A scrapbook for my life
I needed a fix of my favourite city today and I had two objectives at the London Archives, which are described below: some rare tram posters and an exhibition on London during WW2. Now that I have my free pensioners bus pass I have become stingy and avoid the underground (which I have to pay …
Continue reading "Waterloo to Clerkenwell and the London Archives"
The Design Museum, South Kensington and Holland Park For the third Monday in a row we failed to go and see the Edvard Munch exhibition at the national portrait gallery due to a last minute change of plans, on this occasion TSM discovering that there was a Tim Burton exhibition on at the Design Museum. …
The whole place is of course a ghastly, twee, Richard-Curtis-ruined inner suburb. The shops are expensive, the artisan bakeries wholly impractical, and the Portobello Road stallholders are largely cynical and just want to relieve tourists of their cash. The pubs are surprisingly edgy and the Greggs, the Sainsbury’s Local and the Tesco Express are probably …
Once you get overwhelmed by Camden (and you will, as the shopping experience has grown eightfold in the last decade) there is a really lovely walk along the regent canal that offers a calm and relaxing experience. We began our father and daughter day out with lunch in a vegan place in the market. Actually …
Continue reading "London canal walk: Camden market to Islington via King’s Cross"
12th century abbey alongside an early 18th century Manor House. The ruins are free to visit and managed by English Heritage. Waverley was the first Cistercian abbey in Britain and was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 16th century. It is a serene and beautiful area set alongside the river Wey two miles south of …
Exhibition at the Royal Academy, March 2025
This week's trip to London began with some unexpected exercise. My train that was advertised as arriving at platform one was switched, literally as the train was coming into the station, to another platform. I and everyone else that was trying to catch the train had to run up over the footbridge and down onto …
Thirteen years of self portraits reveal a lot of bad hair and some gentle mood swings …
A selection from the exhibition at the Royal Academy, March 2025
It’s a yew tree, in Runnymede. Only twenty minutes from where we live but we had never known of it before yesterday when we were looking for somewhere to walk. We did a beautiful circular walk in the spring sunshine, which took in the tree, the old Benedictine abbey ruins, and a short section of …
Eyecatching 