Saturday, January 20, 2007

O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

OK, so now and then I have to be allowed a title that shows off a "classical" Novocastrian-style education, right?

We in the British Isles have been enjoying some 90mph+ winds lately. It's really quite extraordinary - diagonal walking is a new skill for me. Lots of trees down in Holland Park, but no damage in our immediate vicinity. It isn't cold but it's damn hard to maintain a natty hairstyle or to get from A to B via public transport without spending protracted periods stuck inside tube tunnels. I would say "typical England" but anyone who has depended on the Northern or North Shore train lines in Sydney knows just how reliable they are once heavy winds start dropping widowmaker gumtrees across the lines.

It's been warmer but apparently we are staring down the barrel of 3 and below next week, so time to break out the thermals perhaps.

Our Saturday morning looked like this:
This is a huge benefit of living with Grant by the way - delicious cooked breakfast at the weekend! The coffeepot was a present from Susan and Robert, and very well used it has been. See how nicely it goes with the dodgy red cookware? Also note wee cute Union Jack coffee cup!

The massive breakfast was required for our weekly walking adventure, this time SOUTH OF THE RIVER to Battersea Power Station (decommissioned) via Holland Park, Kensington, Earl's Court, Chelsea, and Wandsworth (including the runner-up to coolest graffiti ever after Newcastle's famous THIS IS NOT ART, namely this, and Battersea Park, which is very very pretty and has tasty soup. It took an hour and a half or so to get there, and way way longer to get to the power station, because they have cunningly surrounded it with building sites and dead ends. By the time we got a decent view on an obscure backstreet near the Vauxhall Bridge, we had gone way further east than originally intended. So, instead of heading back the way we came, we went home via Victoria (ooh, Little Ben! cute!), Hyde Park, Kensington Palace Gardens and Notting Hill. By that point we had walked a billion trillion miles, the breakfast and the soup had both worn off, and for once Grant was the one having the sugar crash instead of me. Picture a cranky pants Loz hungry hissyfit with twice the brute strength and much longer eyelashes!

My feet are killing me, but it was a lovely walk - sunshine, fancy architecture, and plenty of time beside the mighty Thames. However, I doubt we can force any visitors to undertake the journey on foot.

Many more pictures of the power station (for Robert) and a rather cool round building (for Mum) here.

Thesis words written for the week: 600. That is my head hanging in shame. 2000 last week. Happily, most of the 2600 has to be butchered/deleted/revised to fit in with my new structure. HURRAY!

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