Events
London Baby - Brought to you by James Wormald -
Ok so Claire was coming over to stay for a few days… She’d been away living the life an international superstar jetsetter, meanwhile we had no TV, no internet, no sun/sea/wine. No anything except a vomit marinated alley leading to a front door, and a pile of boxes we called a ‘coffee table’. (Times are hard for everyone).
After the first day of catching up on old times (including a new and improved Pancake Breakfast), our first full day needed something a bit more… exerting.
So the generally best, and cheapest option was simply to walk around for a bit. The intention was to walk around various nice areas of town, and if the weather stuck, to grab some food, find a patch of grass and get down to watch the sun move.*
This of course didn’t happen. Best laid plans and everything. (I’m not sure if this is right… I don’t really know what the end of that phrase is. It could be ‘Best laid plans all work out and everyone has a lovely time’ which wouldn’t really fit with the point I’m trying to make… Although everyone DID have quite a lovely time, so it could be better than I first thought. However I’m pretty sure it DOESN’T mean that, so… oh, right!) We started off around Trafalgar Square. Where it was raining, and I decided pretty quickly to turn the day into a touristy photo op. Gazz hasn’t got much of a chance to walk around London since moving, and I still needed to piss about with my camera to learn how it worked.
Our tour stops included, walking down from Charing Cross to Embankment, across the river, down the Southbank and towards the BFI. Then back on ourselves past the Movieum which Claire seemed quite interested in until the slightly overzealous Pirate dressed (I think he was a pirate, definitely either Pirate or Jester it was hard to tell) guide talked himself out of a sale. Back up to Westminster where we found a bench to sit and read/take photographs of pigeons and taxis – you laugh but those will be fetching thousands in a few years.
Then we hopped it onto the tube to walk around South Kensington for a bit. None of us really knew where we were or where anything else was, so we dropped into a café for coffees and a break, before through Kensington, up and through Hyde Park.
By that stage the weather had become really nice, and the Bank Holiday weekend tourist families, as well as the London and Home Counties families were all enjoying their 99s and beach footballs in the sun.
Walking through, and looking back at the photographs from the city… you realise how lucky we are to live in this area of the world. Yes you can holiday to far and away places to see wonderful sights. To Africa, or India, or New Zealand… but you can also appreciate the beauty sat on your doorstep.
And appreciate it for what it is.