London – Page 4 – A Full-time Life

RAINVILLE ROAD, LONDON

(Click on thumb nail photos for larger views.)

Geoff wrote that he had come across a reference to Rainville Road, London. As he said, what are the odds? Our name’s unusual enough that we were intrigued. (Maybe if it was Smith or Jones, we wouldn’t have immediately started to plan the trip.)

It turned out that Rainville Road is located in a very pretty part of West London in the borough of Hammersmith/Fulham. We had another place we wanted to visit in the area of King’s Cross, which was the nearest tube stop, so it made a great day.

And, wow! "Our" street runs parallel to, and just a building’s width away from, The River Thames — it’s east, across the river, from the new Chelsea Stadium.

It’s a mixed use street, starting with some stores, a couple of good restaurants and a pub, and a nicely located architectural office. There’s a block of flats — Rainville Court — that have views of the river on the back side. We walked through a little alley pointing to Dorset Wharf to get to the River Side of the street. In the alley, we saw this little sign. We’re not usually fans of graffiti, but since it was Rainville Road, we thought it was really interesting to see our 9 year old grandson’s name right there.

This one’s for you, Ryan:

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Below are some views of the street and river side of Rainville Road. These flats, according to a fellow we met who lives there, are worth 5-7 hundred thousand pounds. Nice name, nice neighborhood!

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Sure wish we had more information on the history of the road’s name — we haven’t yet been able to find out anything more about it. Maybe if we have time, we’ll go back to the Borough and see what we can learn.

July 8, 2007

GREENWICH OBSERVATORY

In Greenwich we visited the Royal Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). You can see the telescope dome to the left, and the red time ball that drops at 1:00 PM each day. Major studies by the astromomers and the development of accurate clocks enabled the establishment of the longitudinal navigational lines around earth. The lines start here, at the Prime Meridian, where Sallie is standing with one foot in each hemisphere. 008_5

By an international agreement of 1864, this is the official starting point for every new day, month and year.

The Observatory was founded by King Charles II in 1675, and the building designed by Christopher Wren. The main purpose was to improve navigation. In 1714, the British Government offered a prize of 20,000 pounds (a fortune for those days) to anyone who could come up with a solution to provide longitude to ships at sea. Because there was no way for ships to figure out where they were at sea, the nation had experienced many shipwrecks with devastating losses.

The eventual winner of the prize was John Harrison, who designed a marine chronometer that worked. We visited the Time Galleries, which feature the winning one and other tries by him and others. There are other historic timepieces and interactive explorations of time in our lives.

This is part of the reconstruction of the home of the first Royal Astronomer, John Flamstead, which was a part of the Royal Observatory. Although made a member of "The Royal Household", Mr Flamstead received only 100 pounds a year for his work and that of his wife, who served as his assistant. When he died, his wife — not so surprisingly — sold most of his belongings.

Here is a good website for more information about the Observatory and its museums: http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk

July 6, 2007

TWO ADVENTURES THAT WERE NOT PHOTO-OPS

We found this teeny little door with this sign – enlarged here:

Most signs in London are very polite, so this was an anomaly. Nobody else was around on the day we found it (the umbrellas might offer a clue to the reason). The door — we have no idea what it is really for — is in one of the many alley-like streets in Southwark, the borough near London Bridge station.

We have quite a few things we don’t want to forget, but that we have no pictures of, so this is a good place to throw in a couple. Very near this little alley is Vinopolis, City of Wine. We know England’s not quite famous for its wine, but this huge visitor center/tasting room was really worth a visit. It’s built in the railway vaults over the site of an ancient Roman Wine Store. There’s a very good self-guided tour of every wine-growing region in the world, with tastings — you get to pick five or six. There’s even a Bombay Gin room, cocktail included. Bill ordered a dry martini — and the bartender was pleased to make it. Most people were ordering frou-frou pink gin drinks, that were probably beneath his true talent.

We got in to this and a whole bunch of other attractions for a third of the price by showing our monthly train pass. They were running a spring special when we first got here and now a summer one. Such a deal! (Several things we really wanted to see — the Tates and the National Gallery and the British Museum — are free to the public.)

Here’s another day’s adventure — totally unrelated, except that we have no pictures.

We went to Old Bailey and watched part of an on-going murder trial. Security was pretty tight — we went there before the attempted car-bombings, so it might even be more stringent now. Bags, cameras, phones etc., were not allowed at all — and there was no place to check bags (as there had been when we went to Parliament). Fortunately, we read those rules on the internet before we went.

It was very easy to see the action in the courtroom — all of the barristers and the judge were wearing the requisite white wigs. (The defense attorney had stringy greasy looking hair showing under the back of hers — maybe it’s not worth it to shampoo/style when you have to mess it up with the wig.) We were quite close enough to watch the jurors’ faces and to see and hear the defendant (and her interpreter) as she testified. The trial involved an Indian woman who was accused of an honor killing of her daughter-in-law. Her son/the husband was also on trial, but we only saw him under guard in the defendant’s box, right underneath where we were sitting. The guards seemed to have the easiest, or most boring, job ever — two of them sat there reading paperback novels the whole time we were there. The potential danger is probably worth something however.

Oddly, given the wigs and all, the trial was a lot less formal than we had expected. For example, the jury members were allowed to interrupt to ask questions during the testimony.

For the momemts we were there, we could understand how people get hooked on court-watching as a pastime. We kind of want to go back, but there are so many other things to do. (We haven’t, so far, been able to find out what has happened in this trial — it’s just one of many many trials that are going on daily.)

But, in any case, now when we watch public TV or read Rumpole, we can say we know where it is!

July 3, 2007

EATING (OR NOT) IN LONDON

These are scenes from the Borough Market, near London Bridge. It’s a fun altrnative to the two supermarkets where we shop and we’re close enough to bring food home on the train. The Market is open Thursday through Sunday and features fresh food directly from the growers.

On the right are pictures of Bill shopping in one of the stalls.

Can’t believe we didn’t get pictures of the veggie stands. They are beautiful and stuff is delicious. Too busy buying I guess.

Geoff put this comment on the blog earlier (back in the archives now). It’s so appropriate that we’re copying it here in case you missed it: (And adding pictues.)

I’m posting a list of awesome british food that I hope you’ll try before your return. Why there aren’t British restaurants on every corner I’ll never know!
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Black Pudding
Weetabix
Marmite
Scotch Pies
Yorkshire Pudding
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Cornish Pasties
Bubble and Squeak
Haggis
Spotted Dick
Toad In the Hole
Scotch eggs

I’m pretty sure we won’t be trying the Black Pudding — it’s featured on a lot of breakfast menus, though. Weetabix is just a brand of shredded wheat. Bubble and Squeak is like fried mashed potato cake with cabbage grated in. It’s not too bad — the little cafe (pronounced KAFF) where we’ve had breakfast a few times serves it. It’s better than the British hashbrowns.

Pasties are small stuffed meat pies to be eaten out of hand. The word is pronounced with a short a — and they taste like a word you’ll think of that patsy/pasty rhymes with. We tried them sort of by mistake and once was enough.

We’re still working on the rest of the list– or not. Meanwhile — London is a cosmopolitan city. Almost everything we want is available in the supermarkets. Just like when we travel in the states, there’s more of some things and less of others. They like beans here — as in canned baked type. These are served with every breakfast, unless you ask for tomahtoes instead.

July 1, 2007

OUR SECOND MONTH IN SYDENHAM

(To see our earlier posts (if you haven’t already), including pictures of our flat in Sydenham, scroll down to the bottom of the blog and click on archives.)

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in London for two months — and that we have only one month remaining of our stay. Time just flies by. Our list of things to do is still growing but we’re doing our best to hit all the high points. We enjoy living in Sydenham. It’s easier to pretend we really live here on the days when we stay close to home (doing laundry, local marketing, just taking the bus to the supermarket, or visiting local restaurants or pubs). It’s easy to feel at home here.

One of the things we wanted to do by staying in London was to experience living in a (capital C) CITY. I’ve read that people who live in big cities actually live in a village (their own part of it). That seems right — when we walk around Sydenham it feels like a village. But, we can jump on the bus or train (two minutes from home) and be at London Bridge or Victoria Station in just a few more minutes — and we’re ready to experience all the bustle and activity and things to see and do that the City offers on a daily basis.

Started writing this one day and the next they discovered those car bombs near Picadilly Circus–about 15 miles from where we live and definitely an aspect of the big city we (and everybody else) could do without. We’re just watching the news on the internet and going ahead with our daily plans.

In all other parts of London besides our own borough, we are, of course more typical tourists with the requisite cameras, bag and water-bottles. So that part’s not quite like living here — we’d have to stay a lot longer to become blase enough to leave the camera at home (except in our own village).

Good public transportation is amazing. We don’t know why people here own cars.

June 30, 2007

THE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT SECTION

Here’s the news-stand a few blocks from our flat. We usually pick up a paper two or three mornings a week. Otherwise, just read it on the internet.

Here in London, we have a choice of approximately 20 morning papers and at least a couple of evening ones. About three of them are real news — with each having a definite and different editorial slant. (This includes in the news articles — not just on the op-ed pages.) The rest of the papers are tabloids — mostly gossip and star-sightings. You can also pick up free tabloids if you’re on the train or tube anywhere near rush hour — there are a couple of free ones that get handed out on every corner.

The weekend papers have great entertainment and book sections. Books are quite reasonably priced (although we patronize our local used bookstore). It’s fun to read about all the theatres and we have gotten lots of ideas from the papers. But there are no comics! How do people live?

This is the Palace Theatre, built in 1891 as the Royal English Opera House. We saw "Monty Python’s Spamalot". We laughed-a-lot and were glad we could see musical theatre instead of opera. It was lovely to see a real professional theater presentation that wasn’t a road-show. And the theatre is beautifully ornate and entertaining to look at in itself.

It was a showery day and we got off our tube stop early. This was great because the theatre is near Charing Cross Road. As far as we could tell, that street is practically all book-shops. What a great place to spend a rainy afternoon as we waited for the theatre to open.

Here are outside pictures of two Art Galleries that we have visited, the Tate Modern and The Tate Britain. Inside photos aren’t allowed, which seemed rather harsh. (We got spoiled by going first to the British Museum, where you are welcome to take pictures.)

We don’t know a lot about fine art, but we know it when we see it. We’re fans of art for the ordinary people. (Gee, do you think that’s why Monty Python’s first in this post?) But the galleries are lovely places to spend a day — And, at the time that we’re gazing at the walls there, it actually feels as if we know what we’re doing. We pick our favorites, compare pictures, know which styles we like. And feel as if we’ve learned a lot. But couldn’t begin to write about what we saw. There are websites and books for that.

These two Tate Museums are on opposite sides of the River Thames. It is possible to take a little boat from one to the other, but you’d have to be much younger than we are to want to do that much looking in one day. We made a day’s excursion out of each, without a bit of problem.

This is the Millenium Footbridge, built for, obviously, the 2000 New Year celebration.

The bridge crosses between the Tate Modern and Saint Paul’s Cathederal. We believe the symbolism of the bridge is to connect the old and the new parts of the city.

June 27, 2007

POOTLING ABOUT AT BRIGHTON BEACH

This is Brighton Beach — and the Atlantic Ocean. We actually got out of London for an excursion. Took one of our local trains a couple of stops south and then hopped on a fast (express) train to Brighton Beach — about 60 miles. It made one stop, at Gatwick Airport (which is where we flew in). It was fun to see the countryside, from the ground, that we had glimpsed as we flew in last month. Lots of sheep — and hedgerows instead of fences. We had forgotten about that. They are pretty to look at. The trip took an hour, including waiting time at our station and the transfer point.

Above is the old-new pier; this one is all that remains of the old-old pier (it blew down in 97; they can’t decide whether to rebuild it or not.

We rode the Volks Electric Railway. It is the oldest remaining operating electric railway in the world and runs along the beachfront from just east of the pier to Brighton Marina and Village. Our information said "hop aboard the V&R and pootle along the beachfront for superb views out to sea." So we pootled — and they were.

That beach is all ping pong ball sized rocks, not soft sand!

Rumor has it that you don’t actually have to come to England to see an ocean and/or this kind of town. (In many ways, it’s not that different from similar towns on the same or other oceans.)

But we love the Coast (as anybody reading this will know) and it was fun to see the ocean again .

It was a beautiful early summer day. The lifeguard stations were manned (personed?) and there were a few swimmers. Most people just used the chairs and strolled (as we did).

On the new pier, looking toward the town.

We had an adult beverage in a nice old pub out in the middle of the pier and enjoyed watching people. There’s a carnival/arcade out there too and the usual fair-type food, all of which we skipped. Opted instead for a a good fish dinner at a nice restaurant in town in an area called the Lanes.

The breakwater at the marina village (after our pootlng ride). You can tell that they must get some pretty good storms sometimes.

We came home to Sydenham slightly sunburned and pleasantly tired.

June 23, 2007

ENGLISH CITY GARDENS

Who doesn’t like a post with lots of pictures and not very many words. (In contrast with the previous post.) Especially when the pictures are of beautiful flowers.

(As always, click on the thumbnails to enlarge.)

These are from Kew Gardens. We took the train to London Bridge, then the tube to Westminster and then a river boat ride to Kew. There is a castle there and the beautiful River Thames. But these are all of the beautiful gardens:

The next two are from the garden at Westminster Abbey — kind of a secret garden effect since it’s in the back of the imposing buildings and is walled in:

This is the Conservatory and some garden pictures from the Horniman Museum and Gardens at Forest Hill — the next railroad stop North from us or a quick and easy bus ride (about 2 miles).

There are hundreds and hundreds of beautiful parks around the city, but this one feels like our own since it’s so close.

Here are a couple of bonus garden pictures.

These last three are complete ringers! They were taken at "The Potterf Gardens of Alvadore" the day before we left Oregon. And about a week earlier than the ones at Forest Hill. You can tell that the climate and growing seasons are similar.

Also that the flowers and gardens look a lot the same, even though I believe there are considerably fewer gardeners at work at Alvadore!

June 20, 2007

WE VISIT PARLIAMENT AND GO TO TEA

We went to Westminster to visit Parliament. On one of the boat tours that we took on an earlier day, the guide told us that the flag flies over the parliament buildings when they are in session. He said "These are the only people in England who have to fly a flag so you can tell that they’re working."

We were searched going into the buildings, at least as thoroughly as we have ever been at an airport. An initial baggage check at the outside and then pat-downs and wands at the foyers of each House. I had to give up my purse to a check room.

Sadly, photography is *not* allowed inside the building. (Of course the camera was in my bag in the checkroom, so we couldn’t even think of cheating.) But we were up on the top floors — long and curvy staircases — lots of pictures of the history of English law and Parliament. Stick with this post though — there are more pictures at the end.

The House of Commons was debating a bill about digital television. The flag should have been flown at half-mast or something, because only about 20 or so members were in attendance. They flung those oh so polite insults back and forth across the aisles though, sort of like "My learned and esteemed opponent, who really has had little time in his busy schedule to study this matter may not realize blah blah.." Once in a while, the Speaker of the House would confer with the parliamentarian and say something very polite about what the debate was supposed to be about and suggest sticking to it. The MP who had the floor would acknowledge the chiding and then right back to what he had been saying.

Then we climbed up a few more flights of stairs to the House of Lords. This Chamber is much grander. The throne, used when QE opens Parliament, is at the front of the Hall. Debate is more civilized, and, oddly, the galleries are much closer to the floor. At the House, we had a glass panel between us and the action. In Lords, it was all open. Some of the Members were having nice little afternoon naps in their elegant chairs. The discussion was to do with the European Union.

In both Houses, the Clerks, the Parliamentarian and others whose functions we don’t know, wear wigs, but the members do not. There is an electronic system so you can see on screens who is speaking, where they are from etc. Interesting to see the juxtaposition of the modern and the old furniture and architecture.

For Years, there has been one protestor and his supporters across the street from Parliament. A law was passed limiting him to 3 meters. (looks like it was being ignored) The original protest display has been moved to the Tate British Museum. We thought we were back in Eugene.

In late afternoon that day, we had made reservations for High Tea. It was a nice stroll through St James Park. We learned that pelicans — here in a pond in St James — are often given as gifts to the Royal Family.

This is the Hotel St Ermin’s where we had tea. While we were waiting in the lobby of this nice old hotel, we noticed this sign:

And so NOW we know where all those members of Parliament were! (There was a great looking bar in the Hotel as well!) Spotting the sign nicely tied together the two parts of our day.

June 20, 2007

THE TOWER OF LONDON (click on thumbnail pix)

The Tower of London was built in 1098 and the Royal Jewels have been kept there since 1303. A few people at a time are let into the room where they are kept. We saw the official crowns all the kings and queens. (They each get a new one) and lots of other jewelry, gold tea sets, enormous punch bowls made of gold and inlaid with jewels, and a lot of extra jewelry, place settings, scepters, and so forth. A film of the most recent coronation (oh so many years ago) ran in the background. When the Queen opens Parliament (or other official engagements), her crown is taken over there for her to put on and then brought back for storage and public viewing.

So much jewelry! I wondered whether Queen Elizabeth ever wakes up and wonders, for instance, where she put that big gold punch bowl that would be just perfect for this afternoon’s tea party.

We went on a guided tour of the buildings, led by a member of the Yeoman of the Guards (aka Beefeaters). These guys have to be retired British Military with at least the rank of sergeant-major . Ours had the voice of a drill sergeant — fortunately, because the tour group was huge. The tour, about an hour long, was a great over-view. The rest of the afternoon we explored on our own.

Tower_of_london_2

This would be a great place to teach kids about English history. It’s scary and spooky, with lots of stairs to climb, the wonderfully entertaining Beefeaters, and lots of lawns to run around on. (The lawns have been filled in from what used to be moats around the tower prison)

Both of us remember when we were kids reading about the murder of the Little Princes in the Tower. (We read the story in The Book of Knowledge — our generation’s Internet, I guess.) Unlike the story we read, there are actually several theories about what may have happened to the poor little guys. Others, including Anne Boleyn and a couple other of Henry VIII’s wives, were also executed here. But only the most important executions took place here. A lot of not so important people were imprisoned here though.

The Beefeaters and their families can still live in apartments in the Tower. I love this picture taken from the nearby public bus stop. It shows the back of the Tower and, obviously, the back of one of the Beefeater’s homes. I can’t quite imagine hanging my laundry above all this history — but it’s just home to these people, even if it is over 900 years old.

June 17, 2007

Category: London