Well, I was away from my computer on Thursday, and we got home quite late last night, so this is my first entry for a couple of days. So what have I been up to?
Very briefly. Thursday: breakfast out, quick visit to Dulwich College, British Museum, dinner and drinks with Peter. Friday: trip to Oxford, lovely lunch with Joseph’s parents and sister, quick walk around town, back home for an hour of crap British TV.
Not a very detailed or evocative post, I know. I promise to revisit all this in more detail in a couple of days. (Remind me to tell you the story about the Bassae sculptures.) Heading off to Greenwich today, and out tonight with Peter and Sarah. There will be dancing, apparently.
Until next time, enjoy this photo of snowdrops near the river in Oxford. I’ll write again soon.
Another relaxing day. I packed up my stuff and said farewell to my tiny hotel room before heading out for more sightseeing. I thought I would go to some of the cut-price ticket booths in Leicester Square. I’m thinking maybe Wicked, which Philip recommended and which Calvin saw in Chicago. Although I did notice that Penelope Keith is playing Lady Bracknell. Again, apparently.
Anyway. the train stopped at St James’s Park Station, and I suddenly felt like a walk. The first time I ever came to London, St James’s Park was covered in snow or ice or something, and it was horribly, horribly cold. So today I had the opportunity to wander about in the sun and have a proper look at it.
It’s beautiful.
After my first brief walk, I spotted a crowd around Buckingham Palace. I joined them for a bit, but nothing particularly fascinating seemed to be happening, so I went back into the park. But not before I saw this:
The Queen's sheep?
These lovely guards saw me trying to take a photo through the fence, and graciously moved so that I could get an unobstructed view. But can anyone explain to me why they were guarding a sheep? Is it the Queen’s? And if so, why?
Went over to Angela’s in the afternoon. Hung out, watched some telly, had dinner. And now everyone’s in bed, and I’m on a comfy sofa by the fire. So relaxed that I can’t even get worked up about the inconsistent apostrophes in the signage at St James’s Park tube station.
(Not even the Queen gets it right. A sign by the gate at Buckingham Palace describes the Royal Mews as “one of the worlds [sic] finest working stables.”)
I didn’t see Jennifer Saunders falling out of her car, or Tom Baker dropping by to offer helpful advice about Krynoids. I just had a quiet moment to myself, thinking about all those sketches and alien planets and Roman villas that had been hosted here over the years.
After that, I went and did some sensible sightseeing. The Globe and Southwark Cathedral and things. There are photos.
Now I’m off to the pub down the road for some food and some more beer. It’s still beautifully sunny, but very cold at night, and I’ve managed to catch a bit of a chill. But if there’s a better cure for that than English bitter, I don’t want to know about it.
Yesterday I spent some time wandering the streets, window shopping and being a general tourist. Then over to Ange’s to plan the rest of the week, to watch Neighbours on Channel 5, and to have dinner. Got home late, and freezing cold.
I spent the morning uploading photos to Flickr, which is a long and arduous process for some reason. So I’ll write a longer post tonight.
Made some decisions. I’m staying in London till the 20th, then flying off to Amsterdam, where I’ve booked a hotel for four nights. Then what? Somewhere in France, I think. Nîmes? Carcassonne? Paris? Any ideas, anyone?
Spent a little while in the morning uploading photos, blogging and chatting with people at home. Nice and relaxed. I felt quite good: less grumpy and dehydrated than my first day, and a lot less tired. And it was another beautifully sunny day.
I caught up with Ange and the kids on the south side of Westminster Bridge. We wandered down the south bank of the Thames, had lunch, and wandered into the Tate Modern.
I loved the Tate Modern the last time I was in London, and had a vivid memory of the Weather Project, a clever installation in the six-story Turbine Room. So I was a little disappointed to find that the Turbine Room seemed to be completely empty. Perhaps, for once, there was no installation there.
You can see the photo above. There was a huge crack in the concrete floor, more than a foot deep in places, forking and zigzagging like lightning. God knows how they did it! You can see from my (crap and numerous) photos how popular it was with the kiddies.
Ange drove me around through the London traffic for a while, dropping me off in Picadilly Circus. I caught the tube back to Earls Court. I had a couple of quiet pints in a local pub, and wandered back to my room to await a phone call from Calvin.
