of a gallery, where local artist Greg Stone painted it with a fish motif. It now sits next to Nashawannuck Pond.

Last weekend, I walked around the rotary and down Union Street, seeing and snapping about half of the 30-some bears. Along the way, I saw dozens of other people out admiring the bears, smiling and laughing. The otherwise sad streets felt much happier with the bears in town. I plan to go back soon to find and photograph the rest of them. See them on my Flickr page.

At Last, Summer

2009-07-07T10:22:00.006-04:00

I came back from Santa Fe with great intentions for my summer. I was going to do tons of walking and swimming. I had a new photography project planned, involving driving to a different Franklin or Hampshire County hilltown each week, wandering around and taking pix. But then the rains came. In June, it rained something like 24 or 25 days out of 30. I tried to tell myself that walking in the rain would be practice for London, but most days the thought of it made me just too miserable. I swam all of four times all month, and my work on the photo project was zilch.

As we turned the page on June, the sun started to emerge. So far in July, each day has just gotten better and better. I was so excited about it that on Sunday I did a 3 mile walk AND swam 15 lengths of the pool, getting a bit of a sunburn in the process. At the pool, I started working on my London plans, pouring over last year's Open House program and making index cards for things I'd like to do this year. Major contenders (if these sites are open again this year) include:

Crossness Pumping Station -- Bazalgette's Victorian cathedral of sewage
Hampstead Garden Suburb -- an early 20th c. planned residential community
Roof Gardens in Kensington -- on top of the former Derry & Tom department store, now owned by Richard Branson
Some bits of Westminster -- government buildings or whatever

I may get back to my hilltowns photography project yet, as I've got some ideas for it in my head. If the rain stays away, that is.

P.S. -- Within an hour of writing this post, the sky turned dark, thunder rumbled, and the rain poured down again.

Heading Home

2009-05-29T09:45:00.014-04:00

It's 7:45 a.m. and I'm sitting in the Albuquerque airport, which they call the Sunport for some unknown reason. I got up three hours ago, and did have a cup of coffee before leaving my casita, but I'm still pretty bleary-eyed and can't remember too much of what I did yesterday. I remember that I saw a great photography exhibition at the Palace of the Governors called "Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe" and later we drove out to the Shidoni Foundry to walk through the sculpture garden.

Then something truly memorable happened. Near Shidoni, we pulled over to the side of the road to look at the views and I saw it -- the magical beast that I've been fascinated by since my first trip out west when I was 11. There, sitting on a rock, surveying the panorama of scenery spread out below, was a jackalope in its natural habitat. I snuck up on him and got a photo from the back. He became aware of me, but was more curious than shy (he must have known I was a friend, not a foe) and came over to stick his nose in my camera before scampering off into the brush.

Back in Santa Fe at the end of the day, we had beers at Marble, a coffee house and brew pub whose wifi I'd been hijacking all week from the plaza. I then walked over to Cafe Dominic where I had fish tacos and listened to a cowboy folk singer. Hasta luego, Santa Fe. It's been fantastico.

Thursday's stats:
Distance walked: 21535 steps (8.15 miles)
Expenses:
$9 for admission to Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe at the Palace of the Governors
$17.81 Stampafe Art Stamps
$14.82 dinner

Churches, galleries and jackalopes

2009-05-28T11:45:00.015-04:00

Today's post is going to be short as it's chilly in the plaza this morning.

Yesterday I looked in on three churches (the Cathedral, the Loretto Chapel with the miraculous staircase, and San Miguel Mission) before walking a ways down Canyon Road and going into several galleries. I'm feeling a bit sated where the art is concerned, so when the skies turned dark and the thunder rumbled, I turned around and walked back into town. I made it to Guadalupe Street just as the downpour started and ducked into Cafe Dominic where I had an amazingly good cup of sopa azteca. Hands down, it was the best thing I've eaten since I got here. My mates picked me up there and we went to a gigantic import emporium called Jackalope. I took several pix of the jackalopes they had for sale, and got a couple of the free jackalope temporary tattoos. I'm still seeking a genuine jackalope in the wild, however. Drinks and dinner followed -- we went to Maria's, home of the best margaritas in Santa Fe.

Wednesday's stats:
18322 steps (7 miles)
$4 to get into churches
$4 for lunch at Dominic's
$16 for stuff at Jackalope
$25 for drinks and dinner

A pueblo and a painting

2009-05-27T11:45:00.006-04:00

I'm back in the plaza for this morning's blogging. It's quiet and peaceful here today -- looks like a lot of the tourists who were here over the weekend have gone home.

Yesterday we took a roadtrip to Taos, driving up and back along the lower road, which hugs the Rio Grande. (I had wanted to take the high road through the mountains for one leg of the journey, but the others outvoted me.) The scenery was incredible -- rolling hills covered with pinon and juniper bushes, jagged outcrops of rock, mountain peaks, and the river, sometimes rushing right next to the road and other times unseen at the bottom of a canyon.

Our first stop was Taos Pueblo, which claims to be the oldest continuous settlement in North America, dating from 900 A.D. We wandered around on our own, all of us too cheap to spring for the guided tour (this was probably a mistake). I loved the architecture -- the adobe with bits of straw sticking out, the shadows cast by the vigas and ladders, and the bright blue paint on doors and window frames.

After lunch in Taos, I set out on my mission. There are hundreds of galleries to browse, but I headed straight for Wilder Nightingale Fine Art where I knew there would be paintings by Tom Noble, a favorite of Spooner's. When I had looked up this gallery online last week, I saw works by another artist that looked interesting. Her name is Michelle Chrisman; she's a plein air painter who uses her pallet knife to apply globs of vibrant colors (a Fauve-like pallet). The upshot of this story is that I bought one of her paintings. It's a landscape of the scenery we passed on our drive, with the mountains and the river canyon.

Tuesday's stats:
14600 steps (5.5 miles)
Expenses:
$1.73 bagel for breakfast
$15 admission to Pueblo Taos
$12 lunch in Taos
$14.02 stuffed jackalope
$21 drinks and dinner
Not telling what I spent on the painting

Memorial Day Update

2009-05-26T10:27:00.007-04:00

This morning I'm blogging from a parking lot near my casita. I'm sitting on some concrete steps across the lot from the Burger Bowl and the UPS Store, using the wifi of Casas de Guadalupe, which must be close by as the signal is quite strong.

The New Mexico History Museum had its grand opening this past weekend. We didn't go as the lines were long, but we did take advantage of the free admission that four other museums were offering in conjunction. We drove out to Museum Hill and went to the International Museum of Folk Art and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Back in town, I wondered around the rail yard and the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe while the others had lunch at Cowgirl BBQ. I think I got some good pix. Unfortunately, the church of OLoG was closed -- I'll have to try to get in later in the week. This wandering was followed by more roaming around the plaza, going into a couple of galleries, and then the New Mexico Museum of Art (I only had time to see one exhibition -- "How the West is One," which showed how the New Mexico style evolved, with artists incorporating styles from elsewhere and being influenced by the native art and the landscapes they found here).

Today we're heading up north to Taos. So far, I've had no trouble getting used to the altitude here, and I'm happy to report that my back, though somewhat sore, is holding out.

Monday's stats:
16,055 steps (about 6.5 miles; I had to replace the battery in my pedometer and I'm not certain I have my stride length entered correctly)
Expenses:
$7.43 groceries
$2.49 battery for pedometer
$2.53 tea at Starbucks
$2.15 another bev
$10 dinner

Mi Casita

2009-05-25T12:19:00.006-04:00

Hola amigas y amgos. I'm sitting on a bench in the plaza, writing my first blogpost from Santa Fe. Finding free wifi has been a bit of a challenge, as is writing on my Nokia internet tablet, so ignore any misspellings or other weirdness.

My casita is just as I imagined it would be -- it's funky and wonky, and although it has all the necessary conveniences, they aren't exactly what you'd call mod cons. The only disappointment is the lack of wifi -- it just doesn't travel from the router at the main b&b house, through the adobe and into my casita.

Travel here was uneventful for the most part. My shuttle from Albuquerque took longer than expected due to a detour to a retreat called Sunrise Springs to drop off four people going there to attend a week-long "intensive" run by Wisdom University. I'd somehow forgotten that this area attracts even more new age nutters than Northampton does.

It's now the morning of my first full day here, and I'm meeting my mates in a few minutes to do some museums. Hasta luego.

Sunday's stats:
12000 steps (5.07 miles)
Expenses:
$7.43 crappy food at Minneapolis airport

$25 shuttle from airport to Santa Fe
$4.15 rolls and bev

Heading for Santa Fe

2009-05-19T13:53:00.005-04:00

My mates Jeanne and Tim are leaving for Santa Fe this week, and I'll be following them out there a couple days later. We got together last week over bevvies and nibbles to plan some of our activities (click on the spreadsheet above). The plan is to take in several museums on Monday, as a number of them will have free admission in conjunction with the grand opening of the New Mexico History Museum. We'll take a day trip up to Taos one other day, stopping at Santuario de Chimayo to get some of the sacred healing dirt (we're all heathens, so it probably won't work) and possibly going to Taos Pueblo. The rest of the time will be filled with wandering around, taking lots of photos, drinking margaritas and eating good food. I'll try to do a bit of blogging while I'm there. Since my four faithful readers seemed to like hearing about my expenses and pedometer readings from my most recent London trip, I'll include that stuff again. Check back here next week, and watch for photos on Flickr when I return.

Walking Historical Florence

2009-05-03T09:13:00.006-04:00

Steve Strimer has been leading history walks around Florence for a while, and I finally went on one of them recently. I've lived in and around Florence (a village of Northampton) for years, driving through at least twice a day, and often neglecting to take the time to consider the rich history beneath the pavement and behind the clapboard facades. The village was the site of a utopian community, a hotbed of abolitionism, a stop on the underground railroad, and home to many escaped slaves and free blacks including Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles. Steve has done much research on all of this, pouring through old documents and poking around in people's attics, and he periodically takes groups on walks to share his knowledge.

David Ruggles was born a free black in Connecticut in 1810 and moved to New York where he opened a grocery store, became a publisher of abolitionist pamphlets and was the first African American to own a bookstore. In 1842 he moved to Florence, where he joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian community. He remained active in the abolitionist movement here and also opened a water cure facility (Northampton had several water cure and spa facilities in the mid-1800s). Near blind and in poor health, he died here in 1849.

This little clapboard cottage will one day be the David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies. It's not a house he lived in, but was contemporary with his time in Florence.

This just in from London

2009-04-22T16:37:00.010-04:00

Image by ☞ John McNab via Flickr

Spooner sent me a most excellent postcard of the Obamas and the Queen. It's this photo, but they've wisely cropped the Duke out of the postcard because he looks sneaky and too much like Klaus von Bulow.

I've booked my next trip to the UK (in September, so that I can do Open House Weekend again). Apparently, Spooner will be moving before then. I'll miss Primrose Gardens -- I'll either have to learn to like his new patch (wherever that turns out to be) or I'll have to stay with the nuns at the women's hostel in Belsize Park. Hmmmmmm....

Santa Fe on a Budget

2009-02-28T15:08:00.009-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

It's rare that I travel anyplace where I have to pay for both transportation and accommodations. I've had some great vacations on the cheap. Mostly, I mooch a guestroom or a futon from a friend, while I pay for my airfare plus entrance fees to museums and some of my meals. Other times, when I traveled for my old job, I used to add a day at the beginning or end of trips, and my workmate ST and I would split the cost of an extra night in the hotel, while our airfare was covered by the org we worked for.

This upcoming trip to Santa Fe is a bit out of my usual mode as the mooching opportunities are minimal, which means I have to scope out how to do this on a budget. My mates ScribeGirl and her husband will be in Santa Fe with another couple at their time share, and I'll be in town for part of the week that they're there. So I'm arranging my own digs for five nights.

I'm not really keen on either hotels (all those identical, characterless rooms) or B&Bs (sharing close quarters with strangers). When Rosenbeans and I went to London for a week in 2004, we had accommodations that worked out really well. We stayed at the Langorf Hotel, which is actually three Edwardian terrace houses in Frognal near the Finchley Road, two of which have B&B rooms and one -- where we stayed -- that is divided into studios and small apartments. We had a little apartment with a bedroom, full bathroom, kitchenette, and lounge with a sofa bed that I slept on, a table with four chairs and a TV with four channels. We even had one of those European washer/dryers, but sadly it leaked all over the floor of the kitchenette due to a torn gasket and we had to finish washing and rinsing our underwear and socks in the tub and hang them all over the apartment to dry.

But I digress. When I started to look for a place to stay in Santa Fe, I typed things like "weekly rental Santa Fe" and "vacation apartment Santa Fe" into Google, and a few clicks kept leading me to the same place: Chapelle Street Casitas. Run in conjunction with Casa del Toro B&B, this place is made up of several properties within a couple blocks just north of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. All the reviews that I saw were glowing. I checked availability online and watched videos of several of the available spaces. I liked the sound of this unit from the description on the website:

This one has 100 year old plank wood floors and is an old old adobe that has settled a bit here and there. Bottom line is there is not a level spot in the whole room. There is a full bath with acid stained concrete walls. Best thing is gas burning stove in the Living Room that keeps everything nice and cozy.

There's also a full kitchen that looks frozen in time, circa 1965, as well as satellite TV and wifi. When I called and spoke to Paul on the phone, he told me that this unit is funky and old fashioned. I asked if it's clean, safe and quiet, and he assured me that it is. Sounds a lot like me: vintage, funky, clean and quiet. So I booked it. Here's the best part: $68/night plus tax. That comes to a bit under $400 for five nights.

Paul told me that I'd receive an e-mail confirmation in a few minutes (I did) and that it would contain several pages of detailed info about the accommodations (indeed, it did). He encouraged me to contact them with any questions, but cautioned that there would be severe consequences if I was to ask anything that's explained in the e-mail. I'm sure they get their share of needy, whiny yuppies as guests, so the peremptory strike is fair and understandable.

Now that I've got my reservations for flights and accommodations sorted, I'll move on to start my research of what to do while I'm in Santa Fe. More on that later, mates.

Adventures, old and new

2009-02-18T13:19:00.011-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I'm such a geek, and so taken with Apture, that I've just gone back through my (old) September dispatches from London and added all kinds of rich content goodness to them -- links, photos, maps and a video or two. Some of my loyal readers are just as geeky as I am and like this sort of thing, so I encourage you to go back and re-read the posts while clicking on the Apture links for all the extras. If you have questions about any of the places I saw, or want more info about anything, leave me a comment and I'll search out some more content for you.

And now for the new: I've just purchased a ticket to Santa Fe, New Mexico for five days in May for the unbeatable price of $196 round trip (airfare Hartford/Albuquerque; the shuttle up to Santa Fe will be another $25). Now, I'm doing online research on cheap places to stay, reading reviews and watching some clunky homemade videos of various B&B offerings. It's been ten or twelve years since my one and only previous trip to Santa Fe, and that was for a conference so I really didn't have an opportunity to explore much back then. This visit may have a daytrip up to Taos and will definitely involve lots of photo-taking. More info to follow as I make a spreadsheet of the things I want to do and see. Meanwhile, winter drags on like an indeterminant sentence. It's good to have something to look forward to -- especially something involving sunshine and warm weather.

I'm Captured by Apture

2009-02-10T18:26:00.004-05:00

I know I say this whenever I find some new gadget or gizmo, but this one really is the best thing for blogs since sliced bread. It's called Apture, and like Zemanta, it helps you to add links to your blog posts. But Apture takes things beyond where Zemanta goes -- with Apture, you can link to media files and point to more than one place with your link. It creates pop-up boxes -- yes, we all hate pop-up boxes, but stay with me here -- that show you a Wikipedia article, map, video, photo, or all of those things for one target.

I'm not very good at explaining this, so you'll have to see it in action. Go to one of my posts below. You'll notice that some of the links have a wee icon (book, camera, movie film, etc.) to the left of the link. Those are Apture links. Mouse over the link, but don't click. A box will open up and you'll see the linked item without ever leaving my blog. In most instances, I've got only one item for each link, but I've added maps and photos to some of them and will add more in due time.

If you like what you see, click on Get Apture at the bottom of one of my boxes. All you have to do is create a free account and follow the steps to put a gadget box on your blog. There's no software to download, so you can use it on any computer once you've made your account. Be sure to watch the tutorial video. You'll be Aptured before you know it.

Blogging on the Fly

2009-02-06T15:35:00.005-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I'm a bad blogger. I admit it. The problem isn't the content of my blog -- generally, I think I write pretty informative and entertaining posts. But all the gurus say that, to develop a loyal readership, you have to present new content on a regular basis, and that is my downfall. A quick look at my archives will reveal the infrequency of my blogging.

But that, dear readers, is about to change. I have bought me some new gear. (Have I mentioned how much I love gadgets?) I've been looking at and reading about the Nokia N810 internet tablet for well over a year, and the price just dropped on my birthday, so I ordered one for my birthday prezzie to self. Here are just some of the features of this pint-sized powerhouse:

Wifi, with Mozilla browser
QWERTY keyboard that retracts
Internet radio (with BBC installed!)
Skype installed
Media player
Photo viewer
GPS (fee for service)
Games (including Mahjong solitaire, my fave)
Slot for memory card for photos and music

I'm thinking this will be great to take along when I travel. No longer will I have to beg or borrow computer use and/or wifi from my host. I'll have access to all my travel research that I keep in Google docs spreadsheets, and I'll be able to blog from anywhere. Now all I need is a new trip or a more exciting life to blog about.

Foto Finish

2008-11-02T16:05:00.008-05:00

Finally, I can say that I've finished uploading my photos from London. 287 of them, to be exact. It's been a chore, but I've enjoyed revisiting all these spots as I edited, uploaded, tagged, and geotagged everything. And it's been lovely to receive comments from my mates on many of them. I'm particularly chuffed when a Londoner tells me that I've captured something in a new way, or introduced them to a place they haven't been. By the end of this trip, I no longer felt like a tourist. I'm not sure if I'm an honorary Londoner yet, but I'm closer to that than to tourist, that's for certain.

There might be a few more photos that I'll upload and post to Guess Where London, but my Flickr set is essentially complete. If you haven't looked at it for a while, give it another look and let me know what you think.

Update on the Uploads

2008-10-16T10:04:00.011-04:00

I imagine that my four loyal readers must be wondering what's up with the promised pix. Well, I never got around to adding any to the posts I wrote from London, but I can report that as of this morning there are 167 photos in my London, Sept 2008 set on Flickr. (You can see them flash by in the wee slideshow on the right side of my blog.) I've been trying to upload in chronological order, more or less, and I'm now up to mid-day on Friday. You'll see tons of graffiti, several boot scrapers, and lots of things from my walks east and west along the Thames. The shots from Friday afternoon will be more street art, and then it will be All Things Architecture from London Open House Weekend. This is taking me for-fucking-ever because I'm meticulously -- ok, compulsively -- tagging and geotagging everything. The cool thing about that is that you can see where I've been on the map of London. That link takes you to a yahoo map, which is good for the overview but pretty much rubbish on the detail. Underneath each individual photo I've given a link to Google maps, which let you really see down to the street level. I was actually able to locate the two trailers (caravans) I photographed near Surrey Water.

So, check out the pix, leave me some comments, and be patient as I finish this monumental task. I should be done in another week or so. Cheers!

The Little Differences

2008-09-28T09:29:00.007-04:00

Remember that bit in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta is talking to Samuel L. Jackson about the "little differences" between America and Europe, like how they put mayonaise on French fries and you can get a beer in the movie theatres in Amsterdam? Here are a few of the little differences between the States and the UK:

It's autumn now (but we call it "fall" cos it's the time when stuff falls from the trees), and there are horse chestnuts all over the ground. In the UK, they're called "conkers," and they're bigger and heavier than our American variety. Conker tournaments are an old pastime, and one is still held in October on Hampstead Heath. Kids poke a hole in the chestnut and tie a string to it, and then try to smash their mates' conkers with theirs. The last conker hanging on a string wins.

The snail population of the UK is out of control. They are everywhere, and people whinge about how they crawl all over their garden and eat their plants. I told my mate Maggie that we didn't have snails like these in Massachusetts, and she offered to give me some from her garden to bring home. I declined. The ones in this picture are casting their long shadows on a gravestone at St Mary's Old Church in Stoke Newington.

Stinging nettles grow wherever the ground has been disturbed by humans, and graveyards are prime places to find them. These are in Abney Park Cemetery. The leaves have hundreds of tiny hairs on them -- if your skin comes in contact with the hairs, it will sting something wicked. Fortunately, nature has provided a handy antidote -- a plant called dock often grows where stinging nettles are found (but there's none in this picture). You can soothe the sting by crushing the dock leaves and rubbing them on your burning skin.

Of course, there are many other differences -- like French fries are "chips" and potato chips are "crisps" -- but we all get conked on the head just the same when stuff falls from the trees. Happy autumn, mates!

Back in the Tofu Valley

2008-09-23T10:43:00.004-04:00

Hey mates! Another long travel day yesterday. I got home about 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, but my body thought it was 1:30 a.m. Exhausted as I was, I woke up at around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So today, I'm taking it easy -- doing laundry, catching up on e-mail and Facebook, adding links to my blog posts, and dumping all my pix onto my computer.

I still can't believe that I didn't have a drop of rain the entire time I was in London. I'd like to think that I brought the nice autumnal weather with me from New England, but I think the UK was just due for a change in weather pattern after all the rain they'd had in August and early September.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures and my little travel tips on how to do London on the cheap (my total out-of-pocket expenses were £165). One last tip: Your shoes don't matter so much as your socks -- buy good hiking socks if you're going to walk as much as I did. Whatever blister guard^® is, it really does work. I probably wouldn't have gotten the blister on my little toe if I'd been wearing my bestest socks on Saturday.

Watch for my photos as I start to upload them to Flickr.

Open House, Part 2

2008-09-21T12:54:00.016-04:00

Well, mates, it's happened. I've run out of steam. I've just gotten in from my last day of adventures, and I am truly knackered. Thankfully, the blisters didn't start to appear until yesterday, and I had a pretty easy (right!) day planned for today. We had 11 index cards for the day, 10 of which were in the City and one in Tower Hamlets (just east of Tower Hill, where Whitechapel meets Wapping). We made it to 9 of the 11, plus one that wasn't on the original list:

The Daily Express Building (or what was the Daily Express; not sure what's in the building now -- might be Goldman Sachs -- but it's still an Art Deco gem and we were able to see the lobby)
Apothecaries' Hall (one of the best preserved 17c livery hall interiors; I took some pix of jars that held leeches and various herbs and potions)
St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe (Wren's last church in the City)
Painters' Hall (bombed in the war and rebuilt afterwards)
St Helen Bishopsgate (parts date from 1210 and it survived the Great Fire)
Bevis Marks Synagogue (built in 1701; it's the oldest synagogue in Britain)
Old Turkish Baths (late Victorian; now a pizza parlor where we had a nice lunch)
Guildhall (Grade I listed medieval civic building, dating from the 12th century)
St Bartholomew's Hospital (founded in 1123; Grade I listed Georgian building where we saw the Great Hall and a staircase decorated with huge canvases by Wm. Hogarth)
Wilton's Music Hall (dates from 1859; the oldest music hall in Britain and possibly in Europe; if you saw the movie Casandra's Dream, you caught some glimpses of the interior)

Spooner's favorite from today was the synagogue, while mine was Wilton's. I got some pix, but in many places you either aren't allowed to photograph or the lighting is so dim that it wasn't possible.

When we got back to Belsize Park, we went to Budgen's supermarket to get things for dinner and for our respective journeys (Spooner's with some kids from his school to Scotland tomorrow and mine home to the States). Oh joy, oh joy! HobNobs were on sale -- buy one package for 99p and get the second free. Brilliant!

Pedometer reading: 18,700 steps, 7.6 miles

Expenses:

£5 for my half of our pizza at Ciro's
£1 for a piece of cake at Wilton's (a bunch of oldies off a bus tour were having tea and cakes in the cafe and I grabbed a piece of ginger cake)
99p for two packages of HobNobs
£9.49 for a bottle of wine for Spooner's household

I think I'm ok for money on my Oyster to get to Heathrow tomorrow. Spooner and his flatmates will be leaving before dawn for their school trips, and I'll leave the house around 10 for the long journey home. It's been a really wonderful trip -- I saw a few new areas as I fill in the map of London, I got to spend some time with Flickr mates -- new and old -- whose company I totally enjoy, I saw sites that a regular tourist rarely gets to see, and (I hope) I got a few good pix in the process. I'm especially happy that I got to spend a fair amount of time in the East End (Hoxton, Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Whitechapel) because I missed that patch on my last trip. Watch for the pix to appear on Flickr -- after I rest, play with the cats, and do a mountain of laundry.

Thanks for reading about my adventures. The next post will be from Stateside, when I will tell you all about conkers, snails, stinging nettles and dock. I'll also go back to my older posts and drop in photos and links.

Open House, Part 1

2008-09-21T04:24:00.013-04:00

As we all could have predicted, I'd planned more than we could do on the Saturday of Open House Weekend. Way more. I had 15 index cards that I wrote out and sorted for Saturday -- we made it to 8 of the destinations. Here's a quick list of the places we hit:

City Hall (where Boris presides over the Greater London Authority)
[Borough Market -- Not an Open House destination, but we stopped here to get portable food to sustain us through the day]
Allies and Morrison Studios (an architectural firm)
Blue Fin Building (designed by Allies and Morrison; home of IPC Media)
Kirkaldy Testing Works (Grade II listed industrial building, purpose-built to house D Kirkaldy's unique testing machine, now restored)
Freemason's Hall (no photos allowed in this top secret place, but I just may have taken one when the poobahs weren't looking)
St George's Bloomsbury (the last of Hawksmoor's six London churches, consecrated in 1730, recently restored)
German Gymnasium in Pancras Road (1861, the first purpose-built gymnasium in Britain, now the King's Cross visitor centre)
St Pancras Old Church (there's been a church on this site since the 4th century; the one there now has Norman and Victorian parts)

When I post the pix of all these things on Flickr, I'll fill in more of the details about each building. I think we had a good mix of historic and modern stuff.

That evening, we went to see a play at the New End Theatre up in Hampstead. I could hardly stay awake (but I did!).

Pedometer reading: 25,000 steps, 10.1 miles (I have blisters to prove it)

Expenses:

£3 for a chicken & veg pasty and £2 for a brownie at Borough Market
Another tenner to top up the Oyster card
Spooner treated me to theatre

Graveyards and Graffiti

2008-09-20T03:46:00.009-04:00

After three days of roaming on my own, it was great to have company for my explorations yesterday (Friday). I met my Flickrmate Maggie at the Angel bright and early, and we went by bus to Stoke Newington, a place neither of us had been. Our first stop was Abney Park Cemetery -- it's one of the Magnificent Seven (park-like, Victorian cemeteries around London that were modeled on the ones in Boston including Mount Auburn) and is the second of the seven that I've visited (Rosenbeans and I went to Highgate four years ago). Abney Park is the most derelict of the seven -- wildly overgrown, with tilted and toppling headstones, headless and armless angels, and a disused chapel. We had a bright, sunny day for our exploration, and so it wasn't as gloomy and atmospheric as I imagine it would be in the fog and mist. This cemetery is where dissenters (non-C of E people) were buried after Bunhill Fields filled up. The Victorians were really into death, and their monuments and ornamentation were quite over the top. Stay tuned for photos.

From there, we walked down Stoke Newington Church Street to Clissold Park. The area is quite charming. It's an old, working class area that's getting a new lease on life, but hasn't become too gentrified or posh (yet). We wandered around the old St Mary's Old Church (the parish was in the Doomsday Book), cut across Clissold Park and caught a bus down to Old Street.

After lunch in Hoxton Square -- a real lunch, unlike my usual rolls or sandwich for 2 quid -- we rambled through the streets of Shoreditch in search of street art, ghost signs and interesting architectural bits. Maggie and I have similar interests in all that stuff, plus the social, economic and political history of the area. Like much of London, this is an area that's really in transition, and probably always has been. The streets we walked in were mostly lined with industrial and commercial buildings, and in many places the old buildings are being torn down and new, glitzy office blocks are going up. But, if you stay off the High Street, and wander down the passages and alleys, you get glimpses of life here 100 years ago. Now, many of the warehouses have been converted to art studios, design firms, and clubs. Street art is everywhere. We searched out old favorites, and both discovered that things we'd seen a while back have now been painted over, and we found new things in their place. Although it's a bit sad to see the older things gone, the changes and transitions of everything from buildings to street art are what makes this such a great area to explore.

I caught the tube back to Belsize Park, got cleaned up, and then Spooner and I went back to his school for an evening lecture by journalist Bob Woodruff. I thought we were going to be hearing about Watergate, Deep Throat, and meetings in a parking garage, but that would have been Bob WoodWARD. This Bob is an ABC news correspondent who was blown up in Iraq and sustained a traumatic brain injury. He's set up a foundation to aid soldiers with TBI.

After that, we had dinner with Spooner's mates Greg and Esther in a restaurant in Belsize Park.

Pedometer reading: 20,600 steps, 8.45 miles

Expenses:

£7 for lunch
£15 for gifties for rosenbeans and myself
£15 for drinks, dinner and my share of the cab ride

East Along the Thames

2008-09-18T14:30:00.006-04:00

I just got back to Belsize Park and am sitting down to blog again today for two reasons: (1) Spooner and his flatmates are all out at an event at school, so I have the place to myself, and (2) I have to be out early tomorrow morning to meet a Flickr mate at the Angel -- we're going to Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Soon after I left the house this morning, I realized that my spreadsheet, containing all the important info about where I was going, how to get there, what time things were open, etc., was on the floor of the guestroom. I was off the grid. Flying without instruments. But I freaked out only for a few minutes and went on with the plan that I had in my head.

Sunshine! Blue sky! The best weather I've had yet (it's been grey, but not a drop of rain). My explorations were all east of Tower Bridge. I started out at Tower Hill tube station, walked around the west and south sides of the Tower, and then walked around St Katharine Docks. The highlight was seeing Dead Man's Hole under the bridge -- a place where bodies were dumped into the Thames from the Tower -- but the tide was low and I just had to imagine the water taking the corpses out to sea.

Next, I walked over the bridge and down Shad Thames to the Design Museum, where I stopped in for a quick look at the shop and use of the loo. I debated going in to see an exhibit called Under a Fiver (stuff that costs less than five pounds), but I pressed on and walked along the Thames Walk through Bermondsey to Rotherhithe. I walked past many old wharf buildings (warehouses) that have been converted to luxury apartments, and many purpose-built luxury flats. "Luxury" is the operative word here -- this area has gone from a rat-infested, disease- and poverty-ridden area to prime real estate. I did see one block of council housing with nappies hanging up on the balcony.

At Canada Water, I got the tube to Canary Wharf and walked over to West India Quay to go to the Museum in Docklands, where the major exhibition now is Jack the Ripper's East End. It was a bit more about Jack the Ripper -- and less about the East End -- than I would have liked, but I did learn a bit about poverty, health, policing, etc., in that area in the late 1800s. Most interesting were the household-by-household maps of economic well-being in that time period. As you can imagine, there's significant overlap between the most abject poverty and the places the Ripper's victims lived or their bodies were found. And there was some overlap with what I'd seen on the walk about Jewish radicalism in the East End that I'd done on Monday.

The sky was still blue and the sun still shined when I left the museum, so I took the DLR to Greenwich and rode on the Greenwich Wheel. It's a Ferris wheel, with enclosed pods, that's smaller -- and cheaper -- than the London Eye. I liked it, and I might even be brave enough now to go on the Eye ... on another visit.

While I was in Greenwich, I did a quick loop through the Greenwich Market, where I bought some vintage buttons, and walked around St Alfeges church.

Travel tip: When you find a good loo, make a mental note of where it is so that you can do a pit stop there when you're next in the area. I knew that there were nice loos at the Design Museum and the Information Centre in Greenwich, so I stopped at both, and I'd been to the Museum in Docklands before so I knew to plan a pit stop there. On this adventure, I found fairly nice public loo near All Hallows by the Tower as well.

Pedometer reading: Just over 20,000 steps, 8.21 miles

Expenses:

£2.40 for two rolls, a clementine, and a beverage (eaten throughout the day -- this kept me going just fine)
£5.60 for the Museum in Docklands (I had a 20% off coupon that I got online)
£7 for the Greenwich Eye
£3 for Greenwich Market purchase
Topped up Oyster with a tenner

West Along the Thames

2008-09-18T03:33:00.009-04:00

Each time I visit London, I try to explore a new area. Last trip, it was Islington and a bit of Chelsea (rained out). This time, I chose Chiswick for one of my new adventures. Chiswick is well west of London -- it took about an hour to get there, past Hammersmith on the District Line.

My first destination yesterday was the Treatment Rooms, just a couple blocks from the Chiswick Park tube station. This is a private house, owned by an artist who has covered the front and back facades, as well as the garden wall, with mosaics. Oh, and there's a truck parked outside that has also been covered with mosaics, including lettering that says "My other car is a Turner Prize reject." There's a big tiki on the front, and little skulls and stuff, with wild bright colors everywhere. The back wall is the most interesting bit -- it commemorates Luis Ramirez who was executed by the state of Texas in 2005 for a crime he didn't commit.

Next, I walked quite a ways due south toward the Thames to get to Chiswick Park and Chiswick House. This was the estate of the second Earl of Burlington, who took the Grand Tour when he was 20, bought tons of art in Italy, became a great admirer of Palladio, and built his stately home using Palladian principles in about 1720 or so. The grounds are currently undergoing landscaping restoration, so there's a lot of orange plastic fencing in different areas and scaffolding on a bridge and a gazebo, but they are still lovely -- wild in part, and more formal as you approach the house. It's a popular place for people to walk their dogs, and the grounds were teeming with hounds and mutts of all sorts, most off their leashes and many wet from a dip in the pond. Disconcerting to an affirmed hater of dogs such as myself.

I did the house tour, which consists of a 20 minute movie about the Earl and then you're left to wander around on your own. Most of the rooms are empty of furniture, but the velvet wall coverings and ornamental gilding have been restored, as well as the famous Chiswick tables. Lots of the Earl's art collection is hanging on the walls. Photos not allowed indoors.

From there, I kept walking towards the river, cutting through the churchyard of St Nicholas to get there. I then walked along Chiswick Mall, which is right next to the Thames. It was low tide at the time, but I could see that high tide had brought the river up over the grassy bits across the road from the posh houses, and just a bit onto the pavement. Sometimes, the river comes right up to people's front doors, and they have special solid metal gates with rubber gaskets to hold the water back. A lot of uneventful rambling brought me back to the Stamford Brook tube station, with a stop for a panino and beverage before getting back on the tube.

Next destination: Pimlico, for the Tate Britain, where I saw the Frances Bacon exhibition. I didn't know anything about him, but now I can tell you that he was not a happy guy. The paintings are dark and disturbing. Where there are bright colors, they are associated with gore or violence. All his people are fragmented and distorted, shown as isolated or anguished. In need of something uplifting after that, I went through the Turner rooms and was surprised to see how loose and abstract some of his landscapes were. They were filled with glowing light, unlike the grey skies outside (but no rain yet since I've been here, so I really shouldn't complain).

My final destination was the Guess Where London (my Flickr group) meetup at a pub in the City, and I had plenty of time to get there so I decided to take the boat that goes from the Tate Britain to the Tate Modern. I walked across the Millennium Bridge, and trudged through crowds of office workers up to Gracechurch Street for the meetup. It was great to see my old mates and meet some new ones. We compared notes for our Open House Weekend plans, and I hope I'll run into a few of them on Saturday or Sunday. I'll be wearing my Flickr button and my Knitters for Obama button, so I should be pretty easy to spot.

Pedometer reading: 21,500 steps, 8.84 miles

Expenses:

60p for a bagel
£4.20 for admission to Chiswick House
£4 for a panino and limonata
Admission to Frances Bacon exhibition: 0 (I used a friend's member card)
£3 for boatride
£2.30 for beer

Note: Rosenbeans has asked me to detail my transport expenses, but I can't do that. Each journey costs something different, depending on how many zones you cross. There's a maximum amount that you can be charged for a day, and if you exceeded it, your Oyster card is adjusted overnight. As I noted in my first post, I put £20 on my Oyster when I arrived at Heathrow. There was about 6 quid left on it from my April trip. I'll probably put another tenner or two on the card before the end of the week.

Street Art and Skeletons

2008-09-17T03:43:00.007-04:00

Oh, crikey, did I overdo it on arrival day! My back was really sore yesterday (day 2). Fortunately, I'd planned a pretty low-key day that didn't tax my body or my brain any too much.

I finally got out the door around 11 and took the tube to Embankment. I like to take the bus whenever I can (it's cheaper and I can see where I'm going), but I made up for lost time sleeping, blogging and dawdling by taking the tube most places yesterday. My destination was the Southbank, and I could have ridden one more stop to Waterloo, but I decided to walk over the Jubilee footbridge since it wasn't raining. First stop: Hayward Gallery, where I watched the Appearing Rooms on the terrace and saw a small exhibition called View Basket: Art Bought Online. For a two-week period in August, the person who put the exhibition together purchased things listed on eBay as "art" from UK sellers. As the items arrive at the Hayward, they are added to the exhibition -- there are now nearly 50 items on display. The "art" ranged from a watercolor of a chihuahua to action figures to a limited edition book made by David Hockney. My favorite was the nearly full-size bust of Freddie Mercury made of Legos.

From there, I headed to Leake Street, where there's a disused train tunnel that's been covered in graffiti. It was the site of the Cans Festival of street artists like Banksy this past summer, and much of it has recently been repainted by second (or third?) tier street artists. It was really dark, but I did get a few good photos at either end of the tunnel where there was more light. I'll add a few here when I get home and can upload pix.

For lunch, I got a tuna & sweet corn sandwich and a beverage and sat near the London Eye to eat. When Spooner first got to London 5 years ago, he ate tuna & sweet corn sandwiches for days while he was looking for a place to live. Rosenbeans and I ate them often when we visited him in 2004. Now, I eat one of these delicacies on each trip as an homage to past times with my mates, cos food connects us to our culture and history, right?

Back across the Jubilee Bridge and back on the tube to Oxford Circus. Destination: Getty Images Gallery to see London Through a Lens, a great assemblage of black and white photos of London from the Getty's archives. Lots of images of Brits at work, play and war. One of the best was of a swarm of kiddies rushing en masse into a sweetshop when the rationing of sweets was lifted in 1950 or so.

I saw on my map that I was very near the BBC Shop, so I went over to Margaret Street in hopes of getting some Top Gear tat for rosenbeans for her birthday prezzie. I thought a Richard Hammond action figure would be really nice. But the shop was nowhere to be found, so I walked 2 blocks north to Broadcasting House to see if they had a shop there. Nope. They do all their sales online now. Sorry, rosenbeans. It's the thought that counts.

Back to Oxford Circus to get the tube to Euston. Next stop: the Wellcome Collection to see Skeletons, an exhibition of excavated remains of Londoners -- Romans, medieval folk, and 19th century dead -- done in conjunction with the Museum of London. Whenever there's a building project in London and remains or artifacts are found, construction comes to a screeching halt while the archaeologists take all the bones and bits out of the ground. These 26 skeletons came from 8 different sites around London. Each is laid out in a glass case, with info about their age, gender, injuries or illnesses as diagnosed from the bones, and speculation as to their occupation or social class. Many had rickets, some had syphilis, and some showed signs of a diet of much protein and fat causing obesity. One woman was pregnant at her death, and the little fetus bones were there with hers. Several children had serious rickets or were born with syphilis. Men had broken bones from battle or brawling. A bit creepy, but interesting stuff.

On my way back up the Euston Road, I stopped in at St Pancras Parish Church to see the art exhibit in the crypt. It was various pieces done with light. The crypt is dark and dank, and the art wasn't doing anything for me, so I moved on and caught the 168 bus back to Belsize Park.

Spooner called soon after I got back to his place to tell me to meet him for dinner in Swiss Cottage, in a restaurant he couldn't remember the name of in a street with a name that he didn't know. But I found it without any trouble. We went to the Hampstead Theatre afterwards -- a new production of Brecht's Turandot that left us scratching our heads.

Pedometer readings: 16800 steps, 6.91 miles

Expenses:

£3.08 for sandwich and beverage
I owe Spooner a tenner for dinner (I paid up before I left)

Greetings from Old Blighty

2008-09-16T04:48:00.013-04:00

Here I am, back in London. In Belsize Park at the moment, using Spooner's macbook, which is a bit of a challenge. I'm getting a slow start today on account of jet lag and a very tiring arrival day. But I got up at 9 a.m., so my internal clock is half way to being adjusted.

The trip over was uneventful, but LONG -- 15 hours from door to door, using every mode of transport but boat. First the drive to the Massport lot in Framingham, then the Logan Express bus to the airport, then the flight (landed around 7 a.m.), an hour and a half on the tube to Belsize Park and a short walk to Spooner's house. The only good thing about the flight (it sure wasn't the food -- this time I tried the Hindu meal, and it was the same as all the other alternatives that Virgin Atlantic serves up, i.e. rice, overcooked veg and mystery sauce -- which upset my digestive system something wicked) was the inflight entertainment. I watched the film Somers Town, which I'd wanted to see while I was in London but it had just left the cinemas in Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road. It's by the same director who made This is England, and stars the same kid, who is about 15 now. There's really not much of a plot -- it's mostly vingnettes about a kid from the Midlands who's come to London, and his new mate, a Polish immigrant boy whose dad works in construction at the new St Pancras International station. It's quite charming, and I always like when I recognize places in Brit movies.

So, after my nap yesterday, I hopped on the 168 bus down to Camden Town, bought a bagel at Fresh and Wild, and headed for Regent's Park to wander around. It's a vast place -- not as big and wild as Hampstead Heath, but it took me longer than I'd guesstimated to make my way past the zoo to the Victorian drinking fountain, around by the bird sanctuary to the west side where the London Mosque is, over to the band shell which was blown up (killing 7 Royal Green Jackets in the band) by the IRA, around the Inner Circle -- with a wander through the secret garden at St John's Lodge -- and out the York Gate to Marylebone Road.

As I was walking down the Marylebone Road to the tube station at Baker Street, a tourist from South Asia stopped me and asked how to get to Oxford Street. This was a first -- it's always been me reluctantly asking someone for directions. Maybe I finally look like I know where I'm going (that's only semi-true). But I was able to quickly show him on my map where he was and how to get to Baker Street for a bus to Oxford Street. Once I was in the tube station, I had to ask someone on the platform if the train for Plaistow (wherever that is) would stop at Aldgate East.

I met up with my mates Helen and Judy in Whitechapel High Street, the beginning point for a guided walk about Jewish radicalism in the East End from 1881 to 1905. Jet lagged as I was, I think I was able to take in most of it at the time, but I can't remember any of the people we learned about at the moment, except for Samuel Gompers, who we learned attended the Jews' Free School in Bell Lane (building destroyed in the Blitz). We saw the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Brune Street, the former site of Mossy Marks' deli in Wentworth Street (I have to find out if that's the place that James Mason visits in The London Nobody Knows), and ended in Princelet Street. Afterwards, Helen and Judy and I had dinner in a restaurant in the newly renovated (read: soul sucked out of it) Spitalfields Market. (Rosenbeans, you wouldn't recognise the place -- it looks nothing like the funky market we went to four years ago.)

Pedometer reading for yesterday: Over 20,000 steps, 8.5 miles.

Expenses:

£20 to top up my Oyster card (I'll need to add more later)
69p for the bagel
7 quid for the East End walk (it costs £3.50 if you're non-waged)
£1.05 for postcards
a tenner for dinner

Cardigan - Finished!

2008-08-12T12:53:00.006-04:00

I started this sweater in March, when it was still cold out and I could picture myself wearing it as we transitioned into spring. Nice plan. Spring moved into summer, and the sweater (knit from the neck down all in one piece) got too heavy to have on my lap on hot days so I put it aside. Now we're in another cool spell and I finally finished it. And I wore it yesterday. It's comfy and stylish, and I got several compliments on it. The yarn is South West Trading Twizé bamboo and has a nice shine to it. Love it!

Last night, I cast on another pair of fingerless mitts for one of my Flickr pals who didn't get a pair in the previous Mitts for Mates gift giving. No pix of that until after the gift has been given.

Another trip, another plan

2008-07-19T17:49:00.005-04:00

It's time for me to start planning my September trip to London. My loyal readers (all four of them) will think that this blog is sounding like a broken record. The main focus of this trip is London Open House Weekend -- two days when over 600 buildings, usually not accessible by the general public, will open their doors to the hoi polloi. I've placed my online order for the booklet (5 quid) detailing all the buildings that will be open so that I can start making my plan of attack.

I'd actually given some thought to going over without having made a spreadsheet for the trip. Who am I kidding? As if. But the spreadsheet is looking mighty empty right now, and I've got to get cracking. I reckon the weather will be much better in September than what I've had in my previous April and October visits, and so I'm thinking of doing some walks along the Thames, weather permitting. One might be in Chiswick, and another from Tower Bridge to Rotherhithe. I'd also like to go back to Southbank Mosaics to volunteer again. I'll post more as the plan takes shape.

My Wordle

2008-07-11T12:00:00.005-04:00

I made this at Wordle.net, but I can't figure out how to make it look bigger on this page. You'll just have to click on it. Wordle makes a graphic representation of the words you use in your blog. It's pretty cool.

Mother Nature

2008-07-08T13:54:00.013-04:00

I really don't know squat about nature. Agriculture, yes, but nature, not so much. When I was a kid, my mother used to take us for evening drives in the country, and she'd point out all the different crops in the fields, so I can identify squash or beans at 55 mph, but I hardly know the difference between a crow and a pigeon. I prefer my flora cultivated and my fauna domesticated. But now that I have a digital camera, and work on a campus with lovely lakes and gardens to look at on noontime walks, I've been trying to pay more attention to it all.

Last year, I saw dragonflies and damselflies, cedar waxwings and a great blue heron, and I've learned the names of a couple new plants like fernleaf peony, Spigelia marilandica and Eryngium. I often took pictures of things and then posted them on Flickr and asked people to tell me what they were.

This year, I've been watching tadpoles turn into froglets in a little artificial pond near the Mount Holyoke greenhouse. Here are two tadpoles as they looked back in April. You'll probably have to click on the photo and view it large in order to see them. They're the grey blobs with eyes in the middle of the photo.

Nothing happened for weeks and weeks. The tadpoles swam around in the pond, but didn't seem to be morphing. Then, in June, they quickly got legs and came out of the water to sit on the lily pads. If you look closely, you can see that one still has a long tadpole tail, one has a stumpy tail, and the others have tailless bums.

Here's Big Mama (or Big Daddy) watching over all the little guys in the pond. Two weeks ago, I could see twenty or so of the froglets at any given time. Now I only see a couple. I think the rest have learned to hop and have left the pond to explore the natural world around them.

Miles and Miles

2008-04-25T09:09:00.017-04:00

My last full day in London served up quintessential English weather. It was dark and pouring when I headed out for the day with the intention of going from museum to museum, spending as little time as possible outdoors or above ground. By the time I reached the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, the rain had tapered to mist, and it had stopped by the time I had finished looking at the Impressionist paintings and the Renoir at the Theatre exhibition.

Wednesday was St George's Day, which apparently England is trying to reclaim from its more recent association with the British National Party and football louts, and there was a festival of English food, with lots of vendors from Borough Market, in Trafalgar Square. I wandered around, watched the tea ladies and some other entertainment, then had a bowl of various types of salad, made from spelt, rye, beets and other veg from The Veggie Table, and a scrumptious piece of banana cake that came from Flour Power City Bakery.

After lunch, I nipped into the National Portrait Gallery to see a small, but fab, photography exhibition by John Londei called Shutting Up Shop. Then, with the weather now warm, sunny and gorgeous, I decided to stay outdoors and really started covering some miles, most on foot with intermittent bus and tube trips. First to Oxford Street -- a place I usually try to avoid -- to hit John Lewis for another pair of knitting needles.

Next, a walk up Marylebone Lane to The Button Queen where I got a couple of interesting buttons, one vintage deco one that was probably too expensive but I think it would look neat on a neckwarmer. From there, I went by bus to St John's Wood to pick up a Beatles floaty pen for rosenbeans, and ran into Esther walking back to Belsize Park.

Not wanting to waste a moment of spring air and lovely late afternoon light, I decided to do the Hampstead walk from www.londonwalks.org. Some of it was in streets and lanes I'd been in before, but most of it was new. I skipped the Admiral's House, but otherwise did the entire walk, all the way up to the flagpole by Jack Straw's Castle, a pub that both Dickens and Marx liked to frequent. The flagpole is on the highest point in London, and I was hoping for splendid views, but there were no vistas to be seen from there.

Walking back to the tube station, I went by the Holly Bush Pub and caught sight of the BT Tower and the London Eye over the rooftops of Hampstead.

Before leaving for home on Thursday, I took a quick walk down some previously-unseen streets of Belsize Park. Everywhere I walked, there were signs of spring bursting forth -- lilacs starting to bloom, magnolia blossoms opening, tulips and pansies in all the front gardens. I saw the site of a painting by Robert Bevan that we'd seen in the Camden Town Group exhibit on Saturday. As soon as I saw the painting, I thought it had to be Belsize Park (the label confirmed it), and I dragged Spooner over to see if he would recognize it (without looking at the label or my saying where it was). He hadn't a clue, even though it's a five minute stroll from his house. I guess I'm getting pretty good at identifying the sights of London, or at least the sights of some of the areas I've gotten to know.

The trip home was long and tiring. I left Spooner's at 10 a.m., and while I was underground for an hour and a half, making my way to Heathrow on the tube, a storm went over and planes weren't allowed to take off until it had passed. This put all flights behind schedule, and ours sat on the tarmac for two hours before they let us move to the runway. It was 8:30 p.m. by the time I got into my car in Framingham, and 10 p.m. on the dot when I pulled into my driveway. My body is now somewhere between London and Eastern time, and I got up at about 4:30 this morning to dump my 617 photos onto the computer and look at them. After I unpack and do some laundry, I'll start putting them on Flickr and will drop a few into my blog posts. I'm sure I won't get far before jet lag takes a grip of me and I crash.

The Sea and the Gloatfest

2008-04-23T03:23:00.017-04:00

On Monday, two of my Flickr mates took me on a great daytrip to Whitstable, a little seaside town in Kent. It's just the sort of place where I could imagine Mr. Peggotty, Ham and Little Emily living in their overturned-boat-turned-house, although I think they lived in Yarmouth. It was really fun -- great company, and nice to be in a place where the scale of things is smaller than in London.

The three of us happily wandered about with our cameras, pointing at the sea, rocks, beach huts, birds, and boats. I took dozens of photos and will add more to my Flickr photostream when I get a chance to sort them out.

Yesterday, I walked through Southwark and went to the Imperial War Museum in the morning (there was a roiling sea of school groups in the museum, so I didn't stay long, but did go through an exhibit about the WWII experience of children in Britain), bought knitting needles at I Knit in Lower Marsh Street, met a Flickr mate and a Ravelry mate for lunch, and looked for Donna Leon books for rosenbeans at the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge (sorry, no luck). After that, a group of six of us did our volunteer work at Southbank Mosaics. I don't have any photos of that, but I will write more about it later (here's one of my mates' photos of me working on one of the Blake mosaics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/76743095@N00/2436035855/).

Then, it was on to the Royal Festival Hall for the Guess Where London meetup, a.k.a. Gloatfest, in the bar. It was so nice to see people I'd met last autumn again, and to meet more of the group.

Today is my last day of exploring, and I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do. Time to check the weather forecast and make a plan.

Greetings from (c)old soggy

2008-04-20T05:09:00.016-04:00

Everyone here talks/complains about the weather constantly, so I may as well, too. It pretty much sucks. Arrival day was sunny, but windy and a bit chilly. Friday was very windy, grey, somewhat damp and COLD. I spent the day walking around Islington, with runny nose and watery eyes most of the time. But it was an enjoyable walk that included Camden Passage Market (not much going on there on Fridays), lunch at the S&M (Sausage and Mash) Cafe, another Banksy, and a nice little gallery of Italian art called the Estorick Collection.

After finishing with Islington, I took the overground to Finchley and Frognal and walked down the Finchley Road to catch the bus to St John's Wood to meet Spooner at his school. As luck would have it, I saw a charity shop and got a warm scarf for 2 pounds. At Spooner's school, we went to a concert that the kids were doing as a fundraiser for a school in Kenya, and then had dinner at the Princess of Wales pub in Primrose Hill.

Grey, cool and damp again on Saturday, but we were able to do most of what I had planned (a graphic art exhibit called AgitPop at the London Print Studio and the Camden Town Group painters at the Tate Britain), with the exception of the stroll around Chelsea -- when we got to the Royal Hospital, the rain that had been threatening all day started for real and the grounds of the hospital had just closed for the day, so we skipped that as well as Cheyne Walk and headed for a caff instead. The day ended with a concert of Welsh choirs at Cadogan Hall in Sloane Square -- some fine voices, but a very odd assortment of numbers, many sung in a language consisting mainly of G and W and totally without vowels, and a lot of stuff about the Risen Lord and Amen, Amen, Amen. The popular numbers were the strangest -- the theme from The Rose, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, When You Walk Through a Storm, and -- weirdest of all for us Yankees -- Elvis' American Trilogy of Dixie, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and All My Trials.

Today, we're heading to Moorgate where we'll begin a walk around Smithfield Market and various dark and mysterious alleys in the City. It's somewhat warmer and not raining yet, but still grey. I guess you just learn to live with it.

End-of-day update: The afternoon turned out to be sunny and nice, so after the City walk we went to Covent Garden Market (ScribeGirl and rosenbeans will be happy to hear that I scored the soap and tea for them), walked through the Embankment Garden, and did a little food shopping in Chinatown.

The Eagle has Landed

2008-04-17T12:56:00.007-04:00

Hey Mates! I arrived in London at 7 a.m. this morning and walked in the door of Spooner's house at 10. A long but uneventful trip. After taking a quick nap and shower, I headed into town to meet one of my Flickr mates at the Royal Academy of Arts to see "From Russia," an amazing exhibition of French and Russian masters, mostly impressionist and post-impressionist, from the Russian collections (i.e. stuff that was in private hands until the Russian Revolution when the state seized it all). Virtually none of this stuff has been out of Russia since, and Putin almost didn't let it out for the exhibition.

Afterwards, we walked up to Newman Street to see the newest Banksy. It's fab.

Then, I came back to Belsize Park and did some shopping -- soap (forgot mine, don't like Spooner's), cello tape (for wrapping prezzies), the essential HobNobs, and some cake for Spooner's birthday. Prezzies are now wrapped and he should be home any minute.

Tomorrow, Islington (weather permitting).

Pssssst. Don't tell Spooner!

2008-04-09T12:00:00.008-04:00

I'm not taking any Zud to London on this trip. I've got other stuff for Spooner.