Over two years since I last visited London, I boarded two trains with minutes to spare each time (after trying to get onto the wrong platform at Waverley) and arrived mid afternoon. I'm staying with a couple of friends who have space for me to sleep on a very large bean bag.
May 2010 Archives
After getting some breakfast from Gail's I walked past BBC Television Centre then went down Charing Cross Road stopping at Soho Square and Leicester Square (which happened to be closed this week for filming) before heading to Hampstead Heath. Eventually I reached the top of Parliament Hill before heading south for Tate Modern.
I had a late lunch of haddock and chips before wandering around wondering why almost anything qualifies as "art". There was a massive traffic jam of taxis outside when I left. A quick wander around the maze that is Harrods looking at things over-priced in the thousands of pounds, before heading home for dinner.
I got some breakfast from Pret a Manger (there are definitely some French accents missing from that name...) and then visited the Bank of England Museum, which is only open on banking days and is as boring as it sounds.
A long trip on the DLR later and I arrived at the Prime Meridian Line in Greenwich, which has moved since they decided where to put it.
I had another late lunch at Tate Britain before looking at the art on display there. Much better than Tate Modern but I didn't get many photos because taking photos indoors without the flash on is almost impossible with my camera.
Spent a couple of hours in Selfridges looking for something interesting before leaving with two Elephant Parade elephants.
The photos from my trip to London are on Flickr in the May 2010: London collection. There's a separate set of Elephant Parade London 2010 photos.
Instead of returning home from London on Friday, by coincidence the Middle Wallop Kite Festival was on that weekend so I took a train to Hampshire and met up with Kevin & Leah who moved there recently.
After a short drive to Wallop we were left waiting until after 1am for our accommodation (a motor home) to arrive from Scotland because it was stuck in a really bad traffic jam north of Oxford... fortunately we had some late night entertainment watching an AA man get into a car with the keys locked in the boot. He survived people tripping over him and the jack that was holding the car up too.
It rained on Saturday morning but the sun came out later and the weather on Sunday was much better. Plenty of sun to burn me while I took a few hundred photos. I'll have to try and remember to actually use sunscreen next time. I left early on Monday morning for the 8½ hour train journey back home.
I was going to buy a new camera soon... but for the first time in 5 years I've finally found a use for the viewfinder and some of the newer compact cameras lack one. It's impossible to take burst shots of someone moving past you in sunlight using only the display. The Canon IXUS 300 HS can take 240 FPS video but without being able to aim it quickly that might not be very useful.
