What happened at the weekend... *g*
*headdeskheaddeskheaddesk*
Which plonker forgot to turn on for George Gently tonight...?
*headdeskheaddeskheaddesk*
I can't get iPlayer to work on my tv either, though thank god it works on my laptop (I just watched the last Poldark - ever so good. And now I can read the novel that I might have bought the other day...) So - George Gently still to come, but for now...
It was a lovely weekend in London! I've already said that Saturday was a gorgeous afternoon of chat with veronicaluv, who it was lovely to meet at long last.
And then Sunday! Sunday was full of many lovely things too! The least lovely thing was that my bed was too hard, but I must have slept a bit, because I woke up. *g* I was bit worried that I was up and about too early for a Sunday, but I managed to find coffee, and then tried to work out what to do next. I had to be at Paddington at 1pm, and various places didn't open until 11, which was a bit of a pain, but then I found just the spot, and set off on my way. *g* I went past...
Rather smart door steps (I do like a nice mosaic *g*) and ghost signs (I do like a good ghost sign... *g*)
Surprise Fanny and Stella street! I was reading about them last year, and I glanced up at a blue plaque that I passed, and it was them!
Funny, in a way, to think of all that happened on that street, over a hundred years ago... and on the bright side, if it happened today people wouldn't really turn a hair...
And then I was at my destination! Who do you think sat in this chair... to do his writing...? ... Charles Dickens! I found my way to the Charles Dickens Museum!
He sat down and wrote every morning, and then did other things in the afternoon. How lush...
And very nice it was too.
And then it was time to go and find my things, and go and find Paddington, and go and find minori_k! Hurrah! And that was lovely too (and I just have to say squeeeee!Oyster Card! but I'll say no more than that right now *g*), and we both caught our breath from dashing around, and then we set off to dash some more - at Camden Lock. We were going location spotting! *g* Even better, we also met up with heliophile_oxon at the tube station - but then had something of a shock. Camden Lock Market is ridiculously busy on a Sunday in April! We could barely thread our way through the crowds, never mind do much spotting... Here's some before and after shots, to give you an idea...
Once you were the other side of that entrance, nothing bigger than a... a... well, we could barely move.
As for the road they drove down to get to the market...
Not a chance!
We couldn't even get into MayLi's shop!
So we decided to escape the madness that was the market, and hope it might be a little quieter at Doyle's flat...
And it was, and we could stand around and wonder to our heart's content... *g*
How fun that this street has barely changed...
Of course we had to work out where the gate that Bodie opened for Doyle was - well-spotted that minori_k!
heliophile_oxon said she'd seen a pic from inside the flat too, and the other day she very kindly sent me a copy to compare...(isn't it a nice flat today too? *g*)
...but we found ourselves wondering how Doyle's flat worked, because these days it looks like this:
(courtesy of GoogleMap that one) ...and yet those big skylight windows make it look as though it's not the ground-floor flat.
Except that we saw that Doyle's flat is on the ground floor. So, here's the thing. Inside that outside gate, is the gate that Bodie opened for Doyle at the front where we were, and the lads go straight through into Doyle's kitchen.
(Okay, I admit, that was just gratuitous picturing... *g*
So his flat's on the ground floor, definitely, except obviously the bit that's split level. Except that look at those windows on the other side - huge-enormous skylights that look like they're miles up! So then we were trying to work that out... and the best I can see, is this:
I think there's clever window-ing going on - it's split level, rather than having the second floor go all the way across, so Doyle's got huge windows on the side opposite the kitchen - and if you look carefully you can see in both the then and now shots, there's greenery outside them there windows... so it is ground floor, right? *g* And then I reckon that instead of that side of the second floor, they've got gorgeous big slanted windows, giving the illusion of eternal sky and no one above them... I tried to see the back of the building from a different street on Googlemaps, but no go...
Bob Rocca's book quotes the director (oh, and note the interesting fandom info!): It was decided that Doyle's flat was not to be a permanent fixture as Menmuir wanted his 'agents' to always be on the move, rarely using the same house twice. With that in mind I suggested the Cliff Road flat in Camden as it belonged to a friend of mine at the time, I remembered it because of the odd multi-level aspect, which made shooting far easier from the top of the stairs...
Which doesn't help much about the architecture, but - canon about them moving house! That's not fanon, it came from the actual show - I bet it dribbled out in interviews and into fanfic from there, then the source was historically forgotten and we figured they'd made it up out of common sense... and now here we are again! *g*
We wandered off to find a cafe or something next, and after a nice wander through London streets, and then a sit down near Tufnell Park, Minori and I waved goodbye to Heliophile. It seemed just a bit too early to go home yet though (all the summer not-raining light evenings!), and so we thought we'd try to squeeze in one more location, since it was sort of on the way back... *g*
And actually this is more similar than I realised at the time - the railings were there back then - and even those cone-like topiary-type things!
It's very cool seeing how much hasn't changed... *g*
But finally even Minori and I had to agree that it was time to go home, and so we did... I just missed a train which turned out to be good, because I was early for the next one which meant that I managed to get a seat. People were standing down the entire car, and I don't think I could have - my legs were so tired from all that happy walking! *g* So thank you minori_k and heliophile_oxon for a lovely day, and thank you again veronicaluv for a lovely the-day-before. I had the nicest London weekend I've had for aaaages! *g*
And now... quel surpris, it's not an early night again... *g* G'night!
Which plonker forgot to turn on for George Gently tonight...?
*headdeskheaddeskheaddesk*
I can't get iPlayer to work on my tv either, though thank god it works on my laptop (I just watched the last Poldark - ever so good. And now I can read the novel that I might have bought the other day...) So - George Gently still to come, but for now...
It was a lovely weekend in London! I've already said that Saturday was a gorgeous afternoon of chat with veronicaluv, who it was lovely to meet at long last.
And then Sunday! Sunday was full of many lovely things too! The least lovely thing was that my bed was too hard, but I must have slept a bit, because I woke up. *g* I was bit worried that I was up and about too early for a Sunday, but I managed to find coffee, and then tried to work out what to do next. I had to be at Paddington at 1pm, and various places didn't open until 11, which was a bit of a pain, but then I found just the spot, and set off on my way. *g* I went past...
Rather smart door steps (I do like a nice mosaic *g*) and ghost signs (I do like a good ghost sign... *g*)
Surprise Fanny and Stella street! I was reading about them last year, and I glanced up at a blue plaque that I passed, and it was them!
Funny, in a way, to think of all that happened on that street, over a hundred years ago... and on the bright side, if it happened today people wouldn't really turn a hair...
And then I was at my destination! Who do you think sat in this chair... to do his writing...? ... Charles Dickens! I found my way to the Charles Dickens Museum!
He sat down and wrote every morning, and then did other things in the afternoon. How lush...
And very nice it was too.
And then it was time to go and find my things, and go and find Paddington, and go and find minori_k! Hurrah! And that was lovely too (and I just have to say squeeeee!Oyster Card! but I'll say no more than that right now *g*), and we both caught our breath from dashing around, and then we set off to dash some more - at Camden Lock. We were going location spotting! *g* Even better, we also met up with heliophile_oxon at the tube station - but then had something of a shock. Camden Lock Market is ridiculously busy on a Sunday in April! We could barely thread our way through the crowds, never mind do much spotting... Here's some before and after shots, to give you an idea...
Once you were the other side of that entrance, nothing bigger than a... a... well, we could barely move.
As for the road they drove down to get to the market...
Not a chance!
We couldn't even get into MayLi's shop!
So we decided to escape the madness that was the market, and hope it might be a little quieter at Doyle's flat...
And it was, and we could stand around and wonder to our heart's content... *g*
How fun that this street has barely changed...
Of course we had to work out where the gate that Bodie opened for Doyle was - well-spotted that minori_k!
heliophile_oxon said she'd seen a pic from inside the flat too, and the other day she very kindly sent me a copy to compare...(isn't it a nice flat today too? *g*)
...but we found ourselves wondering how Doyle's flat worked, because these days it looks like this:
(courtesy of GoogleMap that one) ...and yet those big skylight windows make it look as though it's not the ground-floor flat.
Except that we saw that Doyle's flat is on the ground floor. So, here's the thing. Inside that outside gate, is the gate that Bodie opened for Doyle at the front where we were, and the lads go straight through into Doyle's kitchen.
(Okay, I admit, that was just gratuitous picturing... *g*
So his flat's on the ground floor, definitely, except obviously the bit that's split level. Except that look at those windows on the other side - huge-enormous skylights that look like they're miles up! So then we were trying to work that out... and the best I can see, is this:
I think there's clever window-ing going on - it's split level, rather than having the second floor go all the way across, so Doyle's got huge windows on the side opposite the kitchen - and if you look carefully you can see in both the then and now shots, there's greenery outside them there windows... so it is ground floor, right? *g* And then I reckon that instead of that side of the second floor, they've got gorgeous big slanted windows, giving the illusion of eternal sky and no one above them... I tried to see the back of the building from a different street on Googlemaps, but no go...
Bob Rocca's book quotes the director (oh, and note the interesting fandom info!): It was decided that Doyle's flat was not to be a permanent fixture as Menmuir wanted his 'agents' to always be on the move, rarely using the same house twice. With that in mind I suggested the Cliff Road flat in Camden as it belonged to a friend of mine at the time, I remembered it because of the odd multi-level aspect, which made shooting far easier from the top of the stairs...
Which doesn't help much about the architecture, but - canon about them moving house! That's not fanon, it came from the actual show - I bet it dribbled out in interviews and into fanfic from there, then the source was historically forgotten and we figured they'd made it up out of common sense... and now here we are again! *g*
We wandered off to find a cafe or something next, and after a nice wander through London streets, and then a sit down near Tufnell Park, Minori and I waved goodbye to Heliophile. It seemed just a bit too early to go home yet though (all the summer not-raining light evenings!), and so we thought we'd try to squeeze in one more location, since it was sort of on the way back... *g*
And actually this is more similar than I realised at the time - the railings were there back then - and even those cone-like topiary-type things!
It's very cool seeing how much hasn't changed... *g*
But finally even Minori and I had to agree that it was time to go home, and so we did... I just missed a train which turned out to be good, because I was early for the next one which meant that I managed to get a seat. People were standing down the entire car, and I don't think I could have - my legs were so tired from all that happy walking! *g* So thank you minori_k and heliophile_oxon for a lovely day, and thank you again veronicaluv for a lovely the-day-before. I had the nicest London weekend I've had for aaaages! *g*
And now... quel surpris, it's not an early night again... *g* G'night!