Winter Lights

Sunday 20th January 2019

From Tropical London to decidedly not tropical Canary Wharf. Wrapped up well to see the Winter Lights exhibition of art installations in and around Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf Shopping Centre, and Jubilee Gardens.

It was a tad nippy down the docks under the full moon.

Last Parade - Alexander Reichstein

Submergence - Squidsoup

Floating Islands - Mürüde Mehmet

Flow - Squidsoup

Floating Islands - Mürüde Mehmet

Prismatica - Raw Design

Everyone's photo op.

Two Hearts - Stuart Langley

More photos here Flickr Album but photographs don't really capture the exhibits as well as video:

Tropical London

Sunday 20th January 2019

The Barbican Estate in the City of London, Grade II listed fine example of British Brutalist architecture or concrete carbuncle depending on your taste (it's the former obviously) was built in the 1960s and 1980s on an area of Cripplegate Ward levelled by the Luftwaffe in World War II.

Within the estate is the Barbican Centre, Europe's largest performing arts centre. This contains spaces to host classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and the subject of this blog post, a 23,000 square foot  conservatory containing a couple of thousand species of plants and some Koi Carp and terrapins.

The conservatory is open to the public but only on limited occasions - mostly Sunday afternoons and some Bank Holidays. There's no charge to enter though, which is a plus. Opening dates and times are on the Barbican Website. It's not immediately obvious when you get inside the Barbican Centre but the conservatory is on level 3, take the stairs or the lift. 

Inside the conservatory is divided into two main tropical sections plus a smaller arid zone on the upper level. It's an impressive green tangle of plants and trees with narrowish walkways between the beds and fishponds and even an area of tables where you can take Afternoon Tea for a mere £35 a head - including a glass of prosecco. You have to book in advance. I gave afternoon tea a miss and joined the poorer visitors wandering amongst the vegetation.

Tables for Afternoon Tea if you're feeling flush.

Carp pool.

The arid section - cacti and succulents.

Winter colour.

Hot stuff, chilli peppers!

The big fish.

Single bloom.

Big bamboo.

The conservatory is tall enough to accommodate full size trees.

The Barbican Conservatory is a bit of a hidden gem, a little bit of tropical "jungle" in the middle of the city. If you can make it on one of the few open days it's worth visiting - especially if it's January and bloody cold outside as it was on this Sunday.

There are more photos here in this Flickr Album.

Cistercian ruins and a Surrey ramble.

Waverley Abbey was the first Cistercian abbey in England. It was founded in 1128 by William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester. Located in Farnham, Surrey, about 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of the town centre, the abbey is situated on a floodplain, surrounded by current and previous channels of the River Wey.

What's left of it, which is a few fragments of its former extensive self, is in the care of English Heritage. Entry is free and there is a small car parking area off Waverley Lane about 350 yards away from the abbey ruins.

The abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536 and subsequently the buildings largely demolished and used as a source of stone for other local buildings.

A small part of the ruins still has a ceiling - might be useful if it rains when you visit though today it was dry and quite mild for January.

Nearby is Waverley Abbey House, a Grade II* listed mansion which now offers business meeting and function facilities. The house was built in 1723 and replaced an earlier dwelling on the abbey site which had incorporated some of the former abbey buildings.

So having had a good look around the abbey ruins it was time for a ramble down to Tilford and back, mostly following the public byway that leads through the woods and past Sheephatch Farm.

See the route on OS Maps

Apart from a short section at the start along Waverley Lane the walk is mostly off road (although the byway is open to all traffic so you might meet the odd trail bike rider) it crosses one minor road, Sheephatch Lane, and at Tilford where you join the road there is a footway down into the village by way of the old bridge across the River Wey.

When you get to Tilford I recommend you pop into The Barley Mow pub where a nice pint of real ale may be obtained. The many people tucking into a late Sunday lunch seemed to be enjoying it as well. If you go in the summer you might be able to watch the cricket on the village green - though there are several signs on the outside of the pub warning of possible incoming stray cricket balls!

You could carry on through Tilford and follow the road back to Waverley Abbey, maybe cutting across on a footpath but the roads are narrow and the manic cyclists and SUVs tear along them so better to recross the Wey and take the bridleway on the left up the hill to rejoin the byway and retrace your steps back to your starting point.

 Wartime defences in a field next to the river in Tilford. This area lies on one of the "stop lines" constructed during the second world war in preparation for the expected Nazi German invasion. Fortunately they were never needed to be used. Also in the car parking area for Waverley Abbey is something that looks very like a fortified gun emplacement. Look to your left as you go through the gate onto the path to the ruins.

Little tower in the woods by Tilhill House. Former dovecote maybe?

The byway through the woods.

The River Wey through the trees near Waverley Abbey.

Flickr Album of photos at Waverley Abbey.

New Year's Eve

Choose going to the pub, which will be full of strangers (some of them very strange indeed), drinking too much and walking home fed up and depressed to a new year beginning with a hangover.

Choose sitting at home watching the mindless TV, overdosing on snacks, toasting the new year in alone, and then watching Jools Holland long after you should give in and go to bed.

Or...

... choose a mini-adventure to watch the fireworks over London, with a mini-picnic, from the top (well half way up at least) Primrose Hill.

The last one, for a change.

Dead Pool 2019

Nine survivors from 2018 plus one addition who didn't look especially well on the TV recently:

Marvin Lee Aday (Meat Loaf)

Neil Percival Young (Musician)

Eddie Large (Comedian)

Doris Day (Actress & Singer)

Gina Lollobrigida (Actress, Photojournalist, & Sculptor)

Kirk Douglas (Actor, Producer, Director, & Author)

James Earl Carter Jr. (39th POTUS)

Vera Lynn (Singer, Songwriter, & Actress)

Philip Mountbatten (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh)

Michael Caine (Actor)

Hambleden Weir and Lock

Hambleden lock on the River Thames is connected to the north bank by an unusually long weir. Even more unusual is that the public can walk across the top of the weir above the sluices - most other Thames weirs seem to have keep off notices, spikes, and barbed wire.


It's a pleasant spot with the large white building of Hambleden Mill close to the other end of the weir from the lock. It can be very popular in summer but on a winter's afternoon just before Xmas it was fairly quiet with a few walkers but no boats moving on the river.

There's a car park about 500 yards north up Skirmett Road which is free but has a height barrier. It also has toilets though I've never seen them unlocked - probably seasonal.

Hambleden Mill

You don't want to fall in there! Although sometimes there are canoeists practising their white-water skills here

Hambleden Lock

The Thames looking upstream from Hambleden Lock

The weir and the mill at Hambleden

Hambleden Weir

Ducks aren't risk-averse evidently

London Lights Up

18th November 2018

After my walk through the deer in Richmond Park I caught a train from Mortlake to Waterloo to see some of the Xmas lights in London. Crossed over the Thames and had a quick coffee and phone-charge I walked up to Charing X Rd. and Strand.

Rather traditional lights on Strand, giant baubles with blue stars suspended across the road above the busy traffic.

Irving Street has nets of myriad tiny white lights suspended above the West End crowds below. Though these may not be just for Xmas as some central London streets have permanent decorative lights - Villiers Street next to Charing Cross Station is another.

Leicester Square has been taken over for an event "Christmas In Leicester Square" in order to extract maximum cash from the tourists and the trees have been dressed with stars (or are they snowflakes?) and vertical strings of fairy lights. But there is too much light from below so the effect is somewhat lost.

Oxford Street's shopping canyon has again its simple but effective white and purple baubles. Possibly the classiest thing in the street. Apparently new lights are planned for 2019.

Christmas is calling at Oxford Circus, between the Oxford Street baubles an animated display of multi-coloured "laser flashes" radiating out from the middle of the road.

Not real lasers though as in 1978 which to be fair were fairly unimpressive though did concern one American tourist I met then that the lasers might cut the tops off the double-decker buses. A level of intelligence that might explain the election of the current POTUS.

Regent Street has again its large "winged angels" flying up John Nash's sweeping curved shopping street from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus.

Carnaby Street this year has a suitably flamboyant Bohemian Rhapsody theme to its lights - a promotion for the recently released film of the same name about the band Queen.

Foubert's Place (part of what I see is now branded "Carnaby Sohoho") is a bit more Christmassy though.

Ho Ho Ho!

Though from the other side the message appears to be more X rated than Merry Xmas - reminiscent of Meg Ryan perhaps.

And while William Shakespeare looked down upon the Soho revellers from the corner of Great Marlborough Street some of us had to get a train home so headed to Green Park Station to get the tube back to Richmond. 

There to find Southwestern Railway definitely not running to schedule and having nearly an hour's wait on a freezing cold Ascot station en route to Camberley.

They could at least unlock the sodding waiting rooms.

Or provide a seat on the covered over-bridge which was the only shelter from the wind.