London in January: Day 1

Dumping some pictures taken during my trip to an unusually warm London in January.

St Paul's Cathedral

The last time I was in London, St Paul's Cathedral was under scaffolding and obstructed by pieces of cardboard. I really wanted to get a few good pictures of this most durable of London landmarks, so it was almost my first destination after breakfast.

The Cathedral is simply beautiful and a mighty impressive piece of architecture. I was suitably awed. However, I will always remember this place for reasons that have nothing to do with its visual splendours. This will be commemorated as the site of a particularly harrowing adventure with strong winds and light spectacles.

I proudly wear a pair of Swissflex Classic rimless glasses - all the parts are clear, non-coloured polyamide. As Swissflex themselves put it - "You feel like you are wearing nothing". Very true and most of the time, I am glad for it.

However, feather-light spectacles are NOT advised when the wind is gusting as it was that day in London. I was walking in the courtyard at the side of St Paul's, when a particularly strong gust promptly lifted my glasses off my nose and sent them scurrying along the concrete ground. Half-blind I chased them across the courtyard. The wind was so strong (I think it was 30 km/h or something), my glasses were moving almost faster than I could run. Suddenly, clear plastic did not seem like such a great idea. Already vision impaired, I had the added challenge of trying to find a piece of essentially transparent plastic on the ground. My heart almost stopped for a few seconds when I thought I had lost sight of them. Panic set in: I was stranded in London, thousands of miles away from my spare pair which I had not thought to bring along. How quickly could one get another pair made up and how much would I have to tax my credit card at a London optometrist?

I only thank heavens that the cold and wind had driven most people to stay indoors despite it being close to lunch time. I was thankfully the only person scurrying across that vast expanse of space, although there were a couple of people outside the coffee shop across from the Cathedral; they did not seem to have paid me any attention at all, from what little I could see from my vision impaired perspective. Imagine if it had been a warmer, sunnier day and people actually came out of their offices for lunch. My poor Swissflex Classic would have been trodden underfoot!


Sign at entrance of Postmans Park

Such a pleasant surprise to have stumbled upon this little park while I was making my way to the Museum of London!

Last year, I went to a staging of Patrick Marble's play, Closer, performed in Cantonese by a visiting cast from Hong Kong. It was a great night in the theatre and after that, I watched the movie adaptation with Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Julia Roberts. In the play, Postmans Park featured prominently as a location and the headstone of "Alice Ayres" has particular significance. I wondered around looking for the Alice Ayres headstone but did not manage to find it. I think I simply was not looking in the right place. Later on, in the bookshop at the Museum of London, I came across a few books on Postmans Park and they featured photographs of all the tiles and headstones, including Alice Ayres'. Oh well, that's something to look out for next time.


Part of the Original London Wall outside the Museum of London

I managed to almost lose my glasses again when walking across the bridge that links the Museum to another building. It was from this bridge that I took this arial picture of the remains of the London Wall. I think the round construct was supposed to be one of the original turrets marking the corner of the wall.



Four panel panorama of London - Display in Museum of London

This picture was underlit and turned out to be a bit of a blur, but it was something of an accomplishment that I managed to squeeze the entire display in a single shot, so I am posting it anyway. I have always been a map freak, and this brought my map geekery to the fore. It's not strictly a map, but more like a satellite image of London in the 19th century. Incredibly detailed work for something done without the benefit of satellite technology!

Model of St Paul's Cathedral as it was before the London fire of 1666

I had spent the morning looking at the Cathedral (and almost losing my glasses outside it) and not managing to photograph it successfully due to its sheer size and inconvenient location near busy road junctions with traffic. So it was nice to get a shot of this most impressive piece of Gothic architecture in its entirety, albeit just a model of the actual thing!