Another London

We were fortunate enough to get some complimentary tickets to the Another London exhibition at the Tate Britain, so on Saturday we made our way into London for a day out. The tubes were pleasantly crowd-free, as we made our was around on the Circle line from Paddington to Victoria. From there it was only a short walk, through what was now surprisingly warm sunshine, despite the weather forecast. The exhibition had some incredible pictures from 1930 through to 1980. Great images of "british-ness" that you simply don't see any more, for example streets filled with bowler-hatted mean going to work in the city. In fact come to think about it, most of the photos included some for of head gear, whether that be a top hat, a bowler hat, a cloth cap, or a scarf.

After the exhibition we caught a bus to Kensington where we, thanks to some more free vouchers, we grabbed some lunch (we are not normally this frugal, but following our California blow out are taking things easy this month now). The food was ok, not brilliant, but unfoftunately just as we finished eating, the heavens opened up, and torrential rain came down, all mixed in with some thunder and lightening for good measure. We were quite "museumed out" after the exhibition of the morning, so after deciding not to go to any more, we caught a bus to get out of the rain. Although I know my way around London reasonably well, the bus we caught took us to somewhere I don't think I've ever really been ... Wandsworth. I had no idea what to expect but it almost had a village feel in places, but not quite so much as Battersea did, which was definitely a surprise to me. Plenty of scope for future visits I think, if only to check out some of the restaurants in Battersea Square, which confusingly seems more of a triangle than a square.

Between Wandsworth and Battersea we walked along the Thames, apart from when we were annoying diverted back in land (one of the most frustrating aspects of the Thames path is that it often strays away from the side of the river). We did get to see the London Heliport though, which I never even knew existed, so that was a bonus. We were also treated to the sight of a freight train on the London Overground line, as it crossed the Cremorne Bridge, heading south. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a photo, but instead took one from the other side of the bridge after it had gone across.

Boats moored by the Cremorne Bridge (aka Battersea Railway Bridge)

Despite the heavy downpour in the afternoon, we had a great day out, and got back home to catch some of the Reading Festival highlights on BBC 3 before taking our aching limbs off to bed.

Sunday was a different story, and with a much better weather forecast I decided to embark on a bike ride, looking to get some miles under the belt, rather than gruelling hill climbs. In the end I seem to have managed both, cycling out west towards Hungerford, through to Little Bedwyn and Froxfield, and then back via Littlecote, Chilton Foliat and Kintbury, covering 36.7 miles. It was a great ride, but I think I probably need to invest in some new padded shorts as I'm feeling a little tender today.

    

Post California blues

I've now been back from California for a week, but my holiday already feels like it was weeks ago. This past week at work has been especially manic, with interminable budget planning and re-planning, multiple iterations of management reports, and of course the email mountain I returned to. However, I did manage a couple of escapes during the week, both in London and at home. My London escape took me out to the Westbourne Park area again, mainly because it's close to the office, but also because there are still some areas within it I've yet to explore. Of particular interest is that I've come across roads with Russian names ... Moscow Road and St. Petersburgh Place. Some further research is needed here I think to find out what's behind this. But for now, here are a few photos I took on the walk.

Apartments on Moscow Road, London

 I'm always amazed at how many cobbled streets there still are in London. This one, just off the Moscow Road, looked stunning and was almost like stepping back in time.

Chapel Side, off Moscow Road

Chapel Side, off Moscow Road

Below are a few books which cover more of London's less known, quirky and long gone places.

    

Closer to home I have managed to get out on my mountain bike 3 times since returning from California in a desperate attempt to burn-off all the french toast, burgers, steaks, etc. My performance however has not returned to its pre-holiday status, and on some rides I am way off my personal best time.

California Dreamin'

Having spent the past 3 weeks in California, I must admit to being slightly shell-shocked on my return to the UK. My body clock is all over the place which, combined with the mini-heatwave we appear to be having, is causing me no end of sleeping problems. It's about 6:45 am here on Sunday morning, a time which I never knew existed, and I must have been awake since 4 am. I'm also trying to adjust my body's expectation with regards to being fed ... no more huge american breakfasts for a while, but somehow a bowl of Cornflakes is not the same.

I do love visiting the US, and San Francisco in particular which, along with Boston, are the only 2 places I have ever visited outside the UK where I could seriously consider moving to. For our first week we hired a mountain cottage in a place called Midpines near Mariposa. Temperatures reached 100 degrees most days, which meant that we had to get up early to do any form of serious walking in the Yosemite Valley. Our second week took us to a house about 10 miles from Santa Cruz, in a place called Aptos. The weather here was considerably cooler, with refreshing sea mists most mornings. Our final week was spent in San Francisco where we had an appartment in the Castro district. Needless to say I have 100's of photographs which I could share, 10's of descriptions of fantastic day trips, restaurants, etc., but for now I'll stick to the briefest of summaries and 3 of my favourite pictures, 1 from each of the 3 weeks.

 Half Dome, Yosemite, California

Santa Cruz beach

 Golden Gate Bridge, looking back across to San Francisco

I now have to face up to the reality that I return to work tomorrow. Although many of my team and colleagues have also been on leave, I am sure my email count will be in the hundreds. I also need to do some exercise and the Californian cuisine has taken its toll on my waistline.

Having said I won't go into any more detail about my trip, I will however relate the visit I paid to what I consider to be the world's best record shop Amoeba on the Haight in San Francisco. I visited it on a business trip several years ago and was a bit concerned that it may no longer be there, or may be a scaled down version, but I was not disappointed and it was still there in all its glory. I didn't have a great deal of time to browse but was very leased to pick up a copy of Dr Strangely Strange - Kips of the Serene which I'd been looking for for a while, plus a few CDs by the Charalambides.

    

More holiday tales, and various other musings in my Search for Space will follow.

A day out in Oxford with Lewis

Well Summer is now most definitely here. It's unbelievably hot here in West Berkshire, so much so that we're braving a barbecue this evening (the first in a long while). There may be a drink or two as well. But before that I just about have time to post a blog update from my weekend visit to Oxford. We arrived early, before the tourists and before most of the shops had opened, so it was blissfully peaceful, for a short while at least. The first scene we were greeted with was all the punts moored, awaiting their passengers for the day (which seemed to be almost exclusively stage and hen parties).

 Before the punters arrived

We had breakfast on the High Street just after the bridge, and lunch in the University parks below, before walking across the parks to the lakes and rivers on its east side.

Keble College from the University parks

I wish I had taken more notice of the street names as I seem to have various pictures of narrow roads, lanes and alleyways, all of which I am sure have appeared in Morse or Lewis at some stage (but more of that later).

Narrow street, Oxford

Narrow passage, Oxford

The final picture is probably the best of a rushed series I took after we turned a corner and literally bumped into an episode of Lewis being filmed. We must have watched for a good 30 minutes and I'm pretty sure all that was actually filmed was a short car scene of no more than 10-15 seconds. It involved some sort of old sports car, blue I think, but alas I have no idea of make or model. I will however be watching out for this when the next series hits the TV screens, in the autumn/winter I hope.

Lawrence Fox, as Hathaway, on the film set for an episode of Lewis

    

A small glimpse of summer in London docklands

I know it's very British to moan about the weather, but this year has been spectacularly poor. It has however made me appreciate the few glimpses of summer I have been lucky enough to find. The two pictures below were taken just after I had arrived at Canary Wharf and before I locked myself away in a windowless meeting room for the day. The blue skies were a welcome sight in the morning but needless to say they did not last very long.

Canary Wharf, DLR station

Canary Wharf

Fortunately when we broke for lunch, I was able to get a half decent picture from up high, back across London. This will almost certainly be the last time I visit London docklands area for a while now as it's set to get crazily busy for the 2012 Olympics.

View from the Clifford Chance building

I had hoped to be able to photograph some more London mews in the sunlight, but alas the weather has not been on my side. Hopefully we'll get a late summer so I'll be able to do this again later in the year.

In other news, I can't say that I've been able to get out on my mountain bike as much as I'd have liked, mainly due to the weather. My reading of Parallel Lines remains slow, and I've yet to even open Mile by Mile.

On the music front however, I have been quite active. I've bought quite a few CDs over the past couple of weeks. Favourites to date are The Orb featuring David Gilmour - Metallic Spheres, and Pearls Before Swine - The Use of Ashes / These Things Too. As with most of the CDs I buy, these will ultimately end up on my web site as I tend to limit the misc I keep in physical form these days.

Sepia Saturday 133 - Elephanta Caves

Well, I'm now back from India ... back from the Indian monsoon to the great British summer, or not as the case may be as we seem to have 80 plus weather warnings in the UK. Apart from the usual tourist tat, which was not not sepia in the slightest, I did not see anything appropriate for the elephant theme of this week's Sepia Saturday, so instead have used a couple of photos I took during my last trip to India when we managed to get some free time outside of the meetings to visit Elephanta Island. Elephanta Island is just off the coats of Mumbai and is home to a system of cave temples, carved out of the rock. The original statue of an elephant was what gave the island and caves their name, but after an aborted attempt by Portuguese explorers to take the statue back to Portugal, it is now in Mumbai's Victoria and Albert museum. These stone sculptures below are dedicated to the god Shiva.

Stone sculpture inside Elephanta Caves

Stone sculpture inside Elephanta Caves

    

For those of you used to reading my Sepia Saturday posts in my vintage postcards blog or my vintage magazines blog, this blog is dedicated to my various thoughts and musings which don't typically fit elsewhere. So you'll come across some of my other passions here, for example steam trains and London mews.

The Watercress Line

Although I am finding it increasingly difficult to devote any time to this particular blog, I am determined not to give up as this is my only real outlet for things which I cannot neatly pigeon hole in any of my other blogs. I suppose on a positive note, it's been great that I have been so busy getting out and about doing the things I enjoy that I've struggled to find time to blog about them.

A couple of weeks ago we visited the Watercress Line, which is a heritage railway in Hampshire, running between New Arlesford and Alton. The weekend we went saw the line, its building and occupants all rolled back 70 years to what it would have looked like in 1942. As well as the steam trains there were vintage cars, people dressed in 1940's fashion, soldiers, spivs, and even a remarkable match for Churchill and Monty. The station cafes were selling cakes made to 1940's recipes, although hopefully not with 1940's ingredients.

 Steam train pulls out of Medstead & Four Marks Station

 Steam train pulls into Medstead & Four Marks station

Vintage cars at New Arlesford station

I particularly like this next picture which shows a vintage railway poster with the great strap line of Ease the Strain, Go By Train. If all the train journeys I took were as clean and peaceful I'd use the trains a lot more than I do. I can only imagine what the equivalent picture would have to look like today to match today's rail environment ... dirty windows, overcrowding, litter, annoying people shouting into their mobile phones.

Vintage railway poster at New Arlesford station

If I'm honest I have become a bit obsessed with rail travel, both vintage and modern, over the past few months and have started reading several accounts of train journeys that you can still take today which do take you away from the hustle and bustle of the daily commute, and also some books whioch document the rise and sad demise of our once great rail network. A few favourites are featured below.

    

So, I seem to have some spare time this weekend in amongst the ususal child related taxi services, so I may even get to complete another blog update before next week, when I am travelling to India on business for a few days.