Tripping around Southwalk

Surprised to see the sandy banks of the Thames at low tide.

To start our day off by the Thames, I found that my tongue had been tripping over the pronunciation - Londoners don't say southwalk; they say sou-thack. Thanks R for saving me from sounding like an embarrassing tourist before we left your place! If I have to look like one I'd rather not sound like one as well - let's just pretend my Kiwi accent, that has upset all the Bens in the schools I teach in, doesn't give me away!

The tallest building in London
The Shard - piercing the mist behind the TATE

Halfway to the station I realised I'd left my phone charging in the Rev's Apple so had to run back while M topped up the oyster cards. We were meeting my cousin for lunch and all her contact details were in the electronic rather than biological memory. I hurry scurried back and forth, I blame this unexpected exertion for the day's unbalancing! We caught a black cab from Euston station as a treat, so we could see where we were going. It dropped us right outside the gallery, quite literally for I caught my heel in the hem of my skirt as I got out and nearly landed on my face -  a cherry start to the day for the hundreds of apartment windows looking down all around.

Petal was due at the TATE Modern for her 'Abstraction of Natural Forms' day course, so we got in early and started the morning with breakfast at Flinder's Arms on the south bank of the river. She energised up for the day with a chocolate muffin, hot chocolate and a hashbrown.  Pretty challenging to look out over the river to the dome of St Paul's, down to London bridge and the autumnal silver birches in front of the TATE. Luckily the only time it rained all day was during breakfast - the lack of cover on London streets and the deathly jumble of jostling umbrellas blocking the skyline makes a wet London unpleasant.

Petal couldn't resist an explore

We were amazed to see that the banks of the low tide Thames have lovely golden sand. there was even a fashion shoot happening; bordered by flocks of pigeons pecking out the little proteins swishing around in the lapping tide. A busking sand sculptor was working further down with his young dog tied to a stake which he had circled too often and gotten himself out of reach of his toy monkey. The dog's attempts to rip out the stake while he kept one eye on his toy was a lot more entertaining than the sculpting.

Petal joined her art group in the Turbine Hall of the gallery, within sight of the Richard Tuttle piece that was too big to fit with the rest of his retrospective exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery. It's title - 'I Don't Know. The Weave of Textile Language' doesn't offer a lot of interpretation. It looks a little like one of the Wright bother's prototypes that never got off the ground. Tuttle is a famous US textile sculptor and has traveled around the world to find and create new fabrics for his works.

'I Don't Know'- Exhibit by Richard Tuttle - American textile sculptor of giant repute.
In the Turbine Hall at TATE Modern.

Paddington is a long way from his station

We left Petal with a woman with a back pack full of sticks and a suitcase full of art materials and 10 or so other students and headed back out to the Thames. Willow and I could have spent a lot of time and poundage in the Galley stores - they have a great collection of beautiful things.

After looking through the tables full of books for sale under the Blackfriars bridge M pointed out the rushing of time so we headed for Waterloo station to go back up to Euston. As I walked along the bank - looking all around, trying to commit the sights to memory and camera chip I walked straight into a bench seat and brusied my shin through my boots. I could have nonchalantly sidestepped and no one would have noticed but Willow's explosive grin at my clumsiness made that impossible, she has an unhealthy love of all things farcical.  I think we let her watch too many episodes of funniest home videos when she was young.

The Southwalk 2nd hand book shop.
Willow purchased an old hard back and was given a vintage bag to carry it around in (Blockbuster Video Stores).
The Black Friar Theatre (red in background ) was built into a dissolved monastry in Renassiance times and housed Shakespeare's troupe when they weren't on their summer tour before the Globe was built.

One of the places on our must see list was the British Library's Treasure room. Even behind glass it is spine tingling to see the notes and sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci, scores of the earliest written music, handwritten compositions looking as messy or worse than my primary notation attempts by Bach, Pucell, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Jane Austin's writing desk was on display - no bigger than today's laptops - I wonder how many novels she would have pumped out with that technology. Her good copy of Persuasion was on display along side Harding's Tess (complete with several ink colours of corrections and alterations) and a couple of pages of Dickens (very hard to read). There were also many hand drawn copies of early Psalters and Book of Hours. One of the first 42 line Gutenburg Bibles was on display, the first ever printed book - too bad it was in Latin. Some beautifully decorated Qu'rans and Hindi texts were also on display.

The British Library is a very modern building full of atmosphere controlled reading rooms - no pens, pencils, phones etc allowed inside! I think it looks a little bit Forbidden cityish. The Gothic wonder behind is St Pancras Hotel.

Willow had arranged to meet a friend and they were able to go to the Gothic literature exhibition for free, the Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde and Dracula merchandise in the Library's gift shop didn't activate my Christmas shopping alert even though little tree decoration effigies of the characters were for sale.

Great choice thanks Holly
We should catch a play next time too.

We walked past the St Pancras Hotel - which is a red brick Gothic wonder itself - and caught the tube from Kings Cross to London Bridge. Popping out onto Gilbert Street I was a little worried about whether we would be able to find Holly anywhere.  The Borough Food Markets were bursting at the seams and people hid the footpaths entirely from view. We eventually found each other and walked down to a Café she had found for lunch.  The Chocolate Factory had really yummy dishes but only two offerings that had chocolate in them. Walking through the Borough Markets later we found a restaurant that had cacao in nearly every dish and ran cooking classes so we might have to visit this area again! http://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk/restaurants/locations/rabot-1745) These dishes are on their Christmas menu: Cacao-crust goat's cheese, spiced almonds, pumpkin puree, seasonal leaves (could just be cabbage!) Roast Duck confit, white chocolate mash, cacao-orange-cranberry sauce. Prosecco poached clementine, cacao pulp ice cream, almond-chocolate shortbread.  Hmm - yum.

It was so good catching up with all Holly's news and hearing what she has been up to during her first few months of her London adventure.  She had a little gift wrapped in tissue for the girls - keeping that Holley tradition alive. It brought back memories of my childhood when her mum, my older cousin bought me a pack of 30 felt tips when she went to Aussie - I can remember the surprise and excitement of being thought of and of sooo many colours(have always loved colouring in!) and they lasted for years. Gotta love those ties to extended family. We are looking forward to a visit from her up at Cambridge soon.

The Tower of London surrounded by ceramic poppies as a memorial to all the Commonwealth lives lost in WWI.

We had spent so long chatting over lunch that we were almost late picking Petal up from her course. M and Petal charged off to see the Ceramic Poppy display around the Tower of London while Willow, Maple and I stopped in at the Globe Theater and had a wee dream about watching a Shakespeare there one day. Their T-shirts have great patterns and quotes but the unisex high neck, unshaped trunk and square sleeves are only of any use as PJs and £20 is a bit much for that. Petal might be able to cut out the panels and applique them onto better designed shirts, or just create her own screen print stencils for us.

The Globe

I had a near miss in the Globe lady's loos though. There are two swing doors, one for entry and another for exit but they are unsigned and the exit is set back from the entry so you don't know it is there when you enter. The entire interior is a shiny red - walls merging into doors so it is very easy just to head back to where you came in to try and get out - I was very thankful that there was a lady in front of me, holding damp hands up like a T-Rex trying to use her hip to open the door when another lady entered with a big whoosh and sent her flying across the floor. Ouch - the exit swing door (both only swing the one way) was set back a meter, closer to the basins but with out a sign or border to separate the shape from the wall it was doing a good job at invisibility. The lady was a little ruffled but OK and I was very grateful to have been the second in line for exit!

Borough Markets: Center - A place for ale rather than theater.  Right - That building pops into most shots around Southwalk

We wandered around the Borough Markets. There were products from all over the UK and Europe. Luckily the cash machine was empty and none of the stores I wanted to spend money at had card facilities. I had a couple of £s in my pocket so was able to stop at a little store called - Chocolicious - the Raspberry and Balsamic truffle is possibly one of the best chocolates I've ever had. We wandered back over London Bridge and caught the tube back to Euston and onto Watford. M and Petal beat us back by half an hour.

The lights coming on in the 4 pm dusk.

Just Read:
Three books with a Venetian touch.  Getting ready for next summer hols with little Sis.

A Venetian friend of Willow's gave me 'Venice, Food and Wine'. It is a beautiful book full of Venetian recipes from 'Osteria Alle Testiere', a little place in the heart of Venice but Gilli says that the price tag reflects how exquisite the seafood is. Her mum translated into English for print.  How cool is that!

The Glassblower of Munaro by Marina Fiorato 2008 Beautiful Books
Not bad for a light read. Loved the setting and the peak into a glassblower's skills.

The Golden Egg by Donna Leon, a Commissario Brunetti Novel. 2013 Arrow Books
Interesting glimpse into the complexity of Italian law and order. A cleverly twisting plot but a very sad social comment on people who have little social/emotional intelligence and a respect for self over others. The full awfulness of the life lost is not unveiled until the final interviews this detective has about a case that never really looked like a murder.

Layers of architecture across the Thames.