This was taken in Hyde Park, which we've been calling our "backyard." It still amazes us how isolated you can be in this immense park. They have room for acres and acres of relative wilderness. This is about 1/4 mile from our apartment.
When we came out of our first Shakespeare play at the Globe Theatre (Midsummer Night's Dream) we walked over to the edge of the Thames and this is what we saw: the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral lit from the sides, stark against the late evening sky, and reflecting in the Thames. Beautiful! Click on this to zoom in.
This is in St. James Park, probably about a quarter of a mile from Buckingham Palace. If you zoom in you'll see a swan near the far shore.
A day or two later we visited that same St. Paul's Cathedral in daytime, and as part of the visit we climbed the stairs up into the second gallery, above the round part of the dome. This is the view over the rail of that walkway. The near tower is part of St. Paul's. Behind it is the Thames, and in the distance to its left, around the bend in the river, you can see the "London Eye," a large ferris wheel that takes tourists on a 45-minute rise and fall in plexiglass cars to see the long views of London. Our present view is nearly as high, and without plexiglass in the way.
This is in the crypt (basement, with graves) of Winchester Cathedral. The crypt is always flooded because the water table in Winchester is very high. The sculptor of the statue saw this crypt and knew he wanted his work to stand reflecting in the water here. The pose is reflective, too.
This sculpture is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's called "Breathless" by Cornelia Parker, 2001. She had these silver-plated brass instruments flattened by the machinery at the Tower Bridge, then hung them in the atrium of the gallery by wires. The title means they've had the wind knocked out of them. That's kind of how we felt, too, when we looked up and saw all that stuff hanging over our heads.
Susan took this picture of the moon and clouds reflecting late in the evening in the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Showing the reflection but not the direct view of the sky makes a mysterious and beautiful effect.
This is the gilded statue at the top of the Victoria Memorial that faces Buckingham Palace. Susan took this from where we were sitting to watch the changing of the guard. The marching band gave a short concert during the ceremony. One of the songs they played was "The Twelfth of Never." Someone standing near us swore another tune was the theme from "Shaft."
This was taken on our recent day trip to Canterbury. This is Canterbury Cathedral. Among the other pictures we got was of the area beside the high altar wherenThomas Becket, the "hooly blisful martyr," was murdered by Henry II's thugs some 800 years ago.We've enjoyed having our rail passes while in London so we can take day trips like this. But it's interesting how quickly we become jaded to novelty. The first couple of train trips we were pointing out the window at every stone wall, thatched roof, sheep, and wildflower. Now we mainly just read our books.
