On Our Way to St. Paul's

Here's the backside of the Mary le Strand as we walked on down the Strand.

Off to London!

Once our house sit in Staunton was over, we left directly for Merry Ole England and a house sit there. The remodeling work on the house in Snohomish started later than expected and so we out exploring while we wait.

No visit to the big city is complete without a stop at the Borough Market. It has changed a good bit since we were there last. It is still great, but there is a slicker feel to it. Not quite so quintessentially English, rather more like a place designed for tourists. And it is still very busy.

The Beginning of the Adventure

In the middle of December, we started on our grand adventure to see Santa Claus. First stop, London. Our first stop on this dreary day was the Borough Market.  The crowd was so thick, we could hardly move. We abandoned this mash for a ride on the London Eye.

Hyde Park, December 2014

At the end of 2014, we headed back to London (after our spring semester there) and stayed at a strange little AirBnB in Brixton. While there, we went to Hyde Park to the extravaganza that passes for a Christmas market on steroids in the UK. It was filled with places to eat (lots of German sausages and American hamburgers) and things to buy (including a young woman in a headscarf selling Christmas ornaments!). But the big draw was the carnival rides. I took a few shots to try to capture the motion of the rides.

Highgate Cemetery - 2014

Certainly, on of the best cemeteries we've visited is Highgate in London. It is filled with Victorian cemetery art of the highest order and populated by a zoo of famous people along with the lowly folks like us.

London, 2014

Just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone what the world used to be like and, perhaps, will be again one day.

This is the Russell Square Tube Station in Bloomsbury, London. It is one of the closer stations to the British Museum. It is served by the Central Line. While we rode in from the house in East Finchley via the Tottenham Court Road Station on the Northern Line during our stay there in 2014, I often found myself walking to this station for a daily outing. While it is smaller and much less busy than the one at Tottenham Court Road, access is by way of an elevator or a torturous set of spiral stairs with something like 80-100 steps. So, you choices are slow or painful. If you've got time or this is the best connection, it is good option.

We miss our visits to London. We were there last about 12 years ago (at least it feels that way) in January of this year.

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson

When do we leave?

 On the way to Hatchards bookstore, I stopped in the Piccadilly Arcade for a few moments to have a look about. Here, I found several iconic street views.

The Science Museum

A quick visit to the main floor of the Science Museum, next to the Natural History Museum, just to see the steam engines. This one was built by Boulton and Watt and is

..the oldest, mainly unaltered rotative engine in the world. Built by James Watt in 1788, it incorporates all his most important steam engine improvements. This engine operated at Boulton's Soho manufactory in Birmingham where button, snuffboxes, and other small decorated metal items were made. This engine drove 73 metal polishing - 'lapping' - machines for 70 years. 

This is one of the machines that changed the world. It is amazing that it still exists.

The engine below was

...constructed in 1903 by the Burnley Ironworks Company for the Harle Syke Mill, Burnley. It is an example of a 'horizontal' engine, a type that was widely used after 1850, and was direct acting, doing away with the giant rocker beams of earlier engines. This one is typical of many built during the period and it worked right up to 1970.

Here is a closer view of the engine and the periodic expulsion of steam as part of the engine cycle.

I find it amazing that such complicated pieces of exactly machined pieces of equipment are still in working order after more than a century.

The Natural History Museum

I has always loved this statue of Charles Darwin. Seeing him in context here in the Natural History Museum, we realize that this is an monument to his contributions. Those Victorians...they really knew how to built a shrine.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Our destination on this long day of wandering about the West End was St. Martin-in-the-Fields church. Here, we saw a find concert of baroque music.

St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden

To the southwest of the main building at Covent Garden stand St. Paul's Church., Yes, there is more than one St. Paul's in London.

Walking to Seven Dials

One the way from Trafalgar to Seven Dials, we pass Cecil Court. This street is filled with little shops selling stuff you rarely see on other streets.

Whitehall

Although Whitehall is a street in Westminster that connects Trafalgar to Parliament Square, it also a metonym for civil service and government. Perhaps this is because the area is filled with white stone buildings that are themselve filled with government offices.

The Embankment

Along the Thames, just south of Trafalgar and Covent Garden, lies the Embankment. Here we find a statue of Robert Raikes. If you ever sat in sunday school bored out of your mind, this is the fellow to blame, apparently.

On the Road Again!

We're headed to London today during a transition between house sits.

Greenwich Market

There are still some places in the world that eat eels. apparently, Greenwich is one of them. From the sign on the window, people have been eating eels here since 1890. I think I'll take a raincheck on that.

Art of Divers Kinds

We decided to visit an antique market in Islington and found it to be a bust when we got there. Either it not longer happens or we were simply there on the wrong day. So we went exploring. Our next stop was Shoreditch, known for its street art.

Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

Not far from the Borough Market, on the way toward the Shard is the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. After climbing 52 steps up an very narrow spiral staircase we are treated to this attic loft of a Herb Garret filled with 19th century medical instruments and potions.

Wyndham's Theater

We ventured down to Leicester Square to the Wyndham's Theater to see the Arthur Miller play The Price. It starred Brendan Coyle (of Downton Abbey fame), David Suchet (of Poirot Fame), Adrian Lukas, and Sara Stewart. It was exceedingly well done.

British Museum Antiquties

No visit to the the British Museum would be complete without at least a short visit to the antiquities section to see some of the Roman, Greek, and Assyrian permanent collection. Above is a portion of one if the metopes from the Parthenon.