london – Page 6 – Where is Phil now?

Central London, a walking tour

Sunday 04 June 2017 – London.

A couple of weeks ago I received a message from Martha, a very old friend in NZ letting me know she was coming over to London for a conference for a few days and would I be free to do a catch up and a walk around some of the highlights of central London. Of course!

Yesterday, was perhaps not the best day to arrive in London, last night there was a terror incident in London Bridge which resulted in the deaths of 8 poor souls just going about enjoying themselves. London Bridge was on my planned walking route, but I was more concerned that Martha may not want to walk randomly about London, or that London may not be itself wonderful self after such an awful event, fortunately no.

I met Martha at Holborn station at 10:00 with a loose plan in mind to see as many of the key spots as was possible on foot in the next three hours.

Our first stop was Covent Garden Market, I used to work very close to here, so am familiar with the location. I only ever came here at lunch time or after work so was not used to seeing it so quiet, it had nothing to do with the incident last night, none of the shops were open so it was too early for tourists.

I haven’t played tourist for ages, so it was very enjoyable to walk around the city, taking a few photos as I went. We did walk down through Covent Garden and the back of Soho to Trafalgar Square, where I completely forgot to take any photos of either the National Gallery or Nelson’s column. There were quite a few tourists here, clambering over the lions and taking selfies, so me being me I got the hump with them getting in my photo and didn’t take one.

We passed New Zealand House on Haymarket, once voted the west end of London’s ugliest building – a very fair call in my mind!

Walking up to Piccaddilly Circus and it’s famous Eros statue, we were reminded by the banners that nothing shuts London down (contrary to then nutjob ‘alt-right’ press in America ) and that London is a welcoming and open city.

I subtly steered Martha along Piccadilly to Green Park station. I will hopefully start a new job in July and Green Park is the nearest station on the Victoria Line to where my new office will be, and I wanted to get a rough idea how long the walk would be. More on the new job once it is finalised, though I am quite excited about it!

I do not go to this side of London very often, so rarely walk through the royal parks any more, a situation I aim to remedy come July, they are such a lovely part of London. When I stayed in Shepherds Bush for 3 months at the end of 2012 I used to walk through Kensington Gardens, Hyde, Green and St James Park quite regularly. The empty deck chairs laid out in Green Park waiting to be rented remind me of grave stones.

Though good fortune rather than good planning we arrived at Buckingham Palace just as the changing of the guard was on, the Mall was closed so we had to wait for a few minutes to cross over in to St James Park. The area around Buck Palace was very crowded, which was good to see. There were a few police around, mainly controlling pedestrian traffic. I was surprised that there were not more, and I only saw one armed policeman during the entire walk, so pleasing to see.

St James Park is my favourite of the royal parks, it is small and the lake is great, and it has a pretty good cafe as well, always a bonus when out walking. There are great views, back towards Buckingham Palace,

and forward to Whitehall, where we will next walk; and close to where I hope to be working in July.

We had to stop for some obligatory photos of Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. Taken at a slightly weird angle 🙂

Crossing over Westminster Bridge to the South Bank, where the crowds of tourists seem to be pretty normal, frustratingly normal when you are trying to pass through them. Good to see London standing up as normal, calm, considerate and a bit too crowded. I am a big fan of French street artist Invader and have not seen this little space invader near Blackfriars Bridge, nice!

Next stop was for one of my favourite London views; St Pauls from the outside of Tate Modern, with added bonus of bubbles from one of the many buskers.

Crossing over the Millennium Bridge we passed the cathedral before heading up Fleet St back towards where we started, we took a detour down one of the side streets and into the Temple area. I love this bit of London, especially on a Sunday, when it is almost deserted. I have never seen Temple Church before, stunning. One of the things I enjoy about the Temple is that it is a bit of a warren, I have been here a few times, yet I have never found this bit; and it is hardly a small bit !

Queen Victoria outside the Royal Courts of Justice.

Our final stop was at Somerset House, where we met El for lunch and a glass of rose. We love Somerset House in summer, a glass of wine in a beautiful courtyard just off of the mad busy Strand, wonderful.

That was the end of my brief walking tour of London for Martha. Three hours of walking and chatting and catching up on life back in New Zealand. A great day out, and a reminder that I do love this city!

I am some art.

Friday 14 October 2016 – London.

I have not been on a street art walk in Shoreditch, or anywhere else for quite a long time. I have dabbled here and there with a quick visit, but rarely have I been inspired to take photos. I have been to a few gallery openings with my mate Darryl, and have seen some pretty good stuff, but nothing has gone into the blog for ages.

I had a couple of photo exhibitions to visit today, both in the east end, and with a slight diversion or two, separated by some street art walls. It was time to take a walk – even if it was just a short one.

To be honest, the heydey of street art in this and most other parts of London seem to be over. That rush of 2012+2013 when fresh, new and exciting artists were being created locally or visiting from far of land is long gone. On the odd occasion I have had a look around, there has been nothing much to report.

However there was some good stuff out there today. I am bit out of touch now, so there are a few artists I do not recognise.

I will start with the ones I know, and very definitely my favourite from the day. I am a fan of Dale Grimshaw, I own a print of one of his pieces, but I have never seen one this big – on the back wall of the Village Underground. Brilliant! Those eyes….

I also really like the small paste ups of Jana and JS, I haven’t seem them around much, so nice seeing some of their work back in the country again.

The always colourful Thierry Noir.

Mr Cenz.

Dan Kitchener.

Ant Carver.

The rest I liked, but cannot name!

I am off to Berlin in two weeks time, it is a work conference, but I hope to be able to sneak off for a couple of hours while I am there to do some tourist things. One of which will be to check out some street art.

Two days after I get back from Berlin I am off on my travels to India, Australia, New Zealand and Dubai. I am almost organised now. Wahoo !!

St Pancras Old Church and the Hardy Tree.

February 19 2016 – London.

Last weekend, and over far too many glasses of red wine for a Sunday night a friend told me about St Pancras Old Church and its small cemetery. I had not heard of it before, and it sounded like just the sort of place I would like to visit. One of the things I love about London is hearing about, or finding for myself, places of interest that just seem to be lost to the general public and hidden from the main tourist trail. Places that have a long history or are a small, yet key chapter in the tale of London, the UK or further afield. I am sure this is true for all cities and large towns, there are stories there to be found, if you look in the right places.

St Pancras Old Church is hardly hidden from view. It is right next to St Pancras station, one of the busiest train stations in London, but it is way past the entrance to the station, and as we well know, most folk just walk the popular busy routes. Straying up side streets is too slow – or maybe just too dangerous (sorry for the additional drama – I have been reading Steven King !).

St Pancras Old Church can be found on St Pancras Road, it is believed to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, and is dedicated to the martyr St Pancras. St Pancras was a very early Roman Christian and was beheaded at the age of 14 in 304 – his skull remains in St Pancras church, but the one in Rome.

The church’s history remains a bit murky, with conflicting versions of when the site was first used for worship. One version suggests that this was consecrated ground as far back as 314, while another suggests the ninth century. Whatever its origins the church and the surrounding area were largely left deserted in the 14^th century when the population moved up to what is now Kentish Town due to flooding from the River Fleet. The church was left in a state of disrepair and was only occasionally used until it was renovated in the 19^th century.

To add to its mystery, due to its state of disrepair it was one of last churches to hold a Catholic mass after the dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s and it is said to be one of the last places in England to toll a bell for mass. It was also one of the few places in London were Catholics were buried, with the son of composer Johan Sebastian Bach being buried here. I did not find his grave.I did find others though.

The grounds of the church are as interesting as the history of the site. The tomb of architect John Sloane was the inspiration for one of Britain’s most loved and well known icons – the red telephone box, which were designed by architect Giles Scott once he had become the patron of the John Sloane Museum. It is one of a very small number of grade 1 listed monuments in the UK.

Burials were stopped in the churchyard in 1854 when construction started on the new St Pancras station. In the mid 1860s a young architect by the name of Thomas Hardy (THAT Thomas Hardy – he wasn’t born an author !) was placed in charge of the moving of a number of those buried and the Hardy Tree still remains. This was the attraction that drew me to visit, though I have to say that being made to read all ten gazillion pages of Tess of the bloody D’Urbervilles at age 16 was one of my most painful memories of high school and I swore I would never have anything to do with Hardy ever again. This small section of the churchyard is quite remarkable and something I have not seen before.

I took a slow stroll around the churchyard, the grounds are in a nice area for this part of London and there were a few people around, walking dogs and at least one other visitor taking photos, I guess it is not that secret

Eventually I made my way inside the church building, it has a very plain and simple interior, mostly from the renovation in the 19^th century. I do not know anything about this triptych.

As it was Friday and a day off work and as it was also gloriously sunny I had decided to walk from St Pancras to Liverpool St Station via Somerset House on the north bank of the Thames. I love Somerset House, but we have not been there for ages, it does have a really nice cafe in Fernandez and Wells and it was here I went to for coffee and eggs on toast – for a very late, and well earned breakfast. Surprisingly there were no free exhibitions on, so after lunch I carried on my journey to the station and caught the train home.

I love finding different places, in and around London; there are so many to find, if you look hard enough. What I particularly liked about St Pancras Old Church was it had links to so many historical figures, so not just a nice place to visit, but an education as well.

A walk in the Park(land)

Saturday 06 June 2015 – Parkland Walk, London.

The Parkland Walk has been on my list of things to do for ages and ages, I cannot remember how it got on the to-do list or where I discovered it, but it looked like it was worth doing – mainly just because it was there to be done.

The walk follows the path of an abandoned railway line that was ripped up in the 1970s and turned into a park in 1984, it goes from Finsbury Park up to Highgate, it is not particularly long, particularly interesting or particularly scenic. But it is a really lovely short walk, taking under an hour from start to finish. It is also incredibly popular, I have never seen so many runners in London on a Saturday morning. It was a nice sunny day, though cool and very windy. A good running or walking day.

I am sitting at my mum’s dining table in New Zealand as I write this, I am tired after three days with almost no sleep, and jet-lagged from my flight over from London, so not feeling the most effusive today.

The path is surrounded by a narrow band of scrub and trees which mostly the hide the houses that run close to the path.

As the path is based on an old railway line there are numerous bridges along the way as the path passes under the roads. These are the heavily graffitied and a reminder that we are in the middle of a city.

There was also a really cool little playground under the trees.

Just past the remains of Crouch Hill station I spotted this sculpture lurking in one of the arches, quite frightening ! It is the Spriggan and is by Marilyn Collins, it was installed in 1993. According to urban legend, a ghostly ‘goat-man’ haunted the walk in the 1970s and 1980s and children dared each other to walk the walk between Crouch End Hill bridge to the Crouch Hill bridge in the darkness. The sculpture, and Parkland Walk generally, provided the inspiration for Stephen King’s short story “Crouch End” I can see why!

This section off the path ends just before Highgate Station when the lines go into old tunnels that have now been blocked off as they are now the home to bats.

We walked up past the station and across into Highgate Wood.

After seeing a sign pointing to a cafe we decided to take a break and sit down for coffee and cake, before backtracking a bit and heading up/down to Highgate.

We walked down through Waterlow Park in Highgate and on to Gospel Oak station to catch the train back to Walthamstow. El did. I took a detour through Shoreditch and grabbed a couple of new release records on the way. I wanted something new to listen to on the plane, but neither came with download codes which was a wee bit annoying.

It was a lovely walk, somewhere new to explore and something I would recommend on a sunny day. London never fails to amaze me with the amount of outdoorness there is.

Spectra – a beam of light.

Wednesday 6 August 2014 – London.

When I was researching information about the wonderful World War 1 memorial art installation at the Tower of London I discovered that there was an equally amazing installation in Victoria Tower Gardens that is a must see.

I arranged to meet El at Tower Hill Station when she had finished work and to pass some time and get some exercise in I walked there from Stratford, via my new favourite pathway along the Lea Navigation to Limehouse Quay, and then along the Thames Path to Tower Bridge.

As El had yet to see it, our first stop was the stunning Tower of London installation, “Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red”, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post.

We walked to Victoria Tower Gardens via Somerset House and one of our favourite cafes where we stopped for a glass of rose and a light meal before heading over to the gardens just before sunset.

The installation, named Spectra, was created by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda and produced by the art collective ArtAngel. It is made up of a grid of 49 individual search lights that combine to create a beam that shoots fifteen miles up into the sky. There was not a lot happening when we arrived, and I was surprised at how few people were there, especially given that this work is only around for one week and finishes on 11 August.

The art work commemorates the start of WW1 and the famous quote from Viscount Edward Grey “The lamps are going out all over Europe – we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”

Not long after we arrived the sun officially set and soon after that the lights were turned on, one by one and technicians walked around and adjusted the louvres on top of the lights. As the sunlight slowly faded the powerful beams could be seen against the dark back drop of the trees that bank the River Thames.

Once all was working, I was really surprised to see that the tape surrounding the installation was removed and the public were allowed to walk in-between the lights. More and more people started to show up.

Once the sun had fully disappeared over the horizon the moon became visible. I tried to get the moon and the entire beam into one shot, but without the big camera and its uber wide-angle lens, this was not going to happen unfortunately. However, the sight of the moon rising through the beam was just fabulous. As El said to me at the time, sometimes you just have to stop taking photos and just enjoy what you are experiencing as you are experiencing it.

As the evening wore on the number of people arriving to view the work grew, like the moths that were drawn to lights. It was interesting watching people pouring through the park gates and moving in and out of the light tubes. I was wondering if they were created to be high enough that only heads poked above the bases and were then lit by the ambient glow. It was fun watching people wave their hands and arms through the light, looking up to see if there was a shadow in the beam, taking photos from different angles. Just experiencing something different in different ways. A great people watch.

Just before heading off home we stepped back from the installation and I took a few photos looking back over the Houses of Parliament.

Before one final shot of the base, surrounded by onlookers with cameras and phones raised high.

We walked over to Westminster Bridge to get a couple of shots from a different angle, before heading home. Though it does not have as wide an angle lens as I would like this new Canon G16 is a wonderful camera for hand held low light shooting.

One of the many many reasons I love living in this wonderful city is access to beautiful works of art like this. What a fabulous night.

Spectra is a travelling work and has been seen in various forms in a few other countries, it is still travelling the world so if you get a chance to see it, do!

The future is just like now, except in a little while.

Tuesday 5 August 2014 – London.

Since I have been back from my travels I have had two rounds of job interviews, both with employers rather than with agencies, and this week I have second interviews with both of them, so I have fingers crossed for both jobs. They are different roles, both in IT and I would be happy if I was offered the opportunity with either one. With thoughts of potential employment ahead and still with the objective of dropping a couple of pounds I decided to make good use of my free days and get outside as much as possible. Like last week I was meeting my mate John for coffee in Canary Wharf, but this time I decided I would ride my bike, and like last week I took my camera. I wasn’t in a rush…

The ride to Canary Wharf from Walthamstow is pretty good, most of it is off road and on the tow path down the side of the Lea Navigation and the Limehouse Cut.

The first couple of kilometres are through city streets, but soon enough I was entering the Walthamstow Marshes area, via a hunched over slow pedal under the railway.

The marshes are a lovely rural spot on the banks of the River Lea, there is plenty of wildlife, both domestic and wild and it is quite popular with dog walkers, runners, cyclists and families out for a picnic on a nice sunny day.

Just past Lea Bridge Road the river splits into two, the river itself and the Lea Navigation. The Navigation is the main channel for the hundreds of narrow river boats that ply the water ways of the UK. The Navigation also connects up with the Hertford Union Canal which feeds into the immensely popular Regents Canal that passes through central London. The meeting point of Hertford Union Canal is at Hackney Wick, which is fast becoming another key street art zone in east London. There is a bit of art on walls down the tow path, including this lovely piece from Sweet Toof.

A new work from a Brazilian artist who has recently visited and whose name I have totally forgotten.

As well as some of the usual Hackney Wick suspects like Himbad, Pang and Broken Fingaz.

Once past Hackney Wick the tow path leaves the trees and grass verges behind and starts to pass through more commercial, light industrial and residential areas. It is still pretty to a degree, but the ride is not quite as nice. I large patches the river is heavily weeded – it was also just announced as one of the most polluted water way in the UK, though lots of people fish in it,

and a lot of people travel up and down it.

There is also a lot of construction going along at the southern, Bow end of the river, with dozens of flats going up. It was looking like I was going to be late for my coffee so I stopped taking photos and put my foot, well both feet, down and rode on to Canary Wharf.

After a very enjoyable coffee in the sun with John I rode back the way I came. However, this time I paid attention on the way down as there is a weird little intersection at Limehouse Key and last time I rode this way I ended up heading off to the Regents Canal and had to do a loop back at Victoria Gardens in Hackney. The confusion is less obvious here, but if you end up on the bridge coming the other way, you are definitely going to not get on the right canal path!

I took a slightly more leisurely ride back home, stopping to take photos as things caught my fancy, like this bit of graf, a sentiment I agree with.

There are three places where you have to cross the river, most of them can be ridden over, though of course courtesy says if there are pedestrians walking across the bridge then getting off the bike is the best thing to do.

There is a long term rumour of a crocodile or large snake living in the Lea, the last that was heard about it was just before the Olympics in 2012, but the rumour has been a while for a while, I am not sure if old school street artist Rowdy was painting after a sighting though.

Though this has not made much impact on the amount of birdlife on the canal, and there are a lot of chicks around at the moment.

There is a lovely little stretch of canal near Three Mile Lane with some nice grassed banks and these lovely old mill buildings, this is definitely my favourite part of this stretch of the Lea.

Just up from Three Mile is the dreaded Bow roundabout, the most deadly section of road in the UK for cyclists, and one that is fortunately high on the list to be fixed. Luckily the path passes beneath it.

Soon I was back to Hackney Wick / Stratford area with artists and painted warehouses on one side of the river and athletes and the Olympic Park on the other.

I walk this way every so often and have never seen a sunken boat before. The owner was there waiting for people to come and lift the boat. He said it was old and had been a little leaky, but just went down a couple of days ago when the battery died. It looked like it was quite a nice boat before that.

For most of the way there is a single path, shared by walkers, runners and cyclists. I like to think it is shared with care, but suspect some cyclists give others a bad name. Never being in a rush I am always polite and warn other users with a polite ding of my bell from as far back as I can. There is a nice section near Hackney Marshes that actually has two paths, the inner one is supposed to be used by cyclists, but naturally has the worst surface. I tend to use it, but there are as many dog walkers here as the other path so it is a no-win situation.

I spotted this cool Sweet Toof painted canal boat up towards Lea Bridge Rd.

I rode back through Walthamstow Marshes a different way to my southbound trip, I wanted to visit the railway underpass that was painted last summer as part of the ‘Mural on the marsh” project. Brazilian artist Louis Masai had added a bee to the wall as part of an ongoing series highlight the global plight of bees.

It looks like it is going to be an early blackberry season this year, I must come back with a container!

I had been putting off stopping for a coffee riding since I left Canary Wharf, there are some nice cafes around the Hackney Wick area, but I wanted to head to Bygga Bo, my favourite Walthamstow coffee shop, but I had totally forgotten it was Tuesday and they were closed… Bugger !

Later in the afternoon I heard I did not get one of the jobs I had interviewed for, oh well.

An afternoon stroll

Friday 01 August 2014 – London.

With all my holidaying and travelling around, plus a bout of pre-holidaying laziness I seem to have gotten a bit ‘soft’ round the middle. In effort to reduce some of the softness and prepare myself for getting back into running again I have decided to fill some of my days with a good long walk. If I think the walk is interesting enough I will chuck the camera in my bag and take some photos on the way.

Today I had planned to meet my mate John for coffee near his office in Canary Wharf at 10:00 and then meet El at South Kensington station at 6:00 so we could see the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographic Society. This left me with a decent sized gap in the middle of the day with not much to do so I decided to save money and wasted travel time and take a very slow walk between the two. With the best will in the world even I could not walk that slowly, so to get some practise at carrying a pack as I am thinking of an overnight walk sometime soon, I threw my laptop and a change of clothes in a day bag. I hoped to take some time and stop in a cafe somewhere and actually doing some of the photo editing and blog writing I had been procrastinating on. For good measure I tossed the book I am reading about walking around Britain in as well – just in case I need to procrastinate further. It was a warm day, humid with mostly clear skies, but with a forecast of heavy rain ahead, so I was quite prepared for all contingencies: water, bandana – and a rain coat.

For a bit of fun I put my Garmin GPS watch on and recorded the walk, stopping the clock for any long breaks. I was also quite keen to see what sort of pace I maintain on a fast casual walk – if I do decide to do something a bit longer – at least I know how long to allow for it! It was good to know that I kept a fairly consistent 6km an hour pace for the whole 18kms – which is pretty much what I thought it would be.

I left Canary Wharf just after 11am and intended to follow the Thames Path to Tower Bridge.

The tide was most of the way and one of the things that really intrigues me about the Thames, and something I will look into, is the amount of old wharf and bridge pilings that are just sitting there, sticking out of the low tide mud. How long have they been there and what were they ? This area of London has historically been very shipping orientated and am I sure there are some interesting histories peaking out of the riverbed.

A lot of the buildings on both sides of the Thames are old warehouses and I really like the way this old crane structure has been used as stairs for these converted flats. I would love an apartment anywhere along here !

The Thames Path is not that easy to follow, on either side of the river to be fair. It is adequately sign posted in some places, though I highly suspect some of the residents who share some land with the path have removed signs to prevent us great unwashed from walking past their windows.

The path meanders in and out from the river side as old warehouses and wharfs butt up against the river.

In one case the path just led to a completely closed off section as new homes (for the rich I suspect) are being built. This was a bit frustrating as it meant having to back track a couple of hundred metres and walk down the road.

Though Wapping High Street is not a bad street to walk down these days. Since the great press migration to Wapping in the 1980s I have always though the area would be full of massive warehouses and sheds full of large printing presses – very much like where I last worked, but the main thoroughfare and local side streets are very nice. And of course the great press migration from Wapping is now over with the last of the big papers moving out again.

The river side walk is interesting with a few things to look at on the way.

I arrived in St Katherines Docks after an hour or so of walking. I am not a huge fan of the area as it is very touristy and there is not a heck of a lot to see if you do not like yachts – much as I don’t mind being on a boat, I am not one to spend loads of time admiring them, unlike bicycles. The docks area has a mix of nice old buildings.

And some things that should be immediately destroyed and the person who gave permission to build them sent to the gulags.

The docks area are next to the Tower of London and this was my next stop, I love the Tower at the best of times, symbol as it may be of kings and queens and power and abuse of power, it is a stunning building. However, today I was here to see the early phases of a massive World War 1 memorial project art installation named ‘Bloodswept lands and seas of red. Planting of large ceramic poppies commenced on the 100th anniversary of the start of the war at the end of July 1914, at the end of the project on November 2014 888, 246 poppies will have been planted, one for each British fatality in the war. That number is just so large, I cannot imagine what the moat of the tower will look like. As I write this there a number of small wars going on in the world, Syria, Gaza and Iraq being just the ones on the news – seems we have not learned anything – ever.

From the Tower I walked down under London Bridge along Upper and Lower Thames and crossed the river on Blackfriars Bridge.

My next stop was another art work that is part of the WW1 remembrance project. HMS President was built during the first world war as an anti-submarine vessel and has been moored on the Thames since 1922. It has been repainted in a stylised ‘Dazzle camouflage’ by the artist Tobias Rehberger. Dazzle camouflage was used during WW1 to make it hard for enemy submarines to calculate the course of a vessel by breaking up its normal lines. I really liked it.

As I was walking up towards the Southbank I realised I have walked past the book and map sellers under Waterloo Bridge dozens of times and have never ever taken a photo – so I did…

They are expensive, but I like the idea and have seen similar on the banks of the Seine in Paris as well. My next stop was the back of the South Bank centre, there was some new street art painted there as part of the Southbank’s ‘love’ themed summer festival. New works by Ewe Linak,

And the ever present Lost Souls Crew, though there was a large van parked in front of their’s.

I stopped for some well earned lunch of a vegeball burger at the food stalls behind the Southbank, the burger was great.

It was really hot out there and there was not a lot of places to sit in the shade so after eating I walked back to the river side, where the fountain was the most popular I have ever seen it. With school holidays on there are loads of families out and about along this part of the Thames today, nice to see kids enjoying some free fun !

After a coffee at the Southbank I crossed back over Waterloo Bridge to the north side of the Thames and walked up through Soho to pick the brilliant free monthly music magazine ‘Loud and quiet’ from one of the lovely little record shops on Berwick St. With a couple of hours left to kill before meeting El I stopped for a cold drink in a cafe, got the laptop out and wrote most of the first day in Copenhagen blog. It is something I should do more of, get away from internet access and use the computer for something productive.

It was such a nice day that I decided to wait for El in Hyde Park, I power walked through the human mess that is Oxford St and into a large oasis of calm and peace. The Serpentine was fairly busy with most of the boats out on the lake.

I wanted to check out the recently re-opened Serpentine Gallery but you needed a ticket to get in to the exhibition that was on today.

So I went into the recently opened 2014 pavilion, by artist Smiljan Radic – now known as the space ship and bought a coffee. I wandered down to the bottom end of the park, found a nice bank to sit on, got out my book,

and it poured with rain. I drank my coffee under a tree and after a very short downpour walked down to the V and A museum where, after getting changed, I waited for El over a glass of sauv and a bag of crisps. As I sat there in the cool shade under a blue sky, gazing out across the pond in the square in the the museum it was hard to believe that not fifteen minutes earlier people were running from the rain.

One of the many many things I love about London is these small oasis of calm in the middle of busy public spaces, somewhere quiet and sheltered where you can buy a nice coffee or a glass of wine and relax surrounded by lovely old buildings. The best thing is they always seem so deserted.

El arrived soon after I did and we walked to the Royal Geographic Society building back up Exhibition Drive towards Hyde Park. The Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition is on and as we both really enjoyed it last year I bought tickets to a private viewing so we could walk around in relative peace. It was a fabulous exhibition, I am so envious of some of the skills that these photographers have and there are some magical images, it finishes on the 17 August. Naturally it rained again, but just a light shower…

And that was it for the day, it was a good day out, I enjoyed the walk, as always, and saw a little bit of London I have not seen before.

I took this picture the day before from a friends balcony and thought it was worth sharing.

And now for something completely different – ComicCon 2014

Saturday 24 May 2014 – ComicCon, London.

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last wrote a post, I also find it hard to believe that I have not done anything in that time that I found blog-worthy – though it must be true as there are no posts. I have been pretty busy though, there seems to always be a lot happening. I did start a project to photograph all the remaining sections of London’s Roman walls and thought I had finished until I found a blog post that showed I had missed a fair few pieces. If it stops raining in the coming week I will get out there and finish it off before I start the next project on my list.

A few weeks ago my mate Steve asked me if I wanted to go to ComicCon at the ExCel Centre and take some photos, I have never been to a comic festival before so immediately said yes, something completely different to my normal activities.

I have been suffering from some minor back pain for a while so decided I would not take the big camera as I get a sore back from lugging it around. I took the small Panasonic, which was a decision I really regretted at the end of the day. I took a lot of photos and deleted most of them as the focal point on the camera was not in the centre where I thought it was, I had knocked it out to one side. This meant that virtually all my photos were badly out of focus – gutting ! It was my fault; I have never really gotten into the habit of closely checking photos when I take them – “chimping”. I glanced at them to see if I had exposure set correctly, but without my reading glasses on everything is sort of blurry anyway. Mistake – oh well. Lessons learned – when taking photos of people in low light environments use the Canon, or learn how to take photos properly with the Panasonic first.

Steve and I had arranged to meet at the ExCel at 10:00 but I got there really early as I badly over-estimated how long it would take me to get there. The train ride in was interesting as the carriage was jammed, with half the people in weird and wonderful costumes, some I recognised – most I didn’t. It must have been a surreal experience for those on the train who did not know what was going on.

I grabbed a coffee and stood on the concourse from the station and watched the crowds go past.

Slowly and surely I was forced further and further back by the crowds as I tried to maintain a position where Steve could easily find me, until finally I was right back at the end of the concourse and just waited in the crowd. I was really surprised at the amount of people here!

Steve arrived on time and we slowly made our way into the venue, past some pretty serious security.

We finally made through the front gate into the centre itself, where we split into two groups, those with priority tickets, like us – and those without. Those without had to queue downstairs.

While we went into the exhibition centre itself – into another mass of people waiting to get their tickets checked.

Once through the ticket barrier I assumed it would be all go. No – there was the wrist band barrier to go through next.

Finally after an hour and a half of queuing we were in !!

I had no idea what to expect inside, I knew there would be stands and normal exhibition type stuff and I knew there would be people dressed as their favourite character, but I was surprised at the amount of people in costume – and I thought it was all rather cool. Most people would pose for photos if asked and there were (I am assuming) a number of professionals posing in all the well lit locations. There were a lot of photographers!

The exhibition itself was not that interesting for me, I am not a comic guy or gamer, so a lot of the references were meaningless, though of course there was still plenty of familiar things – like Cyanide and Happiness – I like how “The Joker” is buying something…

There were stands from some of the big boys in the genre, like Transformers and Dr Who.

Along with live comic drawings.

Gaming

Loads of large weapons – luckily there was no bag search !

And weird stuff for sale.

After walking round, the rather disappointing, exhibition areas for a while Steve and I hung out in the couple of locations were the light was good and took photos, which in my case were mostly rubbish, though I saved a few for the sake of documenting the event.

Yay – R2D2 !

Even evil gods like Loki need some time out to keep their social media feeds updated…

I left just after 2:00 and headed outside and was completely surprised to see hundreds of people out there. I had read on the event program about loads of meet-ups for the various fan clubs and here there were in the all their costumed glory. Perhaps we should just stayed outside !!

It was a fun day out, I was disappointed that some zombie facial close-ups I took were just terrible, along with a load of other out of focus shots. You would think I would have learned this lesson before now, but no – I haven’t!

I will definitely go again, but will just hang out outside – where the real action is.

Thanks Steve, I look forward to seeing some of your photos – no pressure 🙂

I made it home just before the rain hit!

A revisit to Greenwich, again

Tuesday 18 March 2014 – Greenwich.

After applying for a few jobs throughout the the morning I decided to take a walk to Greenwich after lunch. I have been there a few times before and have never had a really good look around as it is quite a big space; not that I ended up with one this time either. It is a good two hour walk there from my place so by the time I arrived things were winding down, and I was a bit knackered anyway. I did spend an hour there and knocked off a couple of things I wanted to do, like walk under the Thames in the pedestrian tunnel and try to find the bank building were my mum worked when she first left school.

I did manage to walk under the river, but I failed to find the bank building as the high street of Greenwich Town has changed a lot since then. Sorry Mum !!

As I will return to Greenwich another day I didn’t really make note of the things I took pictures of, so not a lot of detail here about the history of the place. Another time perhaps. I did enjoy the walk and I did enjoy taking pictures.

I walked from my place in London Bridge as much as I could along the side of the Thames. The way is a wee bit confusing, poor signage and new building works, plus having to go around all the little wharves make it a longer walk than it looks. A couple of miles up the Thames from home is the Brunel Museum, somewhere I have yet to visit, and I didn’t today due to time restraints, the building is cool though.

This says a lot of things about this part of London !

Yesterday, when I vaguely planned going for a walk this afternoon the forecast was for a bit of cloud and a bit of sun, I think the sun may have passed by in the morning while I was head down in my laptop as I had to delay my departure due to a brief shower. There were a couple along the way, but this was made up for by some lovely clouds, and the sun did briefly pop out once I had arrived.

This is Surrey Docks Farm, a small farm garden in the heart of Thames side south east London, very neat. It would be great to see more community vegetable spaces in London.

A lot of the Thames Walk passes around the side of old and new housing estates and blocks of very expensive flats. In most cases you can walk river side of these blocks, but sometimes there is a detour round the side streets.

The whole of the east city area of the Thames was a working port and most of the older building are the warehouses that served the many many wharves along the banks. Here and there are relics from the days when ships were worked here.

Peter the Great, the Russian Tzar once studied shipbuilding as a youth and lived in Deptford in the late 1600s, I assume before he was the king 🙂 There is a monument to him on the river side.

Once I arrived at Greenwich my first stop was for a coffee and the cafe I chose just happened to also be the brewery for the lovely Meantime beer, we sold a couple of varieties in the pub I worked in. I was well behaved and only had a coffee, decaf ! Oh, Ok and a chocolate chip biscuit 🙂

I spent most of an hour wandering around the royal college area at Greenwich, as well as walking up to Greenwich town in a failed attempt to find mum’s bank.

Apart from nipping inside the Painted Hall just before closing I was outside the Old Royal Naval College. I really enjoyed the fact that there was hardly anyone around while I was there.

The Cutty Sark.

I have been to Greenwich, and written about it a couple of times before, but I did not realise the tunnel under the Thames was still running until my flatmate mentioned it recently. I had walked past the entrance at least a couple of times on earlier visits and just did not realise what it was.

So I decided to walk under the Thames to the other side, it takes a few minutes and is a little weird as there are numerous damp patches on the walls.

I took a photo of the Old Royal Naval College from the other side and then walked back through the tunnel to Greenwich, where I caught a train home.

It was a really enjoyable walk and again I was happy with the photos I took.

Millennium Bridge

28 January 2014 – London

I have not logged into here for ages and have just noticed the date of my last post – wow, it has been such a long time. I do have a post in the wings, a general, sort of quick wrap-up of those missing months, but it has been in the wings for rather a long time. I must finish it in the next day or so as I am heading back to New Zealand for a holiday tomorrow and I do not want to have old blog baggage hanging over my head…

Rather than finish that post off I am going to procrastinate on it further by doing this post instead.

I took a brief walk along the south bank this afternoon, I went to have a look at the Landscape Photographer of the Year photos on display at the National Theatre. I was suitably impressed, and also depressed at my lack of out-put this year, plus the fact I really am going to have to get the Canon or the wide angle lens looked at as the images are really ‘soft’ and I am not sure why.

The secondary purpose of the walk was a vain hope of getting a sunset – though the forecast was for showers, it had been reasonably fine all day. I have been following a couple on Instragram who have been coming up with some great London images lately and I had been looking to them for some motivation, and sunsets always make for some great images.

There was no sunset… But I did like watching the clouds come in from the south and skip over the Thames so I took a few photos of that instead. The light was quite flat and the sky grey so I have converted and them all into monochrome.

Trees by the IBM building.

Rain starting to fall as the clouds cross over Waterloo Bridge.

I was going to walk over to St Pauls as the light was looking quite good and there was the possibility of some dramatic shots, however as I walked up the Millennium Bridge the rain started to fall – and the Big Issue seller scurried away soon after.

I took a few shots of St Pauls over the arch of the bridge, before calling it quits and walking home.

This is my favourite shot from the walk, the clouds were sweeping in, slowly filling the clear patches of sky.

It was good to get some practice in before my New Zealand trip, and I have now decided I will take the Canon rather than the smaller and lighter Panasonic. A decision I had been pondering on for a few days. Whew!