More about my trip to London

You have heard a little about my visit to the Victoria and Albert museum. It was a wonderful visit as you can read in the previous post. I did make some more photographs along the way and would like to share these with you too!

When arriving at St Pancras International station,

I looked through the glass windows to a bit of land next to a derelict building in scaffolding. The bit of land was full of skips, normally used to dispose your building rubble in, but now each of them had a little set of stairs to go up, and in, and inside each skip was a miniature garden!

It was the Kings Cross Skip Garden!!

One skip I looked at was busy growing vegetables, and what is that I can see there, are they leeks? onions? I am not so up to date with it all but it looked very impressive and well tended to!

Isn't it amazing what you can do with a little bit of space? It has inspired me to make a mini herb garden in our backyard.. not in a skip mind you, but if you can grow all this in that miniscule space, surely I should manage a herb garden in a tub??

I arrived at the V&A and had a wonderful time, it was sad when it was time to leave and say goodbye but nice to wander a bit more through London. I had to go to Foyles on Charing Cross Road at the edge of theatreland. This is an amazing bookshop where you have the best chance of getting what you need (and I found it! well... part of it, the other book was out of print but that was not the fault of Foyles! they tried hard to find it!).

So I set off to find the nearest underground (called 'tube' ) station, which was South Kensington;

I took the tube to Leicester Square and on the way, we had to wait for a signal at Hyde Park Corner station;

I was struck by the old (the tiling and lettering) being hand in hand with the new (the modern seating) and thought how most people probably just rush by on a day to day basis without a thought for their surroundings. Looking at the tiling, you can just imagine what it would have been like in World War II when these underground stations were used as shelters for people and they spent time here, worried about the bombs and cramped together in large crowds.


Walking along through London's streets, I saw a pub, where the flowers were starting to bloom. Together with the sunshine, it gave a very springlike feeling!


On my way back from Foyles with my books, I came past a big square, Cambridge Circus;

Right in the heart of Theatre Land with a Production going on there in the theatre nearby;

Looking up, on the corner, the unexpeted find of an art-deco clock;

Another english pub next to Leicester Square tube station


The day I was in London, was also the day the London Marathon was run and once back in the tube, there were a lot of people both in running gear with their medals round their necks and spectators, dressed up in orange with wigs or headgear like this mother pushing a buggy with some antennae on her head and bright orange socks!

And then it was back to St Pancras Station,

with the impressive collection of steel girders holding up the collosal roof;

The Hi-speed trains were waiting;

and ready to leave;

All in all it was a most enjoyable day and I hope you have enjoyed it with me!