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Sunday 5 October 2014

Just some thoughts

This past week has been one where we have been out and about, last Tuesday evening found us in Richmond to hear a talk from Simon Thurley about Richmond, its palace and the name change from Sheen.  We parked near The Green and walked along the towpath to the Old town Hall as the light was fading, took these pictures of one of my favourite views, especially with the Hill beyond the bridge.




This is looking in the other direction, i.e. towards London, we are so fortunate to have such scenery on our doorstep. 

Wednesday was another day out, in the morning we went to the Tower of London to see the poppies in the moat, a moving way of marking the hundred years since the First World War started. Again we are at war, why cannot we offer humanitarian assistance instead of dropping bombs? Probably far too simplistic that we became a neutral nation instead of rushing in to each conflict. 






The red in the uniform of the Beefeater mimics the poppy red. 

After lunch Ian and I went our separate ways, he saw the Ming exhibition at the British Museum whereas I headed for Tate Britain to meet Friend P. to see the Late Turner exhibit. We were slightly disappointed, it seemed in some rooms that as the gallery has all these late works of Turner they had better show them, but for non specialists they weren't very interesting. 

The answer to this was tea and cake, a most scrumptious chocolate cake, made without flour and a thick layer of chocolate on top and side.  

These refreshments stood us in good stead, our journeys home were horrendous, it took P. four hours to reach Harpenden, problems at St Pancras.  My journey took a couple of hours, Ian and I coincidentally were travelling on the same District Line train - not that we knew it at the time - the train was shown as going to Wimbledon but suddenly announcements were made to transmogrify it into a Richmond train. Maybe that was why the train was so packed, fortunately a few stops after Victoria a lady offered me her seat, I was grateful for the train was crowded all the way. As I was seated at the front I just managed to catch the late running Windsor train at Richmond, Ian wasn't so fortunate so had a 25 minute wait for the next Whitton train. Neither of us could believe how busy London was, it hadn't helped that the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines were partly closed. On Thursday I was in Richmond, volunteering at the local archives, again the traffic was jammed up so instead of travelling home by bus I took the train, the station and train was busier than I am used to. 


1 comment:

  1. I was in London on Wednesday and the Tube was actually less busy than I had expected - though my young German friend commented on how much more packed with people, especially foreign tourists,than Berlin is (yes, she knows she is a foreign tourist too, but she's such an Anglophile that she doesn't think of herself that way!).

    I agree with you that the kneejerk reaction of dropping bombs doesn't seem a constructive answer. There seems to be no plan, no criteria for success.

    I would like to see the poppies, but I'll have to get my act together if I want to come up again in the next few weeks. I'd better check the diary!

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