Yesterday, when I looked at my mobile several times as I was out and about, the screen said either "Not in service" or "Unregistered SIM card." Finally, I took the battery out, put it back in, turned the phone off and on, and then I was restored to the O2 network. I'm taking this as a little metaphor for where I am in my visit. I'm running out of steam and need to recharge a bit before the final sprint. Some of this is fatigue, and some down to the weather, which has turned very cold, blustery, and intermittently wet. Consequently, Thursday was slower-paced, and so there will be less to put this post. That's probably a good thing, as I write these posts first thing each morning, and today I need to be out early to meet Maggie at the Museum of London.
I started the day with another Pilates mat class at the studio up in Queen's Park. It was a beginner class this time, which was a better fit for me than the class I did earlier. This was the first time I'd worked Pilates classes into my vacation plan -- it turned out to be a really good idea, and I'd definitely do it again.
After that, I mooched around Roger's patch a bit, looking for blue plaques to photograph for the Open Plaques archives. I found three in the area that don't yet have photos on the website, so I snapped them. It's more of that anorak thing I was telling you about a few days ago.
A long bus ride on the 414 took me to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where I bought a ticket (half price with my Art Pass) to see Memory Palace, the current special exhibition in the space near the ticket desk and the gift shop. I've seen several interesting things in that space, but I can't say this is one of them. I suppose you'd be more likely to enjoy it if you were about 17 years old and into graphic novels. The premise of the installation is that it is set in London in the future, when all memories (both human and technological) have been erased and banned. The character is in prison, and is reconstructing his or her memories of what London used to be. Ho hum.
Onto the number 360 bus to Pimlico. My next stop was Tate Britain, where I had a choice of special exhibitions -- Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life and Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm. Both were timed entry, and the wait for the Lowry (who I know nothing about, but apparently is "much loved") was nearly an hour, so I opted for the latter (also half price on Art Pass). Good choice -- I really enjoyed it (well, 2/3 of it) and learned quite a lot. It's divided into three sections, for attacks on art in the name of religion, politics and aesthetics. The religion bit had to do with destruction of religious iconography during the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and the puritanical regime of Cromwell. Fragments of stonework from abbeys, paintings from churches, stained glass windows, all showing broken limbs, ax marks and other scars were on display. I knew that the monasteries and their property holdings had been broken up, but I didn't realise the extent to which religious art was literally broken into bits. The next section had to do with the desecration of public art for political motives, for example statues of reviled generals having their heads lobbed off or being blown up by the IRA. One room was about the attacks that the Suffragettes made on paintings in museums in their effort to have the cause of real women rise to the level of concern that people had for artistic works of beauty. You could listen to an interview, done in the 1960s, with a suffragette who had taken a meat cleaver to a painting of Venus. Very interesting stuff. The last part had to do with artists who employed means of destruction in the creation of new works of art, or art that was defaced by those who objected to it on aesthetic grounds. This bit really didn't work very well, so I breezed through it. I also looked at a small exhibition of art work by Sylvia Pankhurst, a major figure in the suffragette movement. Apparently I wasn't alone in not knowing she was an artist. Prior to this exhibition, none of her work had been displayed in any museum in Britain. She did lovely paintings of women at work in mills, as well as the designs for all the suffragette banners, pamphlets, badges and even a tea set.
After a sit-down to rest my weary back, I walked up Horseferry Road to the Old Monks Exchange pub, where I had a great meet-up with some mates from Guess Where London. Malcolm brought with him a sample of necklaces made from bits of clay pipe found on the foreshore by our friend Jane. I'd been wanting to buy one from her for ages, but we hadn't managed to work it out before this, and she is away at the moment so Malcolm acted as her agent for the transaction. After, Simon kindly helped me find my bus stop in the chaos of construction around Victoria Station, and I was back at the flat and in bed by 11 pm.
Stats:
£10 to top up Oyster card
£3 Memory Palace at V&A (half price on Art Pass)
£6.50 Art Under Attack (half price on Art Pass)
£1.95 banana cake at Tate Britain cafe
£6.50 ale and carrot soup at the Old Monks Exchange
£30 clay pipe necklace
14,835 steps (5.85 miles)
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
The Curse of Milton Keynes
Roger told me it was a bad idea to go to Milton Keynes. He had a horrid experience dealing with a bureaucratic office there a few years back, and the mere mention of the place makes him twitch and break out in a cold sweat. But I'd been wanting to go to nearby Bletchley Park for years, and it was free entry on my Art Pass (£15 value), so several weeks ago I booked my cheap advance return train ticket.
The plan was to meet Judy at at Euston Station, then meet up with David and his wife Janey at Bletchley Park. All was going according to plan until, when we were half way through our journey, Judy realized that she had a ticket to the Bletchley station, while mine was to Milton Keynes Central. I was pretty sure I was right, having seen the map on the website and written down the directions to Bletchley Park from the station. So, we reckoned that Judy could get off at Bletchley, buy a ticket to Milton Keynes Central, and join me at the station there. I arrived at MKC and waited on the platform for the next train to arrive. Twenty minutes or so passed, when my phone rang and I saw it was David. He told me that he'd spoken to Judy, that I was the one who was confused, and that I just needed to buy a ticket back to Bletchley. So, up to the ticket counter I went, showed my return ticket to the agent, and explained the mess. He said I needed to buy a return ticket for Bletchley, which meant I'd have to come back to Milton Keynes to catch the train back to London. This little mistake cost me an additional £3.80, but the stations are only four minutes apart, so it wasn't a complete disaster. Judy was having tea at the Bletchley station cafe when I arrived about 10 minutes after David's call. Whew!
Bletchley Park is where thousands of people worked in secret during WWII, breaking the German Enigma machine codes. Modern computing was pretty much invented here -- a brilliant man named Alan Turing designed a huge machine that ran through millions of patterns to determine what the Enigma settings for each day would be, enabling the code breakers to decipher German messages. I'd seen things about Bletchley Park and the Enigma machines in various television shows, but this is the first I grasped just what the process was of intercepting and transcribing the coded messages, bringing them to Bletchley Park by motorcycle, cracking the machine setting for the day, and then decoding the messages by putting them back through Enigma machines so that they came out in German, then translating them into English and getting the information to the military personnel who needed them.
We took a tour with a very informative guide, but because there was filming going on in the mansion, our tour was primarily on the grounds. When I saw all the media trucks, I thought maybe they were filming another episode of The Bletchley Circle, a great mystery series about women who had worked at Bletchley Park during the war, who get together to solve patterns in serial crimes in the post-war years. Turns out it was actually a movie, The Imitation Game. We say lots of extras milling around, men in uniform and women in 40s dresses, going back and forth from the craft service vans to the mansion. (When I got back to the flat, I looked up the movie on IMDB -- it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightly. Judy and I had been joking about not being able to recognize any celebs if we had seen them, but I'm pretty sure we would have known those two if they'd crossed out path.)
After the tour, we looked around the museum for a bit, had tea, and headed back to the station -- Judy, David and Janey on one platform for the London train, and me on another for Milton Keynes.
When I got back to Euston, I dashed across the street to look at the exhibition in the Crypt Gallery at St Pancras Parish Church. I always like stopping in there to see what's on. This time it was paintings and some three-dimensional, site-specific pieces by Julie Caves, an American who has been working in London for about 10 years.
Big thanks to my friends for a lovely day out, and especially to David for treating us to lunch and tea, and for sorting out my transport snafu. Our Bletchley Park tickets are good for a year, and I just may need go back next year, when tons of renovations will be complete and new areas opened up. But if I do return, I'll definitely not go to Milton Keynes!
Stats:
£10 for original train tickets
£3.80 for additional train ticket
£2.50 for book from the Wellcome Collection bookshop
£1.50 cookie (breakfast) at the Wellcome Collection
14,150 steps (5.35 miles)
The plan was to meet Judy at at Euston Station, then meet up with David and his wife Janey at Bletchley Park. All was going according to plan until, when we were half way through our journey, Judy realized that she had a ticket to the Bletchley station, while mine was to Milton Keynes Central. I was pretty sure I was right, having seen the map on the website and written down the directions to Bletchley Park from the station. So, we reckoned that Judy could get off at Bletchley, buy a ticket to Milton Keynes Central, and join me at the station there. I arrived at MKC and waited on the platform for the next train to arrive. Twenty minutes or so passed, when my phone rang and I saw it was David. He told me that he'd spoken to Judy, that I was the one who was confused, and that I just needed to buy a ticket back to Bletchley. So, up to the ticket counter I went, showed my return ticket to the agent, and explained the mess. He said I needed to buy a return ticket for Bletchley, which meant I'd have to come back to Milton Keynes to catch the train back to London. This little mistake cost me an additional £3.80, but the stations are only four minutes apart, so it wasn't a complete disaster. Judy was having tea at the Bletchley station cafe when I arrived about 10 minutes after David's call. Whew!
Bletchley Park is where thousands of people worked in secret during WWII, breaking the German Enigma machine codes. Modern computing was pretty much invented here -- a brilliant man named Alan Turing designed a huge machine that ran through millions of patterns to determine what the Enigma settings for each day would be, enabling the code breakers to decipher German messages. I'd seen things about Bletchley Park and the Enigma machines in various television shows, but this is the first I grasped just what the process was of intercepting and transcribing the coded messages, bringing them to Bletchley Park by motorcycle, cracking the machine setting for the day, and then decoding the messages by putting them back through Enigma machines so that they came out in German, then translating them into English and getting the information to the military personnel who needed them.
We took a tour with a very informative guide, but because there was filming going on in the mansion, our tour was primarily on the grounds. When I saw all the media trucks, I thought maybe they were filming another episode of The Bletchley Circle, a great mystery series about women who had worked at Bletchley Park during the war, who get together to solve patterns in serial crimes in the post-war years. Turns out it was actually a movie, The Imitation Game. We say lots of extras milling around, men in uniform and women in 40s dresses, going back and forth from the craft service vans to the mansion. (When I got back to the flat, I looked up the movie on IMDB -- it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightly. Judy and I had been joking about not being able to recognize any celebs if we had seen them, but I'm pretty sure we would have known those two if they'd crossed out path.)
After the tour, we looked around the museum for a bit, had tea, and headed back to the station -- Judy, David and Janey on one platform for the London train, and me on another for Milton Keynes.
When I got back to Euston, I dashed across the street to look at the exhibition in the Crypt Gallery at St Pancras Parish Church. I always like stopping in there to see what's on. This time it was paintings and some three-dimensional, site-specific pieces by Julie Caves, an American who has been working in London for about 10 years.
Big thanks to my friends for a lovely day out, and especially to David for treating us to lunch and tea, and for sorting out my transport snafu. Our Bletchley Park tickets are good for a year, and I just may need go back next year, when tons of renovations will be complete and new areas opened up. But if I do return, I'll definitely not go to Milton Keynes!
Stats:
£10 for original train tickets
£3.80 for additional train ticket
£2.50 for book from the Wellcome Collection bookshop
£1.50 cookie (breakfast) at the Wellcome Collection
14,150 steps (5.35 miles)
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Back to the East End
Roger and I were going to hire a car and go to Chichester on Tuesday, planning to see street art, the cathedral, a contemporary art gallery, and a sculpture park. We decided it was just too much, so opted for a day of doing separate things. He had lots of errands to do in town, and I wanted to roam around the East End on a weekday, rather than at the weekend when it's so crowded you can hardly walk on the pavement or see the streetart.
I set out at noon (after having done a Pilates class in Queens Park in the morning), taking the Overground to Euston and then the tube to Old Street. When I did this ramble last year, it was washed out by showers. This year's weather was very cooperative -- some sun, some clouds, but warm and not a drop falling from the sky.
I meandered around, first zig zagging east and south, then working my way back north. Sometimes I knew where I was, and other times I found myself in streets that were new to me. One of those new turns was into Quaker Street, in a block that was nondescript with some industrial warehouses and newer housing blocks. Then I saw something interesting -- the sign for Crescent Trading fabric merchants. Owned by Philip Pittack and Martin White, this is the last remaining fabric warehouse in Spitalfields. Several months ago, I had heard Philip and Martin doing a long interview on the Robert Elms show on BBC London radio, talking about the fire that nearly destroyed their business and how they came back from it. A dapper gent (turns out it was Martin), who was waiting on another customer, greeted me as I walked in and told me to have a look around. The warehouse is full of bolts of fabric, mostly fine English wools and silks, piled on shelves to the ceiling. When he finished with his customer, he came over to where I was feeling some lovely camel colored wool cloth. "That's cashmere," he said. "Oh, I know," I replied. He pulled it down and put it on the cutting table. "This is the rarest cloth in the world," he told me. Woven from South American wool in an English mill that is no longer in operation, this is the last bit of this fabric anywhere. Martin said that it sold in Italy for €1500 a meter. He sells it for £200 a meter. We chatted a bit more -- I told him that I'd heard their interview on the radio and thanked him for the opportunity to meet him -- and then pushed on. (Do click on the links above and read the great articles about Crescent Trading in the Spitalfields Life blog.)
By the time I reached Spitalfields Market, I was hungry and needed a sit-down. I looked for the little stall where I got some fantastic carrot curry soup last year, but it had been replaced by another vendor. So instead, I had a spinach-sweet potato-goat cheese pie from Square Pie. After stopping in at the Bishopsgate Institute to use their very nice loo (loyal readers will know that I keep a mental inventory of loos and plan my walks to reach one every few hours), I wandered a bit further south and then headed up Brick Lane. With little jogs right and left into Seven Stars Yard, Princelet, Hanbury, Buxton, Grimsby, Bacon, Chance, and Ebor, I came to the Boundary Estate, my northernmost destination. In Arnold Circus, I had another sit-down and pictured the area when it was the Old Nichol, the worst slum in London. Last year I read A Child of the Jago, a nineteenth century novel set in the Old Nichol, and I'm now reading a non-fiction book, The Blackest Streets, about the slum and how it was raised to build the Boundary Estate.
Then, back on the tube and the Overground to Queens Park.
Stats:
£25 for three Pilates mat classes
£3.50 for lunch
21,829 steps (8.44 miles)
I set out at noon (after having done a Pilates class in Queens Park in the morning), taking the Overground to Euston and then the tube to Old Street. When I did this ramble last year, it was washed out by showers. This year's weather was very cooperative -- some sun, some clouds, but warm and not a drop falling from the sky.
I meandered around, first zig zagging east and south, then working my way back north. Sometimes I knew where I was, and other times I found myself in streets that were new to me. One of those new turns was into Quaker Street, in a block that was nondescript with some industrial warehouses and newer housing blocks. Then I saw something interesting -- the sign for Crescent Trading fabric merchants. Owned by Philip Pittack and Martin White, this is the last remaining fabric warehouse in Spitalfields. Several months ago, I had heard Philip and Martin doing a long interview on the Robert Elms show on BBC London radio, talking about the fire that nearly destroyed their business and how they came back from it. A dapper gent (turns out it was Martin), who was waiting on another customer, greeted me as I walked in and told me to have a look around. The warehouse is full of bolts of fabric, mostly fine English wools and silks, piled on shelves to the ceiling. When he finished with his customer, he came over to where I was feeling some lovely camel colored wool cloth. "That's cashmere," he said. "Oh, I know," I replied. He pulled it down and put it on the cutting table. "This is the rarest cloth in the world," he told me. Woven from South American wool in an English mill that is no longer in operation, this is the last bit of this fabric anywhere. Martin said that it sold in Italy for €1500 a meter. He sells it for £200 a meter. We chatted a bit more -- I told him that I'd heard their interview on the radio and thanked him for the opportunity to meet him -- and then pushed on. (Do click on the links above and read the great articles about Crescent Trading in the Spitalfields Life blog.)
By the time I reached Spitalfields Market, I was hungry and needed a sit-down. I looked for the little stall where I got some fantastic carrot curry soup last year, but it had been replaced by another vendor. So instead, I had a spinach-sweet potato-goat cheese pie from Square Pie. After stopping in at the Bishopsgate Institute to use their very nice loo (loyal readers will know that I keep a mental inventory of loos and plan my walks to reach one every few hours), I wandered a bit further south and then headed up Brick Lane. With little jogs right and left into Seven Stars Yard, Princelet, Hanbury, Buxton, Grimsby, Bacon, Chance, and Ebor, I came to the Boundary Estate, my northernmost destination. In Arnold Circus, I had another sit-down and pictured the area when it was the Old Nichol, the worst slum in London. Last year I read A Child of the Jago, a nineteenth century novel set in the Old Nichol, and I'm now reading a non-fiction book, The Blackest Streets, about the slum and how it was raised to build the Boundary Estate.
Then, back on the tube and the Overground to Queens Park.
Stats:
£25 for three Pilates mat classes
£3.50 for lunch
21,829 steps (8.44 miles)
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Way Out West
Monday saw us venturing further west than I'd ever gone, this time to Richmond (one stop beyond Kew, where I had been). The plan for the day was to follow a walk from one of Andrew Duncan's books. I'm happy to report that we did the entire walk as written, without getting lost or me losing the photocopy of the route.
Richmond is a lovely, very old place. I think I read that it is the most Tory district in London -- I believe it, given the pricey homes with river views that we passed. Various celebs live here, like Pete Townsend and Mick Jagger. The center of Richmond has an extremely busy commercial area, with all the High Street shops you'd expect, but you can quickly nip under an arch and down a passage (as we did) and leave the 21st century behind.
Soon we were at Richmond Green, lined with Georgian shops and houses, as well as remaining bits of a Tudor palace. From there, we turned down to the river and walked on the Thames Path for a little bit till we reached Richmond Bridge. We climbed a set of steps to the street level, and kept walking uphill from there -- past 19th century hotels (Richmond was a popular vacation spot), and stopping at the Terrace Gardens where we had great views up the river to the west and north. But the best views were yet to come. Upward we climbed, into Richmond Park and to King Henry's Mound. From there, you can see Windsor Castle to the west and, through a well-maintained cutting through the trees, the dome of St Paul's Cathedral to the east. It was possible to faintly make these landmarks out with the naked eye, but the brass telescope really helped.
The walk was all downhill from there, but not the experience or the weather, which kept getting warmer and sunnier as the day progressed. We walked through the Petersham Meadow and the tiny village of Petersham, past the Richmond Polo Club, until we reached the wall of Ham House. Following the wall, and nipping down Cut Throat Alley, we walked around the vast property until we got to the entrance just off the Thames Path.
Using my Art Pass, my entry to Ham House was free (£11 value). The house is totally amazing, like nothing we have in the States. The estate dates from Tudor times, with the original house built in 1610. It has been in the same family for its entire existence, with various generations undertaking restorations and redecorations, until 1948 when it passed to the National Trust. The owners kept detailed inventories and they seem to have kept everything, so what you see is largely what the house would have looked like to visitors in the 17th or 18th centuries. The house is full of silk tapestries, incredible furniture, Chinese ceramics, and old paintings. It even has one of the first bathrooms in England, installed in 1675.
From Ham House, we continued back to Richmond along the Thames Path, along the gardens that we'd seen from the terrace above. Then, back on the train, quick meal at the flat, and the bus up to Kilburn to see a play called Handbagged at the Tricycle Theatre. It's all about the relationship between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, and was really good fun. Roger and I have a tradition of seeing a bad play when I'm in London -- we broke tradition with this one.
I'm writing this on Tuesday morning. We had originally planned to spend the day in Chichester, seeing street art, the cathedral and a contemporary art galley. We've bagged that plan and gone our separate ways. I've already been up to Queens Park to take a Pilates mat class (wicked hard, but it felt good), and will soon be out the door to roam around Spitalfields and Shoreditch for the afternoon.
Stats:
£20 to top up Oyster again
£1 coconut water (we packed a lunch; I had my Heidi pie for dinner)
23,441 steps (8.87 miles)
Richmond is a lovely, very old place. I think I read that it is the most Tory district in London -- I believe it, given the pricey homes with river views that we passed. Various celebs live here, like Pete Townsend and Mick Jagger. The center of Richmond has an extremely busy commercial area, with all the High Street shops you'd expect, but you can quickly nip under an arch and down a passage (as we did) and leave the 21st century behind.
Soon we were at Richmond Green, lined with Georgian shops and houses, as well as remaining bits of a Tudor palace. From there, we turned down to the river and walked on the Thames Path for a little bit till we reached Richmond Bridge. We climbed a set of steps to the street level, and kept walking uphill from there -- past 19th century hotels (Richmond was a popular vacation spot), and stopping at the Terrace Gardens where we had great views up the river to the west and north. But the best views were yet to come. Upward we climbed, into Richmond Park and to King Henry's Mound. From there, you can see Windsor Castle to the west and, through a well-maintained cutting through the trees, the dome of St Paul's Cathedral to the east. It was possible to faintly make these landmarks out with the naked eye, but the brass telescope really helped.
The walk was all downhill from there, but not the experience or the weather, which kept getting warmer and sunnier as the day progressed. We walked through the Petersham Meadow and the tiny village of Petersham, past the Richmond Polo Club, until we reached the wall of Ham House. Following the wall, and nipping down Cut Throat Alley, we walked around the vast property until we got to the entrance just off the Thames Path.
Using my Art Pass, my entry to Ham House was free (£11 value). The house is totally amazing, like nothing we have in the States. The estate dates from Tudor times, with the original house built in 1610. It has been in the same family for its entire existence, with various generations undertaking restorations and redecorations, until 1948 when it passed to the National Trust. The owners kept detailed inventories and they seem to have kept everything, so what you see is largely what the house would have looked like to visitors in the 17th or 18th centuries. The house is full of silk tapestries, incredible furniture, Chinese ceramics, and old paintings. It even has one of the first bathrooms in England, installed in 1675.
From Ham House, we continued back to Richmond along the Thames Path, along the gardens that we'd seen from the terrace above. Then, back on the train, quick meal at the flat, and the bus up to Kilburn to see a play called Handbagged at the Tricycle Theatre. It's all about the relationship between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, and was really good fun. Roger and I have a tradition of seeing a bad play when I'm in London -- we broke tradition with this one.
I'm writing this on Tuesday morning. We had originally planned to spend the day in Chichester, seeing street art, the cathedral and a contemporary art galley. We've bagged that plan and gone our separate ways. I've already been up to Queens Park to take a Pilates mat class (wicked hard, but it felt good), and will soon be out the door to roam around Spitalfields and Shoreditch for the afternoon.
Stats:
£20 to top up Oyster again
£1 coconut water (we packed a lunch; I had my Heidi pie for dinner)
23,441 steps (8.87 miles)
Monday, October 07, 2013
The Far East
Sunday's adventures took us further east than I'd ever been on the north side of the river. We did a ton of walking, and used many modes of transport -- tube, bus, dangle tram and river bus -- as we made our way from Mile End, though Bow, to Silvertown, across the Thames to Greenwich and back up the river to Bankside.
Our first stop was Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Loyal readers will remember that I'm trying to visit all of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London. This was number five for me. I'm not sure, but it might be the most overgrown and neglected of the seven, and I'm pretty sure its occupants were of more modest means than those who were put to rest in Highgate or Brompton. There are no grand tombs or mausoleums; gravestones are falling over and jumbled up in the undergrowth. The cemetery is now a nature park, so I guess this unkempt appearance is all part of establishing natural habitat for critters and plants. I remembered the lesson Maggie taught me about watching out for stinging nettle in graveyards, but couldn't remember what it looks like, so I just made sure not to touch anything green.
We then trekked eastward, through a couple of housing estates, to reach Bromley-by-Bow station, where we walked through the subway under the flyover, then made a brief stop at Tesco on the way to Three Mills Island. The island in the Lea River has been the site of mills dating back to mediaeval times, and is noted in the Domesday Book. We took a fab tour of the Housemill, a tidal mill that was built in 1776 (parts of it have since been re-built after a fire in the 19th century and bomb damage in the Blitz). Or guide Tony, a local from Bow, was incredibly knowledgable and entertaining, taking us up and down steep, narrow stairways to see all the workings of the mill. He told us that the site is frequently used as a movie set, most recently for a film called London Fields, from a Martin Amis book, starring Billy Bob Thornton, which will be out in 2014.
The journey to our next destination -- Royal Victoria -- would have been easier had it not been a Sunday and the Underground in a mess. We walked around a bit looking for a bus that would get us to the right branch of the DLR so we could get to Royal Victoria. One old woman who Roger asked kept insisting that we take a bus that would have gone through the Blackwall Tunnel to Greenwich. We ignored her and walked to a different stop and got a bus to Canning Town, then walked to the dangle tram that we could see in the distance. The Emirates Air Line cable car was built for the Olympics, to move people from venues at the ExCeL Centre over to the O2. It's a bit of a folly, but it's way cheaper than the London Eye, and on a clear day like we had you get some lovely views up and down the river.
The dangle dumped us out next to the O2, just by North Greenwich Pier. I'd always wanted to take on river bus on the Thames, so this was the perfect opportunity. We landed at Bankside, right in front of the Globe Theatre. Roger dashed in to be a groundling for a performance of MacBeth, and I wandered up the Southbank to the Hungerford Bridge (having forgotten what a long way that is), watched the sunset, found the new mural by Stik that I'd wanted to see, walked across the Jubilee Bridge to Embankment Station and caught the tube back to Queen's Park.
Oh, I forgot -- we started the day with a walk up to the Queen's Park Farmers' Market, in the yard of a local primary school, which has to be one of the nicest markets I've ever been to. There was a jumble sale going on in the school hall, and Roger couldn't resist making a purchase.
Stats:
£10 to top up Oyster (used for dangle and river bus)
£2 for snacks
£3 Housemill tour
24,359 steps (9.22 miles)
Our first stop was Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Loyal readers will remember that I'm trying to visit all of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London. This was number five for me. I'm not sure, but it might be the most overgrown and neglected of the seven, and I'm pretty sure its occupants were of more modest means than those who were put to rest in Highgate or Brompton. There are no grand tombs or mausoleums; gravestones are falling over and jumbled up in the undergrowth. The cemetery is now a nature park, so I guess this unkempt appearance is all part of establishing natural habitat for critters and plants. I remembered the lesson Maggie taught me about watching out for stinging nettle in graveyards, but couldn't remember what it looks like, so I just made sure not to touch anything green.
We then trekked eastward, through a couple of housing estates, to reach Bromley-by-Bow station, where we walked through the subway under the flyover, then made a brief stop at Tesco on the way to Three Mills Island. The island in the Lea River has been the site of mills dating back to mediaeval times, and is noted in the Domesday Book. We took a fab tour of the Housemill, a tidal mill that was built in 1776 (parts of it have since been re-built after a fire in the 19th century and bomb damage in the Blitz). Or guide Tony, a local from Bow, was incredibly knowledgable and entertaining, taking us up and down steep, narrow stairways to see all the workings of the mill. He told us that the site is frequently used as a movie set, most recently for a film called London Fields, from a Martin Amis book, starring Billy Bob Thornton, which will be out in 2014.
The journey to our next destination -- Royal Victoria -- would have been easier had it not been a Sunday and the Underground in a mess. We walked around a bit looking for a bus that would get us to the right branch of the DLR so we could get to Royal Victoria. One old woman who Roger asked kept insisting that we take a bus that would have gone through the Blackwall Tunnel to Greenwich. We ignored her and walked to a different stop and got a bus to Canning Town, then walked to the dangle tram that we could see in the distance. The Emirates Air Line cable car was built for the Olympics, to move people from venues at the ExCeL Centre over to the O2. It's a bit of a folly, but it's way cheaper than the London Eye, and on a clear day like we had you get some lovely views up and down the river.
The dangle dumped us out next to the O2, just by North Greenwich Pier. I'd always wanted to take on river bus on the Thames, so this was the perfect opportunity. We landed at Bankside, right in front of the Globe Theatre. Roger dashed in to be a groundling for a performance of MacBeth, and I wandered up the Southbank to the Hungerford Bridge (having forgotten what a long way that is), watched the sunset, found the new mural by Stik that I'd wanted to see, walked across the Jubilee Bridge to Embankment Station and caught the tube back to Queen's Park.
Oh, I forgot -- we started the day with a walk up to the Queen's Park Farmers' Market, in the yard of a local primary school, which has to be one of the nicest markets I've ever been to. There was a jumble sale going on in the school hall, and Roger couldn't resist making a purchase.
Stats:
£10 to top up Oyster (used for dangle and river bus)
£2 for snacks
£3 Housemill tour
24,359 steps (9.22 miles)
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Where the Toffs Live
My regular readers will know that I almost never spend time in posh areas of London unless there's some history to be learned or art to see. In my ten previous visits, I had never set foot in Belgravia, though I'd seen it on tv (the Bellamy family of Upstairs, Downstairs lived at 165 Eaton Place). So, what better way to explore Belgravia's grand Georgian squares and pretty little mewses than with a City of Westminster guide. My friend Jenny has recently qualified as a Westminster guide, and she offered to take me on a personalised walking tour, one that she's working up for the punters.
We met up in Grosvenor Gardens, across the street from Victoria Station, and then quickly left the traffic and chaos around the station for the serene residential squares of Belgravia. Jenny pointed out that many of the toffs who live here go off to their country homes at the weekend, which explains why we saw very few people about. Mercs and Range Rovers were parked up and down the streets, and not a Ford Escort or Vauxhall in sight. Grosvenor is a name that came up many times on our walk, for Belgravia was originally (and much still is) the Grosvenor Estate, owned by the Duke of Westminster, who is obscenely rich. On our walk, we passed the former home of Margaret Thatcher (under renovation at the moment), dozens of blue plaques denoting homes of the great and the good (and the wealthy), and the scene of an unsolved murder. We also ducked down little mewses, where the stables for the homes had been. The grooms and other servants lived in the mewses, in what are now darling (and expensive) little houses and flats. I'm not going to go into all that I learned on my walk -- if you want to find out more about the area, you'll just have to book a place on one of Jenny's walks.
The tour ended at The Grenadier, one of the many little pubs that are tucked away in the mewses. It's reputed to be one of the most haunted pubs of London, though I have no first-hand ghost sighting to confirm that. We had a great pub lunch there (carrot soup for me and veggie burger for Jenny), which was very reasonably priced, especially with the £5 coupon I'd printed from the website.
After lunch, we went our separate ways. I headed to Sloane Square; my destination was the Saatchi Gallery. In front of the gallery, there was a Saturday farmers' market going on in Duke of York Square -- I was thrilled to find the Pieminister there. I bought myself a Heidi pie (veg and goat cheese) to take home for later in the week. It's my all-time fave pie, and I like to eat at least one per London visit.
You might remember that last year, Maggie and I stopped into the Saatchi Gallery after our long Fulham to Chelsea walk. The only thing we saw then was Richard Wilson's sump oil installation. This visit, I had ample time to roam the galleries from top to bottom. The main exhibition currently on is Paper -- various two- and three-dimensional works made on or with paper, by young British artists. Galleries are great because they're free, they generally show new -- and often edgy -- work, and they usually let you take photographs. I took scads of snaps of people as they photographed the art with their phones and iPads. I think I was channeling Tony Ray-Jones a bit.
On my way back Spooner's flat, I got off the bus at Westbourne Park station so that I could take a little stroll through Meanwhile Gardens and check on my yarn bombs. I didn't bring any new knitted pieces with me this year, but I had left small pieces in the gardens on two previous visits. My 2011 pieces are still there, both looking faded and one starting to unravel. Of my bird and three flowers from 2012, only two flowers remain, droopy and overgrown with vines. It's like visiting old friends, but I'm sad to see that they've gone downhill since we were last together. I'll make a concerted effort to bring some bright, new woolly works on my next trip over.
Stats:
30p for the loo at Victoria Station
30p for the loo at Victoria Station
£10 for soup and ale at the Grenadier
£3.95 for Heidi pie (up from £3.50 last year)
17,002 steps (6.44 miles)
£3.95 for Heidi pie (up from £3.50 last year)
17,002 steps (6.44 miles)
Saturday, October 05, 2013
A Bad Palace and Good Art
I did not catch sight of Kate and Royal Baby Boy George yesterday, and I now know why it's perfectly fine to have been to London umpteen times and never have seen Kensington Palace. I wish I hadn't, but at least I got in free.
It's really a theme park, and not a very good one. The idea is that, as you move from room to room, things are revealed to you -- through objects, whispering voices, and snippets of text stencilled on walls and furniture -- about the royal occupants. The first room, telling us about Victoria's coronation, had bits of writing by Victoria's privy council painted on a large table. When I saw "love" woven in a repeating pattern all over the carpet, I just should have turned back. I hate that sort of shit. But I pressed on, moving quickly through the rooms and not lingering to hear any of the whispers. The fashion part was ok -- several dresses worn by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, and Diana -- but the place as a whole was a waste of time.
Everything improved considerably after I left the palace via the sunken garden (which was lovely). I quickly found the set of parish boundary markers I was looking for, just north of the Round Pond. Some anorak types are trainspotters; I'm always on the lookout for parish boundary markers. This pair was mentioned by J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan, but he took literary license and turned them into headstones of dead infants who were buried in Kensington Gardens. In fact, they mark the boundary between St Margaret's Westminster and Paddington Parish. I took several snaps for the Parish Boundary Markers photo group (surprisingly, they hadn't been added to the group previously).
Next stop was the Serpentine Pavilion, where I had a much-needed sitdown and my first food since landing. The cloud of steel, designed by Sou Fujimoto, is really cool -- it rises up into the trees and sky (not down into the ground as last year's pavilion), and provides good ops for climbing (not me -- I hate heights) and photos. This year's caterer is Fortnum & Mason. The had a very nice, though rather pricey, potato leek soup on offer.
I took a look round at the exhibition in the gallery (arte povera works by Marisa Merz), then walked across the bridge to the former gun powder magazine that's now the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. I'm not too keen on the Zaha Hadid extension, but the exhibition there was fab -- an installation of works of unfired clay, ranging in scale from minute to elephantine, by Adrian Villar Rojas.
My next, and final, stop was at the Science Museum to see Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr. This has to be one of the best photography exhibitions I've seen in years (in addition to the marvellous Everything is Moving exhibition that I saw last year at the Barbican). There are scads of black and white photos, taken in the late 1960s to early 1970s, of English people being uniquely English -- at the seaside, the derby, dog shows, church fetes, etc. The article in the Guardian describes it better than I can.
Stats:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£4.50 Soup at the Serpentine Pavilion
£4 Only in England exhibition
17,267 steps (6.54 miles)
It's really a theme park, and not a very good one. The idea is that, as you move from room to room, things are revealed to you -- through objects, whispering voices, and snippets of text stencilled on walls and furniture -- about the royal occupants. The first room, telling us about Victoria's coronation, had bits of writing by Victoria's privy council painted on a large table. When I saw "love" woven in a repeating pattern all over the carpet, I just should have turned back. I hate that sort of shit. But I pressed on, moving quickly through the rooms and not lingering to hear any of the whispers. The fashion part was ok -- several dresses worn by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, and Diana -- but the place as a whole was a waste of time.
Everything improved considerably after I left the palace via the sunken garden (which was lovely). I quickly found the set of parish boundary markers I was looking for, just north of the Round Pond. Some anorak types are trainspotters; I'm always on the lookout for parish boundary markers. This pair was mentioned by J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan, but he took literary license and turned them into headstones of dead infants who were buried in Kensington Gardens. In fact, they mark the boundary between St Margaret's Westminster and Paddington Parish. I took several snaps for the Parish Boundary Markers photo group (surprisingly, they hadn't been added to the group previously).
Next stop was the Serpentine Pavilion, where I had a much-needed sitdown and my first food since landing. The cloud of steel, designed by Sou Fujimoto, is really cool -- it rises up into the trees and sky (not down into the ground as last year's pavilion), and provides good ops for climbing (not me -- I hate heights) and photos. This year's caterer is Fortnum & Mason. The had a very nice, though rather pricey, potato leek soup on offer.
I took a look round at the exhibition in the gallery (arte povera works by Marisa Merz), then walked across the bridge to the former gun powder magazine that's now the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. I'm not too keen on the Zaha Hadid extension, but the exhibition there was fab -- an installation of works of unfired clay, ranging in scale from minute to elephantine, by Adrian Villar Rojas.
My next, and final, stop was at the Science Museum to see Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr. This has to be one of the best photography exhibitions I've seen in years (in addition to the marvellous Everything is Moving exhibition that I saw last year at the Barbican). There are scads of black and white photos, taken in the late 1960s to early 1970s, of English people being uniquely English -- at the seaside, the derby, dog shows, church fetes, etc. The article in the Guardian describes it better than I can.
Stats:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£4.50 Soup at the Serpentine Pavilion
£4 Only in England exhibition
17,267 steps (6.54 miles)
Friday, October 04, 2013
Lessons Learned (or Forgotten)
I've been a very bad blogger this past year. Here I am, back in London where I left you all a year ago. I'm about to set off on my first day of adventures, but I thought first I'd tell you a bit about what I've learned about traveling to Blighty.
Yesterday's stats:
$2.40 toll on the Mass Pike
$22.00 Logan Express bus ticket
$1.38 packet of crisps at the airport
3569 steps (1.35 miles)
- Don't try to get to or from Heathrow on a Sunday. Planned engineering makes a mess of the transport system. I've ignored that lesson on this trip, as I'll be flying home on a Sunday. Hope it goes better than last time.
- Make one large withdrawal of cash from the ATM/cash point at Heathrow, rather than withdrawing £40 every few days. Each transaction racks up bank fees, so the fewer transactions the better.
- It's very easy to book tickets online from the US for timed entry to exhibitions, train tickets, etc. I'm even learning that it's not scary to pick up the phone and call the UK when I have a question about something.
- Bring a pharmacopoeia of stuff from home. Medicines and remedies are different in the UK. I once ran around to four different chemists looking for saline nasal spray to no avail. Now I come prepared for all aches and ailments.
- I'm not sure if buying an Art Pass is a good idea. I got one this year for the first time, and didn't do the math quite right when I added things up and thought it would be a great deal. So, I'll be running around on this trip from museum to museum to try to get my money's worth. Failing that, I'll just have to come back before August 31, 2014 when it expires.
Yesterday's stats:
$2.40 toll on the Mass Pike
$22.00 Logan Express bus ticket
$1.38 packet of crisps at the airport
3569 steps (1.35 miles)
Monday, October 29, 2012
Yarnbombing, sewage, and the arm of a chair
Sorry to have taken so long to write my post about my final day in London. I was on the move most of the day, and when we got back to the flat it was packing, dinner, and Downton Abbey. So, here's the belated recap.
Sunday dawned pretty grey and gloomy, with rain threatening, so I scurried down to Meanwhile Gardens for a bit of yarnbombing while Roger was up at the Queen's Park Farmers' Market. I left 3 flowers and a wee red bird on the railings in the wildlife garden:
I'm afraid that the rain that came later in the day probably wilted the flowers a bit, but I hope the staff found them on Monday morning and smiled.
The rest of Sunday was taken up with our visit to Crossness Pumping Station, a Victorian sewage pumping station designed by Joseph Bazalgette and known as the "Cathedral on the Marsh." I'd been wanting to see it for ages, but it's only open to visitors about half a dozen Sundays a year. I'd seen my Flickr friends' photos of the interior, and read about it in The Great Stink, a not-so-great novel about the sewers of London and the creatures who inhabited them in the mid-1800s. On Crossness open days, volunteers -- all dressed in waistcoats and bowler hats -- steam up the working boiler, called the "Prince Consort" (each of the four engines is named after a royal), and tell people about the history and technology. From 1865, when Crossness was opened by the Prince of Wales, until the 1950s when it was replaced by a new pumping station, the four beam engines pumped sewage from the lowest level of the gravity-fed sewer system up to a reservoir, from which it was dumped into the Thames when the tide was going out. This system, which utilized 450 miles of sewers, brought the sewage eastward, out of central London where it had previously flowed directly into the Thames and resulted in very smelly and unhygienic conditions in the city. It all ended up in the same place after the sewers were built, just further downstream and closer to the sea.
The building is a Grade I masterpiece, with lovely detailed brickwork on the outside and the most elaborate wrought iron inside. Since the 1980s, when volunteers began the restoration work, they've not only restored the Prince Consort, but have painted much of the ironwork in a fantastic color scheme of green, red, white, purple, orange and gold. Donning hard hats, we roamed around with hundreds of other visitors, seeing three floors, watching the beam engine and fly wheel put through their paces, and chatted with the volunteers. (FYI, it only smells of sewage outside, if the wind is in the right direction. Not smelly at all inside the pumping station.)
Cold, rainy, miserable weather greeted us when we exited the building and waited about half an hour for the shuttle bus back to the Abbey Wood station for the train ride back into London. While Roger made our dinner, I did my packing. You're probably all wondering what goodies I would be bringing back from the UK -- prezzies for all my friends? packets of Hobnobs and Ginger Nuts? a bottle of excellent single malt Scotch? None of these, I'm afraid. Stuffed into my suitcase were a very full plastic envelope with all the paper bits I'd picked up -- exhibition brochures, a few postcards, and a small print of Amy Winehouse doing the Hoovering -- and the arm of a wooden hall seat of Roger's. I remember the whole piece, which was about six feet tall and made of oak. It had belonged to his grandmother, and he moved it around from place to place when he lived in Massachusetts. On the last move, when he was putting his stuff into storage before leaving for the UK, the hall seat met with an unfortunate accident involving a pickup truck and the pavement, and is now in bits and pieces. Under mysterious and inexplicable circumstances, one of the bits (the flat and slightly curved right arm) made its way to England and surfaced in Roger's move to Maida Hill. So, into my suitcase it went, to be reunited with the other bits that are somewhere in Northampton, MA.
Despite not bring much tangible stuff back with me, I came home with lots of great memories and the sense of accomplishment of a trip well done. I ticked off most of the must-see things on my overly-ambitious spreadsheet. I didn't get lost once and I didn't lose anything. I spent about £230 for 9 days (cheap!), walked a total of 72 miles and took 640 photos. And I had some wonderful meetups and adventures with a bunch of lovely people who I count as good friends. Thanks to everyone who made UK Trip #10 so fab!
Stats:
10,995 steps (4.33 miles)
Expenses:
£1 for Crossness map and donation for van ride (Roger paid the five quid for my admission)
£10 to Roger for food and booze
$70 parking at the Massport lot in Framingham
$2.40 toll on the Mass Pike
Sunday dawned pretty grey and gloomy, with rain threatening, so I scurried down to Meanwhile Gardens for a bit of yarnbombing while Roger was up at the Queen's Park Farmers' Market. I left 3 flowers and a wee red bird on the railings in the wildlife garden:
The rest of Sunday was taken up with our visit to Crossness Pumping Station, a Victorian sewage pumping station designed by Joseph Bazalgette and known as the "Cathedral on the Marsh." I'd been wanting to see it for ages, but it's only open to visitors about half a dozen Sundays a year. I'd seen my Flickr friends' photos of the interior, and read about it in The Great Stink, a not-so-great novel about the sewers of London and the creatures who inhabited them in the mid-1800s. On Crossness open days, volunteers -- all dressed in waistcoats and bowler hats -- steam up the working boiler, called the "Prince Consort" (each of the four engines is named after a royal), and tell people about the history and technology. From 1865, when Crossness was opened by the Prince of Wales, until the 1950s when it was replaced by a new pumping station, the four beam engines pumped sewage from the lowest level of the gravity-fed sewer system up to a reservoir, from which it was dumped into the Thames when the tide was going out. This system, which utilized 450 miles of sewers, brought the sewage eastward, out of central London where it had previously flowed directly into the Thames and resulted in very smelly and unhygienic conditions in the city. It all ended up in the same place after the sewers were built, just further downstream and closer to the sea.
Despite not bring much tangible stuff back with me, I came home with lots of great memories and the sense of accomplishment of a trip well done. I ticked off most of the must-see things on my overly-ambitious spreadsheet. I didn't get lost once and I didn't lose anything. I spent about £230 for 9 days (cheap!), walked a total of 72 miles and took 640 photos. And I had some wonderful meetups and adventures with a bunch of lovely people who I count as good friends. Thanks to everyone who made UK Trip #10 so fab!
Stats:
10,995 steps (4.33 miles)
Expenses:
£1 for Crossness map and donation for van ride (Roger paid the five quid for my admission)
£10 to Roger for food and booze
$70 parking at the Massport lot in Framingham
$2.40 toll on the Mass Pike
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Daytripping
Saturday was our day for a day trip out of London. I wanted to choose someplace where Roger hadn't been, which is getting harder and harder now that he's lived here for nine years. We decided on Rochester and Chatham -- two towns right next to each other, a short (and cheap) train ride from London.
First stop was Rochester. Lots to see here -- a lovely, pedestrianised High Street full of 18th and 19th century buildings (and a few that are much older), a cathedral and a ginormous castle. We ambled down the High Street, stopping into a couple antique stores and charity shops. We visited the Six Poor Travellers House, established in the 16th century and used by Charles Dickens in his story "The Seven Poor Travellers." The house provided accommodation to poor travellers, plus food, ale and fourpence, until 1940. The upper storeys are still in use today as an almshouse run by the Council. The residents maintain a beautiful little back garden that we were able to walk around in. Our next stop was Eastgate House, a Tudor home also dating from the 16th century. It happened to be one of their infrequent open days, so we got to see some of the rooms inside. Once used as a school for girls, Dickens incorporated it as The Nuns' House in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
We arrived at the cathedral just after a wedding had started, so we killed an hour walking around the ruins of the castle and having a sit down and lunch at a little tea shop. When we returned to the cathedral, Roger did the audio tour while I went in search of the loo. I found it behind a tiny, unmarked wooden door that I think used to lead to a little hole where they put people to do penance. It was a nice loo, but I wouldn't want to be shut in the penance hole.
It was mid-afternoon by the time we reached the Historic Dockyard in Chatham. The place is vast, and you could easily spend a day there. Most of the families with kiddies had left by the time we arrived, which made for an ideal way to see a couple of the buildings. By far, the best part of it was the interpreted tour of the ropery, where rope is still being made in much the same way, although mechanised, as it has been for centuries, in a building that's a quarter of a mile long. We also saw a gigantic boat slip covered by the largest wooden-raftered roof I've ever seen. It's bigger than the cathedral, and looks a bit like an upside-down wooden ship's hull. We also got a personal tour of the submarine after all the other punters had left.
A bus to Rochester and train to Victoria got us back to London as the rain was starting.
It's now my last day in London. I'm going to do my yarnbombing this morning while Roger goes to the gym and/or the market. Then, we're off to Crossness Pumping Station.
Stats:
15,763 steps (6.21 miles)
Expenses:
£16.10 return train ticket for Rochester
£3.50 tuna & sweet corn sandwich and tea
£4.80 return bus fare for Chatham
£16.50 admission to Historic Dockyard
£10 to top up Oyster card
First stop was Rochester. Lots to see here -- a lovely, pedestrianised High Street full of 18th and 19th century buildings (and a few that are much older), a cathedral and a ginormous castle. We ambled down the High Street, stopping into a couple antique stores and charity shops. We visited the Six Poor Travellers House, established in the 16th century and used by Charles Dickens in his story "The Seven Poor Travellers." The house provided accommodation to poor travellers, plus food, ale and fourpence, until 1940. The upper storeys are still in use today as an almshouse run by the Council. The residents maintain a beautiful little back garden that we were able to walk around in. Our next stop was Eastgate House, a Tudor home also dating from the 16th century. It happened to be one of their infrequent open days, so we got to see some of the rooms inside. Once used as a school for girls, Dickens incorporated it as The Nuns' House in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
We arrived at the cathedral just after a wedding had started, so we killed an hour walking around the ruins of the castle and having a sit down and lunch at a little tea shop. When we returned to the cathedral, Roger did the audio tour while I went in search of the loo. I found it behind a tiny, unmarked wooden door that I think used to lead to a little hole where they put people to do penance. It was a nice loo, but I wouldn't want to be shut in the penance hole.
It was mid-afternoon by the time we reached the Historic Dockyard in Chatham. The place is vast, and you could easily spend a day there. Most of the families with kiddies had left by the time we arrived, which made for an ideal way to see a couple of the buildings. By far, the best part of it was the interpreted tour of the ropery, where rope is still being made in much the same way, although mechanised, as it has been for centuries, in a building that's a quarter of a mile long. We also saw a gigantic boat slip covered by the largest wooden-raftered roof I've ever seen. It's bigger than the cathedral, and looks a bit like an upside-down wooden ship's hull. We also got a personal tour of the submarine after all the other punters had left.
A bus to Rochester and train to Victoria got us back to London as the rain was starting.
It's now my last day in London. I'm going to do my yarnbombing this morning while Roger goes to the gym and/or the market. Then, we're off to Crossness Pumping Station.
Stats:
15,763 steps (6.21 miles)
Expenses:
£16.10 return train ticket for Rochester
£3.50 tuna & sweet corn sandwich and tea
£4.80 return bus fare for Chatham
£16.50 admission to Historic Dockyard
£10 to top up Oyster card
Friday, October 19, 2012
Fortunately-Unfortunately
This pace is mad. I'm knackered. I have circles under my eyes and all my muscles are weary. Consequently, today was largely unplanned and a bit slower than previous ones. I played a game of Fortunately-Unfortunately in my head all day. It went something like this:
I got a late start, setting out at 11 a.m. Fortunately, I knew where I was headed -- Liverpool Street for the Bishopsgate Institute (the Spitalfields dioramas), Spitalfields Market to look for Amelia Parker's clay pipe jewellery stall, and the new Shepard Fairey show at Stolen Space in the Old Truman Brewery. Unfortunately, Amelia wasn't at the market this week and the Shepard Fairey show doesn't open until tomorrow. Fortunately, I got a nice lunch of lentil coconut carrot corn curry soup in Spitalfields Market. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard when I emerged from my sit-down. Fortunately, I hopped the No. 26 bus in Bishopsgate and it took me all the way to Waterloo. Unfortunately, mesh top Merrell shoes are a poor footwear choice for wet weather. Fortunately, Bedlam at the Old Vic Tunnels was good fun, and I'd e-mailed them ahead to say I couldn't book a timed entry because I didn't know what time I'd be there, and they'd said they would put my name on the list and I could come any time. Unfortunately, the walk across Hungerford Bridge in the rain kind of sucked. Fortunately, my friend Barbara who works at the Coli was able to pop out for tea with me. Unfortunately, by then it was really pouring when I crossed over to the National Gallery. Fortunately, I had a chance to spend an hour mooching around and looking at the masterpieces (ashamed to admit it, but it was my first time there). Unfortunately, I chose to go to Charing Cross station instead of Embankment to hop the train back to Queens Park (very long route to the platform; Embankment would have been shorter by far). Fortunately, the rain had let up by the time I got off at Queens Park and walked to Roger's flat.
Now I really need to crash and get my strength back for my final two days. I've still got yarnbombing to do!
Stats:
18,282 steps (7.21 miles)
Expenses:
£10 to top up Oyster card
£3.15 for soup at Spitalfields Market
£1.20 for a flapjack from a bakery in Lower Marsh Street
I got a late start, setting out at 11 a.m. Fortunately, I knew where I was headed -- Liverpool Street for the Bishopsgate Institute (the Spitalfields dioramas), Spitalfields Market to look for Amelia Parker's clay pipe jewellery stall, and the new Shepard Fairey show at Stolen Space in the Old Truman Brewery. Unfortunately, Amelia wasn't at the market this week and the Shepard Fairey show doesn't open until tomorrow. Fortunately, I got a nice lunch of lentil coconut carrot corn curry soup in Spitalfields Market. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard when I emerged from my sit-down. Fortunately, I hopped the No. 26 bus in Bishopsgate and it took me all the way to Waterloo. Unfortunately, mesh top Merrell shoes are a poor footwear choice for wet weather. Fortunately, Bedlam at the Old Vic Tunnels was good fun, and I'd e-mailed them ahead to say I couldn't book a timed entry because I didn't know what time I'd be there, and they'd said they would put my name on the list and I could come any time. Unfortunately, the walk across Hungerford Bridge in the rain kind of sucked. Fortunately, my friend Barbara who works at the Coli was able to pop out for tea with me. Unfortunately, by then it was really pouring when I crossed over to the National Gallery. Fortunately, I had a chance to spend an hour mooching around and looking at the masterpieces (ashamed to admit it, but it was my first time there). Unfortunately, I chose to go to Charing Cross station instead of Embankment to hop the train back to Queens Park (very long route to the platform; Embankment would have been shorter by far). Fortunately, the rain had let up by the time I got off at Queens Park and walked to Roger's flat.
Now I really need to crash and get my strength back for my final two days. I've still got yarnbombing to do!
Stats:
18,282 steps (7.21 miles)
Expenses:
£10 to top up Oyster card
£3.15 for soup at Spitalfields Market
£1.20 for a flapjack from a bakery in Lower Marsh Street
Wine, Photography and Jazz
I'm surprisingly not too hung over, giving the amount of wine I consumed over dinner last night and then at the Jamboree Venue where we heard old time jazz. More on that below.
Thursday was my day to take in art and good company with my friend Judy. Just as last year, we met up in the morning at Tate Modern. We looked at the installation -- not sure that's what you'd call it, as it was more of randomly choreographed event (is that an oxymoron?) -- in the Turbine Hall, some of the rolling exhibitions in the Tate Tanks (the best of which was Suzanne Lacy's The Crystal Quilt, which my quilter friends Shawn and Allie would enjoy), and a new exhibition of photography by William Klein and Daido Moriyama.
We then walked across the river and through the City to the Barbican for an exhibition of photography from the 60s and 70s called Everything Was Moving. This had to be one of the most amazing and powerful photography exhibitions I've ever seen. It brought together something like 400 photos by 12 photographers (none was anyone I'd heard of other than William Eggleston) from around the world, who each documented their unique eye-view of some aspect of these two tumultuous and world-altering decades -- from the Freedom Ride for voter registration in the southern states of the US, to the war in Vietnam, Chinese society under Mao, the brutality of apartheid in South Africa, the vivid color of India, and the expressive youth culture of Mali. Uniting them all were the threads of life under oppression and of the creativity, hope and human spirit that can emerge from/despite those conditions. Roger was so blown away by the exhibition when he saw it that he bought the book -- I'm going to have to leaf through it to revisit the images before I leave.
After saying goodbye to Judy on the tube, I took a long, rambling walk -- turning south and then east, south and east -- from Whitechapel station to the DLR station in Limehouse. Some of my walk took me through the noise and traffic of the modern Commercial and Whitechapel roads, and other times I turned into quiet residential side streets of Georgian terrace houses that looked like scenes of Whitechapel over 100 years ago. And I found a little street next to St Mary's Cable Street where a scene from To Sir With Love was filmed nearly 50 years ago in 1967. Walking these streets, you can easily imagine yourself in another decade or another century.
I met up with Roger, Greg and Esther under the arches of the DLR station. Note to self: if meeting someone at Limehouse station, be sure to specify which entrance to meet at. Esther and I saw a gorgeous sunset behind the Shard as we waited at one entrance while Roger and Greg tried to find each other at other entrance. On the map, the route to Narrow Street to the restaurant looked like just a doodle. Turns out it involved crossing the Rotherhithe Tunnel Approach at rush hour, which was just a little frightening. But having survived it once, we bravely did it again to get to Jamboree Venue to hear Dakota Jim and (part of) his orchestra playing old ragtime jazz (American and Romani) from the 20s and 30s. The venue is wonderful -- it's a small section of an old brick factory in Cable Street. The concrete walls are decorated with musical instruments and some large, odd paintings. Only about 8 tables, with utterly mismatched chairs. There's a little bar in the back, and up front a small stage with velvet curtains. The music was perfect.
Now I'm getting a really late start, and trying to work out where I'm going today. It's my catch-up day, one to work in things I've missed earlier in the week. I know I'm going to see Bedlam in the Old Vic Tunnels, but not sure where else the day will take me. It's lates at many of the museums, so I might just hop for one to another into the evening. Stay tuned.
Stats:
25,295 steps (9.98 miles)
Expenses:
£12 for Barbican Art Gallery
£1.80 for tea
£20 for pizza, wine, and more wine
Thursday was my day to take in art and good company with my friend Judy. Just as last year, we met up in the morning at Tate Modern. We looked at the installation -- not sure that's what you'd call it, as it was more of randomly choreographed event (is that an oxymoron?) -- in the Turbine Hall, some of the rolling exhibitions in the Tate Tanks (the best of which was Suzanne Lacy's The Crystal Quilt, which my quilter friends Shawn and Allie would enjoy), and a new exhibition of photography by William Klein and Daido Moriyama.
We then walked across the river and through the City to the Barbican for an exhibition of photography from the 60s and 70s called Everything Was Moving. This had to be one of the most amazing and powerful photography exhibitions I've ever seen. It brought together something like 400 photos by 12 photographers (none was anyone I'd heard of other than William Eggleston) from around the world, who each documented their unique eye-view of some aspect of these two tumultuous and world-altering decades -- from the Freedom Ride for voter registration in the southern states of the US, to the war in Vietnam, Chinese society under Mao, the brutality of apartheid in South Africa, the vivid color of India, and the expressive youth culture of Mali. Uniting them all were the threads of life under oppression and of the creativity, hope and human spirit that can emerge from/despite those conditions. Roger was so blown away by the exhibition when he saw it that he bought the book -- I'm going to have to leaf through it to revisit the images before I leave.
After saying goodbye to Judy on the tube, I took a long, rambling walk -- turning south and then east, south and east -- from Whitechapel station to the DLR station in Limehouse. Some of my walk took me through the noise and traffic of the modern Commercial and Whitechapel roads, and other times I turned into quiet residential side streets of Georgian terrace houses that looked like scenes of Whitechapel over 100 years ago. And I found a little street next to St Mary's Cable Street where a scene from To Sir With Love was filmed nearly 50 years ago in 1967. Walking these streets, you can easily imagine yourself in another decade or another century.
I met up with Roger, Greg and Esther under the arches of the DLR station. Note to self: if meeting someone at Limehouse station, be sure to specify which entrance to meet at. Esther and I saw a gorgeous sunset behind the Shard as we waited at one entrance while Roger and Greg tried to find each other at other entrance. On the map, the route to Narrow Street to the restaurant looked like just a doodle. Turns out it involved crossing the Rotherhithe Tunnel Approach at rush hour, which was just a little frightening. But having survived it once, we bravely did it again to get to Jamboree Venue to hear Dakota Jim and (part of) his orchestra playing old ragtime jazz (American and Romani) from the 20s and 30s. The venue is wonderful -- it's a small section of an old brick factory in Cable Street. The concrete walls are decorated with musical instruments and some large, odd paintings. Only about 8 tables, with utterly mismatched chairs. There's a little bar in the back, and up front a small stage with velvet curtains. The music was perfect.
Now I'm getting a really late start, and trying to work out where I'm going today. It's my catch-up day, one to work in things I've missed earlier in the week. I know I'm going to see Bedlam in the Old Vic Tunnels, but not sure where else the day will take me. It's lates at many of the museums, so I might just hop for one to another into the evening. Stay tuned.
Stats:
25,295 steps (9.98 miles)
Expenses:
£12 for Barbican Art Gallery
£1.80 for tea
£20 for pizza, wine, and more wine
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Many Stops Along the Way
This will be a quick update on yesterday's activities, while my clothes are spinning around in the dryer. I need to be out the door by 9:30 a.m. to meet my friend Judy at Tate Modern. It's another day that's starting out much better than predicted. I'm not taking credit or anything, but I do seem to have a way of making the rain hold off when I'm visiting.
Yesterday, I filled in a missing bit of the Regent's Canal with a walk from Camden Town to the start of the Islington Tunnel. I've now walked the towpath from Ladbroke Grove to Limehouse, which I think totals about 20 miles. My friend Malcolm joined me for this segment -- we met up at the Spanish School in the Portobello Road for a quick look at the new wall installation (large photos on a coffee theme) and then hopped the No. 31 bus to Chalk Farm and got on the towpath at Hampstead Road Lock. Not a lot to see along this stretch -- some new and converted housing on the opposite side from the towpath (I saw one sweet converted warehouse where I'd love to live), and the remains of the wall on which Banksy and Team Robbo carried out their graffiti feud. The most interesting part is at King's Cross, where there's been an amazing amount of development since I last poked around there about four years ago. The gasometers are now all gone (mothballed somewhere, with at least one to come back at some point and put to some unknown purpose), Central St Martin's College of Art has moved into a renovated warehouse, there are new steps from the towpath to a large square, and a bridge over the canal leading straight into King's Cross Station. There are various food vans and stalls between the bridge and the station that change every day, which made a great opportunity for us to get a bite to eat and have a sit-down. I had a Scotch egg (my first!), with a 3-bean crust instead of the usual sausage, from a stall called Eat My Pies. It was made by the mum of a Brit named Andy Bates who has a show on the Food Network in America (I've not seen it, but will check it out when I get back home). Good cooking must run in the family, because Andy's mum's Scotch egg was delish.
The leg of the towpath from there to Islington was easy and uneventful. If it had been raining, I would probably have stopped at the Canal Museum just past King's Cross, but that can wait for another trip. After leaving the towpath and walking through Chapel Market, Malcolm and I went our separate ways, he to Jessup's to look at camera gear, and me to get on the No. 73 bus to Euston.
It was still sunny when I got off the bus and started to wander though Bloomsbury, but clouds began to roll in. My first stop was the crypt gallery at St Pancras Parish Church, where I saw a fab exhibition by women artists called Dare to Wear. It was by far the most colorful and fun thing I'd ever seen in the creepy crypt. By then I was in need of tea and another sit-down, so I wandered down Marchmont Street. Rain drops started falling when I reached the Brunswick Centre, and soon turned into a downpour. I took shelter in the caff at the Foundling Museum, a site which has a long history of providing refuge. When the rain let up, I pushed on to St Giles High Street, and looked in at the exhibition of Crossrail archaeology -- bits ranging from bison bones to Victorian pottery that's been dug up in the massive excavation for the new Crossrail system. This is really fascinating stuff, and well worth a look-see if you're in Tottenham Court Road (but hurry because it ends soon!).
Back on the Euston Road, my next stop was the British Library, where I looked at the permanent exhibition (Treasures of the British Library) -- a good way to kill the remaining hour before meeting Roger in front of the St Pancras Hotel at 6 pm. We wandered around King's Cross looking for a pub to grab a quick dinner, and ended up at Central Station on what clearly was drag night at the pub. The last destination was King's Place, where we heard Scottish contemporary folk/rock from a bloke called Roddy Woomble and band called Rura. Lovely venue, and Roddy and company made some nice sounds, but I thought his songs needed work (except for a very nice cover of John Prine's Speed of the Sound of Loneliness). We did not stop in the foyer to buy the CD.
Stats:
28,170 steps (11.11 miles)
Expenses:
£10 to top up my Oyster card
£2 for exhibition catalogue from Dare to Wear
£2.70 bevvies and nibbles along the way
£8.85 veg burger and half pint of bitter at the pub
£5 glass of wine at the concert
Yesterday, I filled in a missing bit of the Regent's Canal with a walk from Camden Town to the start of the Islington Tunnel. I've now walked the towpath from Ladbroke Grove to Limehouse, which I think totals about 20 miles. My friend Malcolm joined me for this segment -- we met up at the Spanish School in the Portobello Road for a quick look at the new wall installation (large photos on a coffee theme) and then hopped the No. 31 bus to Chalk Farm and got on the towpath at Hampstead Road Lock. Not a lot to see along this stretch -- some new and converted housing on the opposite side from the towpath (I saw one sweet converted warehouse where I'd love to live), and the remains of the wall on which Banksy and Team Robbo carried out their graffiti feud. The most interesting part is at King's Cross, where there's been an amazing amount of development since I last poked around there about four years ago. The gasometers are now all gone (mothballed somewhere, with at least one to come back at some point and put to some unknown purpose), Central St Martin's College of Art has moved into a renovated warehouse, there are new steps from the towpath to a large square, and a bridge over the canal leading straight into King's Cross Station. There are various food vans and stalls between the bridge and the station that change every day, which made a great opportunity for us to get a bite to eat and have a sit-down. I had a Scotch egg (my first!), with a 3-bean crust instead of the usual sausage, from a stall called Eat My Pies. It was made by the mum of a Brit named Andy Bates who has a show on the Food Network in America (I've not seen it, but will check it out when I get back home). Good cooking must run in the family, because Andy's mum's Scotch egg was delish.
The leg of the towpath from there to Islington was easy and uneventful. If it had been raining, I would probably have stopped at the Canal Museum just past King's Cross, but that can wait for another trip. After leaving the towpath and walking through Chapel Market, Malcolm and I went our separate ways, he to Jessup's to look at camera gear, and me to get on the No. 73 bus to Euston.
It was still sunny when I got off the bus and started to wander though Bloomsbury, but clouds began to roll in. My first stop was the crypt gallery at St Pancras Parish Church, where I saw a fab exhibition by women artists called Dare to Wear. It was by far the most colorful and fun thing I'd ever seen in the creepy crypt. By then I was in need of tea and another sit-down, so I wandered down Marchmont Street. Rain drops started falling when I reached the Brunswick Centre, and soon turned into a downpour. I took shelter in the caff at the Foundling Museum, a site which has a long history of providing refuge. When the rain let up, I pushed on to St Giles High Street, and looked in at the exhibition of Crossrail archaeology -- bits ranging from bison bones to Victorian pottery that's been dug up in the massive excavation for the new Crossrail system. This is really fascinating stuff, and well worth a look-see if you're in Tottenham Court Road (but hurry because it ends soon!).
Back on the Euston Road, my next stop was the British Library, where I looked at the permanent exhibition (Treasures of the British Library) -- a good way to kill the remaining hour before meeting Roger in front of the St Pancras Hotel at 6 pm. We wandered around King's Cross looking for a pub to grab a quick dinner, and ended up at Central Station on what clearly was drag night at the pub. The last destination was King's Place, where we heard Scottish contemporary folk/rock from a bloke called Roddy Woomble and band called Rura. Lovely venue, and Roddy and company made some nice sounds, but I thought his songs needed work (except for a very nice cover of John Prine's Speed of the Sound of Loneliness). We did not stop in the foyer to buy the CD.
Stats:
28,170 steps (11.11 miles)
Expenses:
£10 to top up my Oyster card
£2 for exhibition catalogue from Dare to Wear
£2.70 bevvies and nibbles along the way
£8.85 veg burger and half pint of bitter at the pub
£5 glass of wine at the concert
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday = Garden Day
It wasn't a conscious plan, but Tuesday turned out to be a day of gardens. The plan was to meet up with Maggie at Putney Bridge station, for a stroll around Bishop's Park, then up the New King's Road to Chelsea. Since it was such a bright, sunny day when I woke up, I decided to seize the opportunity (with rain being predicted for the rest of the week) to first take a detour through Meanwhile Gardens on my way to catch the tube at Westbourne Park station. I wanted to check on the yarnbombs that I'd left there last year, and pre-scope some possible sites for this year's wooly creations. The striped yarnbomb is still quite bright, and easily seen from the towpath. I wandered through the wildlife garden, and ran into two of the gardeners. I told them that I was the yarnbomber, and their faces broke into big smiles. "We love it! We were so excited when we came to work and found it last year." I told them to be on the lookout for some more surprises in a few days. My second, green piece, is still where I left it, well hidden in the foliage.
It was a perfect day for a long, long walk with Maggie, which has turned into a bit of a tradition. We ambled through the walled garden at Fulham Palace and then eastward, past one of the oldest brick kilns in London, the remaining walls of an old penitentiary, an art nouveau temperance hall, some absolutely lovely almshouses, a fabulous (disused) Victorian power plant, into the (rebuilt) church where Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, looked for Queen Elizabeth I's mulberry tree (didn't find it), and saw dozens of blue plaques for painters, writers and suffragettes who lived along Cheyne Walk, and the Royal Hospital where the army pensioners live out their final days. Our stop at the Chelsea Physic Garden was well worth it -- what a great place, full of beautiful beds of flowers, medicinal herbs, veg and all sorts of plants from around the world. If I lived in London, I'd go there often and maybe finally learn to tell one plant from another.
The last stop on our ramble was the Saatchi Gallery in Sloane Square, to see Richard Wilson's oil tank, which I'd wanted to see for ages. It was even better than I imagined -- it totally distorts your sense of space, of what's up and what's down, and where you are in relation to floor and ceiling.
The day ended with a meet-up with 15 or so of my mates from Guess Where London -- a marvellous bunch of smart, witty, knowledgeable, and ever-so-quirky photographers. Big thanks to Maggie and to everyone who came to the meet-up for making it a memorable day in London.
Stats:
27,946 steps (11.02 miles)
Expenses:
£2.79 lunch from Tesco Express (tuna & sweetcorn sandwich and a beverage, eaten on a bench overlooking the Thames)
£9 Chelsea Physic Garden
£6.30 beer and nibbles at the Cross Keys
It was a perfect day for a long, long walk with Maggie, which has turned into a bit of a tradition. We ambled through the walled garden at Fulham Palace and then eastward, past one of the oldest brick kilns in London, the remaining walls of an old penitentiary, an art nouveau temperance hall, some absolutely lovely almshouses, a fabulous (disused) Victorian power plant, into the (rebuilt) church where Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, looked for Queen Elizabeth I's mulberry tree (didn't find it), and saw dozens of blue plaques for painters, writers and suffragettes who lived along Cheyne Walk, and the Royal Hospital where the army pensioners live out their final days. Our stop at the Chelsea Physic Garden was well worth it -- what a great place, full of beautiful beds of flowers, medicinal herbs, veg and all sorts of plants from around the world. If I lived in London, I'd go there often and maybe finally learn to tell one plant from another.
The last stop on our ramble was the Saatchi Gallery in Sloane Square, to see Richard Wilson's oil tank, which I'd wanted to see for ages. It was even better than I imagined -- it totally distorts your sense of space, of what's up and what's down, and where you are in relation to floor and ceiling.
The day ended with a meet-up with 15 or so of my mates from Guess Where London -- a marvellous bunch of smart, witty, knowledgeable, and ever-so-quirky photographers. Big thanks to Maggie and to everyone who came to the meet-up for making it a memorable day in London.
Stats:
27,946 steps (11.02 miles)
Expenses:
£2.79 lunch from Tesco Express (tuna & sweetcorn sandwich and a beverage, eaten on a bench overlooking the Thames)
£9 Chelsea Physic Garden
£6.30 beer and nibbles at the Cross Keys
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Monday = Museum Day
Monday's destinations were entirely on page 35 of my Mapguide (the one I thought I'd lost, but found wedged between my mattress and headboard at home). First stop was Somerset House, where I'd intended to see Night Paintings by Paul Benney, in the Deadhouse below the fountain court. After looking at the first four or five paintings, I came to a tape barrier. Turning around, I saw another tape barrier back by where I'd come in. I asked, and was told that they'd had a water leak in the lightwells and needed to close the rest of the exhibition, probably until the weekend. This was disappointing -- not so much because I was dying to see the rest of the paintings, which I'm sure were interesting, but because there are a bunch of 17th century tombs down in the Deadhouse that I'd wanted to see. With rain coming tomorrow and lasting the rest of the week, I don't think they'll be reopening any time soon. While I was at Somerset House, I also checked out the Nelson staircase and two small exhibitions (British illustration and Vidal Sassoon).
Next, the London Transport Museum, which I'd never visited before. Amidst the absolute din and chaos of screaming, running school children, I followed the history of London transport (boats, buses and trains) from the mid-19th century to the present. When I reached the final level, at last I was able to go to the exhibition I'd really come to see -- Mind the Map, about graphic design, maps and posters for the Underground. It was blissfully quiet in the exhibition rooms, as I was the only person there. It was well worth enduring the cacophony of kiddies to reach the exhibition, and the rest of the museum was pretty good as well, even for non-trainspotters like me.
I grabbed a quick lunch at Tesco Metro and ate in the churchyard of St Paul's Covent Garden. Then, on to the British Museum for Shakespeare: Staging the World, a fascinating array of paintings, printed material, and artefacts related to Shakespeare's times and to the subjects of his plays. This exhibition was crowded with pensioners, who are quieter the school kiddies, but due to their failing eyesight (and the general dimness of the lighting), they tend to stand about 6 inches in front of every piece. It's amazing that some of the things they had on display have survived all this time, particularly the tapestries and clothing.
It was 4:30 when I left the BM, and I figured it was best to get out of central London before the rush hour, so I hopped the No. 7 to Paddington Station and then the No. 36 back to Maida Hill.
Today, I'm off to Fulham Palace, then bits of Chelsea, and ultimately to the Guess Where London (Flickr group) meet-up at a pub in the City. I'll be wearing my best walking shoes (blister update: it's much better now).
Stats:
13,747 steps (5.42 miles)
Expenses:
£13.50 admission to the Transport Museum
£2.15 lunch (egg and cress on brown bread and a beverage)
£1.89 pint of yogurt from the supermarket since Roger's supply was running low
(Used R's BM membership card to get into the Shakespeare exhibition free)
I grabbed a quick lunch at Tesco Metro and ate in the churchyard of St Paul's Covent Garden. Then, on to the British Museum for Shakespeare: Staging the World, a fascinating array of paintings, printed material, and artefacts related to Shakespeare's times and to the subjects of his plays. This exhibition was crowded with pensioners, who are quieter the school kiddies, but due to their failing eyesight (and the general dimness of the lighting), they tend to stand about 6 inches in front of every piece. It's amazing that some of the things they had on display have survived all this time, particularly the tapestries and clothing.
Today, I'm off to Fulham Palace, then bits of Chelsea, and ultimately to the Guess Where London (Flickr group) meet-up at a pub in the City. I'll be wearing my best walking shoes (blister update: it's much better now).
Stats:
13,747 steps (5.42 miles)
Expenses:
£13.50 admission to the Transport Museum
£2.15 lunch (egg and cress on brown bread and a beverage)
£1.89 pint of yogurt from the supermarket since Roger's supply was running low
(Used R's BM membership card to get into the Shakespeare exhibition free)
Monday, October 15, 2012
Rambling through Kensington
This year's Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron, was a bit of a disappointment. The concept is intriguing -- they dug down to reveal the foundations of the eleven previous pavilions, and incorporated them into the design of the tiered subterranean seating, covered with cork. There are also some little stools (probably the tops of foundation posts, that look like mushrooms or champagne corks. The "roof," about 4 feet above ground level, is a shallow oval pond. I'm sure that the space functions far better than last year's pavilion, with its four dark wooden corridors, but I missed the fun of the color and reflections of previous pavilions. But it was a beautiful day for a walk through Kensington Gardens, so I'm not going to complain too much.
I got my chance to photograph some really ace reflections when we strolled down Exhibition Road. Tony Cragg's sculptures -- including one super shiny, curvy-wurvy one -- dot the road. I do love me a good reflection.
Next stop was Christie's in Old Brompton Road, where we went to see the Multiplied 2012 contemporary print art fair. Tempting as it was, we didn't buy anything. But I really loved the pop art prints of Amy Winehouse, by Gerald Laing, especially one with her hair tied up in a bandana, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and pushing a Hoover. I got the postcard.
We then walked down to Brompton Cemetery, so that I could tick another of the Magnificent Seven on my list. (This was the fourth for me, having done Abney Park, Kensal Green, and part of Highgate.) Not as overgrown and creepy as Abney Park, nor as full of over-the-top Victorian tombs as Kensal Green, but the late afternoon light was glowing and lovely for a few moments so there were a few nice photo ops.
I started this post with one whinge, and I'll end with another: I've got a blister on the ball of my left foot. I've slapped a blister plaster on it, and will carry more with me in case the other foot goes down the same path. I'm getting soft in my old age.
Today, I'm heading out on my own for Central London to take in some museums and stuff.
Stats:
18,836 steps (7.43 miles)
Expenses:
£1.50 for apples at the Queen's Park Farmers' Market
£4 for sandwich in the caff at Christie's
£1.50 for 2 cans of coconut water
We then walked down to Brompton Cemetery, so that I could tick another of the Magnificent Seven on my list. (This was the fourth for me, having done Abney Park, Kensal Green, and part of Highgate.) Not as overgrown and creepy as Abney Park, nor as full of over-the-top Victorian tombs as Kensal Green, but the late afternoon light was glowing and lovely for a few moments so there were a few nice photo ops.
Today, I'm heading out on my own for Central London to take in some museums and stuff.
Stats:
18,836 steps (7.43 miles)
Expenses:
£1.50 for apples at the Queen's Park Farmers' Market
£4 for sandwich in the caff at Christie's
£1.50 for 2 cans of coconut water
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Wide Eyed
We worked in everything on my Saturday list, and then some. Starting our adventures at Old Street, we made our way towards the Moniker Art Fair at the Village Underground, zigzagging through Hoxton and Shoreditch to see street art, including several pieces by Stik, one of my favorite street artists. We saw some new things (Hoxton Square, Rivington Street, and the Leonard Street carpark), and some new-to me pieces (Stik's studio in Pitfield Street, and a community centre in Parfett Street). We also saw a paint-not-quite-dry mural by Shepard Fairey, called "Shoplifters Welcome," in Ebor Street, very near Boxpark, which was another of my destinations. Boxpark is a condensed shopping area, with small stores all in a series of shipping containers assembled on two levels. I was interested in seeing it because of my current penchant for creative reuse and because the Pie Minister is there, and I've been thinking all year about that lovely Heidi pie (winter squash and goat's cheese with savory herbs) that I had last October so I needed to pick one up to eat later in the week.
Of the indoor art we saw at the Moniker Art Fair and at the Whitechapel Gallery, my two favorite works involved small taxidermied mammals. I usually don't go in for that sort of stuff, but these were great (and I'm just telling myself that the wee critters were road kill, not intentionally sacrificed for the art). At Moniker, Nancy Fouts, a 68-year old American artist who works in the UK, had a piece called "Rabbit with Curlers." At the Whitechapel Gallery was Maurizio Cattelan's Bidibidobidiboo, a miniature family kitchen with a squirrel that has committed suicide slumped at the table. There, we also saw some conceptual stuff, which I don't pretend to understand -- this year's Bloomberg Commission by Guiseppe Penone, and paintings and installations by Mel Bochner, the best of which was a series of colorful word paintings (imagine Sol LeWitt works with text instead of lines).
An early dinner at Tayyab's finished off our day out in the East End.
Stats:
20,659 steps (8.15 miles)
Expenses:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£4 for two tote bags at Moniker Art Fair
£3.50 for Heidi pie
£1 for postcards at the Whitechapel Gallery
Spooner treated me to mid-afternoon tea and to dinner
An early dinner at Tayyab's finished off our day out in the East End.
Stats:
20,659 steps (8.15 miles)
Expenses:
£20 to top up my Oyster card
£4 for two tote bags at Moniker Art Fair
£3.50 for Heidi pie
£1 for postcards at the Whitechapel Gallery
Spooner treated me to mid-afternoon tea and to dinner
Saturday, October 13, 2012
The Eagle has (re)landed
Tenth trip to Blighty, and one of the smoothest journeys so far. I landed at 6:25 am and was at Spooner's front door by 8:15. Absolutely no queue at immigration, which is unheard of. There's something to be said for coming into Terminal 4, though I'd still rather be on Virgin Atlantic than on Delta (DEfinitely Lacking Travel Amenities).
I'm now cleaned up and caffeinated and ready to head out to explore. We're off to the East End to go to the Moniker Art Fair, to see the new streetart in Shoreditch, possibly to take in whatever is at the Whitechapel Gallery, and then to eat at Tayyab. It's a bit chilly, but the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Full report to follow.
Yesterday's stats:
3127 steps (1.23 miles) and a lot of sitting
$2.40 for Mass Pike toll
$22.00 for return ticket on Logan Express airport bus
Yesterday's stats:
3127 steps (1.23 miles) and a lot of sitting
$2.40 for Mass Pike toll
$22.00 for return ticket on Logan Express airport bus
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