When a woman is tired of London...
I love London. I'm a total London geek. Any little facts or figures, tall tales, flashes of history, and I'm quivering with excitement.
I live in Southwark, one of the oldest areas of London. Safe from the great fire of 1666, largely ignored by the bombers in the blitz, when you walk from my house to the Southbank you're walking on the same cobblestones as people hundreds of years ago, ducking through tiny alleys, under railway bridges, past the place where Bill Sykes murdered Nancy in Oliver Twist, past the prison that named the rest of them stands - The Clink - past Winchester Palace, built in the early 1100s, and Southwark Cathedral, one of the oldest Gothic buildings in London, built in 1212.
Southwark was always the a pleasure-quarter of London as it was technically out of the jurisdiction of the City of London, and so while the inhabitants of the City had a curfew imposed on them in an attempt to reduce binge drinking (sound familiar, anyone?!), those looking for a little late-night pleasure would come south of the river to party. The riverbank was lined with brothels, bear pits, theatres and stewhouses.
There was always so much going on around here. Walk to the end of my street and you are on the street that was the setting for the beginning of The Canterbury Tales, the street where the first English-language Bible was made, and more, always more. I love the deep sense of the past that I get, even from walking along any small insignificant street; the old factory buildings - now swanky flats - the uneven roads, the tiny alleyways ducking shadily off the main streets. It's a place rich with voices from the past, it positively vibrates with history.
Yesterday, divine_miss_j and I went to the gym, then to Borough Market where we bought Treacle Tart and Chocolate Brownies from Konditor & Cook before buying sandwiches and big bottles of water and walking along the Southbank to Tower Bridge. We lay in the shade and listened to my i-Pod and read our books. Mostly, though, I sat and watched passers by, looked at the bridge and at the Tower - our position put us almost exactly in line with the Traitor's Gate - and at St. Pauls, distantly hazy in the heat, and Canary Wharf gleaming in the opposite direction. It was so hot that the sky was almost grey at the horizon.
A lovely day :)
I live in Southwark, one of the oldest areas of London. Safe from the great fire of 1666, largely ignored by the bombers in the blitz, when you walk from my house to the Southbank you're walking on the same cobblestones as people hundreds of years ago, ducking through tiny alleys, under railway bridges, past the place where Bill Sykes murdered Nancy in Oliver Twist, past the prison that named the rest of them stands - The Clink - past Winchester Palace, built in the early 1100s, and Southwark Cathedral, one of the oldest Gothic buildings in London, built in 1212.
Southwark was always the a pleasure-quarter of London as it was technically out of the jurisdiction of the City of London, and so while the inhabitants of the City had a curfew imposed on them in an attempt to reduce binge drinking (sound familiar, anyone?!), those looking for a little late-night pleasure would come south of the river to party. The riverbank was lined with brothels, bear pits, theatres and stewhouses.
There was always so much going on around here. Walk to the end of my street and you are on the street that was the setting for the beginning of The Canterbury Tales, the street where the first English-language Bible was made, and more, always more. I love the deep sense of the past that I get, even from walking along any small insignificant street; the old factory buildings - now swanky flats - the uneven roads, the tiny alleyways ducking shadily off the main streets. It's a place rich with voices from the past, it positively vibrates with history.
Yesterday, divine_miss_j and I went to the gym, then to Borough Market where we bought Treacle Tart and Chocolate Brownies from Konditor & Cook before buying sandwiches and big bottles of water and walking along the Southbank to Tower Bridge. We lay in the shade and listened to my i-Pod and read our books. Mostly, though, I sat and watched passers by, looked at the bridge and at the Tower - our position put us almost exactly in line with the Traitor's Gate - and at St. Pauls, distantly hazy in the heat, and Canary Wharf gleaming in the opposite direction. It was so hot that the sky was almost grey at the horizon.
A lovely day :)