The answer to the question at the end of the previous post...

...is Canterbury.

It is a week and a bit ago now... (and yes, I have been a tad slack in updating the blog, sorry!) but the day dawned sunny so I took a train east and spent a day wandering about Canterbury. The cathedral is clearly the highlight of the town. I spent a couple of hours slowly wandering about the buildings and ground with my audio-tour handset against my head looking like a 1980's mobile phone.

The audio-tour is to be found at most attractions in the UK and can be had in a variety of languages (generally I chose English, for those of you who may be wondering). Personally I prefer a proper tour conducted by a human being. The audio-tour has more detail, but people always have more character and their wonderful little anecdotes the are lacking from the recorded version.

Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late for the guided tour of Canterbury Cathedral so the audio-tour it had to be. It was rather verbose and had a rather heavy backing of organ music, but generally it got the point of what I was looking at across... eventually.

The highlight of the visit was a large, temporary set of tiered seats in the middle of the naive. These, very conveniently, contained about 100 of the Cathedral's choristers who spent the entire time I was in the building rehearsing. The sound of those voices echoing through the stone vaults and aisles made for a most uplifting experience (and thankfully overpowered the organ music background of my audio-tour).

Having now visited quite a number of cathedrals, abbeys and minsters it will be interesting, next time I am in Brisbane, to visit the nearly complete St John's. Clippings from the Brisbane press sent to me recently (my mother likes to keep me in touch with the local news) have shown its copper spires being erected, a mere 104 years after the building was started. I wonder what it will look like in 800 years?

ad hoc sunny days

One of my greatest joys in this city is the ability to walk out the door of my flat (and not because my flat is old and slightly dingy…) and enter a place where there is always something new to see, hear, learn…

This is going to be one of my ‘rambling’ blog entries… so I apologies in advance!

It is so easy to just get out of bed and do something. A few weeks ago I went on my first ‘London Walk’ (http://www.walks.com/ if you are interested); actually it was Australian Day to be precise. I chose one that took me to the back streets of Waterloo. My own backyard as it were… being a South of the Thames dweller. The walk was lead by a retired Elephant Handler and she was a wealth of knowledge about the surprisingly intact community of early 19th century houses in the shadow of Waterloo Station. The morning was cold but beautifully sunny and the walk opened up a whole new understanding of the area of London I live in.

Last weekend, similarly, I decided, on a whim, to go to Hampton Court. The Met Office forecast on Thursday showed a fine and sunny weekend so I took advantage. I was at Waterloo Station bright and early (well… 9:30am… but that is reasonably early for a Saturday and the Palace doesn’t open until 10am anyway) only to be told that due to engineering works the train I wanted to take wasn’t running and that I would need to take another train to Surbiton (a nice place for changing trains… and that’s about it) and transfer to a bus. An hour and a half and one missed bus later I found myself on the banks of the Thames opposite Hampton Court… the trip should only take 35 minutes in normal conditions. But once again the day was lovely and sunny and, as usual, cold. The Palace looked huge across the river, and the enormous picture of Henry VIII fixed to the side of some scaffold, and towering over a portion of the palace under restoration, did nothing to reduce the impact.

I spent a couple of hours wandering about the halls and rooms of the Palace, the same halls and rooms inhabited by Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, William & Mary, and one of the Georges (which one it was eludes me right now). The tours are very good, and conducted by guides dressed in period costume and assuming a period character. It sounds a bit tacky but it works rather well.

So, the question that remains is; what to do this weekend? The Met Office is predicting another dry weekend… I’ll let you know.

Bath Part 2 (half day tour)

The sun was low on the horizon, the hills of Salisbury Plain were green and rolling, the air was crisp and crystal clear, the British Army was firing its artillery nearby, the sheep were grazing placidly beyond a little rope barrier, the traffic was wizzing by 50 yards away and I stood and gazed at the circles of stone that make up Stonehenge and I was entranced.

How do I describe Stonehenge... almost everyone is familiar with its form so I guess I really won't. The stones are dwarfed by their location, set high on a plain of open, grassed, rolling hills and yet they stand grand and impossibly large when you consider the people who put them there, their lack of tool and machine and distance they transported them.

The audio tour, that comes with your entry fee, can give no answers as to how they were moved to their location between 1500 and 3000 years ago and really, even why it was built... there are many hypothosies... but no definite answers. I guess it just adds to the allure!

You can no longer walk amongst the stones themselves. You walk around the monument behind a little, low rope fence (just like the sheep). As nice as it would be to get amongst the stones, the benefit of being held back means photos are devoid of other tourists! ...which is rare at any UK monument or even some vague place on interest.

...and I did get some nice photos!

You know you are in London when...

...you walk to the bus after work (and after a couple of pints) and the bell ringers are practicing in St Martin in the Fields, the melodies ecoing across Trafalgar Square...

Bath Part 1

Well, here I am, recently returned from a weekend of travel, and writing about it... while slightly under the influence!

Congratulations, this it the first blog of mine you are reading written after a few pints (actually far to many for a Tuesday night!). Be that as it may, I thought it time to write about last weekend.

First let me set the scene...

It is hard to describe the perfection of the weather last weekend. Saturday was almost warm, the sun was shining with an Australian brightness and the air was crystal clear, and I was lucky enough to be visiting South East England. Bath, Stonehenge, Cheddar Gorge and Wells to be precise.

My weekend started at a rediculously early hour for London... 8.37am when my train left Paddington (well, actually it was 40 min earlier when I left my flat to get the tube to Paddington but that doesn't count)

2 hours and some railway signal delays later I was in Bath and in the delightful company of Jean. Jean and her husbane Roger are friend of my parents after meeting in Northern Australia, and they very kindy offered me bed and breakfast and some wonderful sight seeing and company while I was in Bath.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe the weekend is quickly outline what I got up to. (In part 2 I will try and go into more detail)

Well, on arrival in Bath, Jean met me at the station and took me straight to the Pump Room for a coffee and a Bath Bun following morning tea seranaded by the musical trio in the Pump Room we spent an hour and a half walking about the city. Jean proved an admirable guide showing me some of the more famous areas of the city and eventually depositing me at the collection point for my afternoon tour to to Stonehenge and the ancient town of Laycock (I'll write more about the tour in the part 2 bit!)

Let me just say at this stage that I could not have asked for a better afternoon to visit one of Englands most ancient sites.

Jean and Roger met me on my return the Bath after the tour and the following morning offered to show me Cheddar Gorge and the nearby town of Wells.

Between them, they are a wealth of information about the area and proved wonderful tour guides.

The weekend ended with my train journey back to London (again interupted by National Rail problems) and a surprisingly relaxing nights sleep before the work week commenced.

Well, thats about it for my summary blog about the weekend... next time I will try and tell you a bit more about the things i saw... right now... I need to sleep off the pints!

g'night!

you know you are in London when...

...the bloke trying to sell you a copy of The Big Issue says,
"ello guvna!" as you walk past.

fancy a tasty meat pie?

"There's a hole in the world
Like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
And its morals aren't worth
what a pig could spit
And it goes by the name of London."

the verse is from the opening of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
maybe it was true in the 18th century...
...maybe its still true now.

Last night I thought it would be a good idea to see the new film version of Sweeney Todd.
It has had some good review... and is rather well put together, even if the the blood does flow a little too freely (Mum you will not enjoy it!). Decided to have Chinese for dinner after... although for some reason I had an appetite for a pie...

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a theatre-fest. A friend visiting London is always a good excuse to get out and do some of the things I have been putting off and while Nadia was in town we took the opportunity to see Avenue Q and The History Boys.

It good to finally be taking advantage of my proximity to the West End and the cheap tickets on sale at Leicester Square... roll on the next show!