Here, There and Everywhere

On Saturday my Dad, his wife Joan and her grand daughter Polly visited for a day out in London. I finally bought myself a new A-Z. It has no missing pages! It is not all bent and scruffy yet! I didn't really need it to get here-but I took it anyway for later. I wanted to share this photo as it made me laugh at just how bad it is-the way I have lined the tree up perfectly to obscure the building behind!

We visited the Natural History Museum because my Dad wanted to see the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition . I love this museum-I would love to live there so I could spend as much time as I liked looking at all the fantastic things they have. Not sure if I could cope with so many visitors coming round though.

The exhibition was very good. There were some excellent photos by young photographers, including one of the overall winners. Her photo was of a dramatic chase of a giraffe by a lion, with two rows of watching Oryx. My favourite one was of a fox, just leaping and about to pounce in a sea of green, in front of a dark wood. One of the most incredible photos was of a tree frog and a snake gripping onto each other's mouths, the frog with his hand around the snake's neck. The photographer took the picture, then watched them for three more hours-after which he went to bed! So we will never know what happened.

Polly wanted to see the creepy crawly room-lots of fun, but, well, a bit creepy! This was my favourite exhibit in there-a new version of incy wincy.

Incy Wincy Spider, didn't climb up the spout.

She fell into the sink, now she can't climb out.

If a thoughtful person were to set this spider free.

She would catch more household pests and eat them eagerly!

Next we got a cab to Harrods as Joan wanted a Harrods teddy bear. Harrods is quite weird-kind of old fashioned seeming. I can't remember when I last went there-I think it was when I was about 12. It was very busy and quite hard to move around in. There were ordinary things amongst the luxury goods-a tin of beans for 95p anyone? This is the watch I took a brief fancy to. I liked the unusual way the numbers went. I think I would ruin it at work though so I didn't bother to buy it.The little green things are not limes-no, they are limequats! Have you ever heard of them? They are the green version of kumquats and so probably taste equally weird and bitter.I liked the food hall with its beautiful tiles and its loving peacocks. Next we got the tube to Notting Hill and walked down to Portobello market. Dad bought a number of old wooden and brass edged rulers, one for measuring hats and one for measuring barrels.

It rained quite heavily and went very dark. I was trying to take photos of the pretty Notting Hill houses but trying to keep up with the rest of the group. This is the kind of result! I quite like the sparkly rain though. George Orwell lived here.
This is a great shop-full of pretty and interesting collections of things-handles for drawers, rings made of shells, little 1920s Japanese terracotta birds (see below), Indian wooden printing blocks and antique brass padlocks to name but a few. This was my one purchase from the antique dealers-old thimbles for £1 each-a bargain and a new form of percussion instrument. Not sure what they will become yet but I like them.

Little pretty birds...

My attempt at altering my photo-the birds in their little junky new home.

We rounded the day off with an impulse move. It was about 7pm, we were at Charing Cross and there were no trains. We were tired and hungry. I remembered this place-The Cafe in the Crypt under St Martins in the Fields next to Trafalgar Square. It's great-cosy, plays lovely classical music, serves good value, delicious food and wine! The perfect end (or nearly!) to the day.