New Year's Day Walk

After trying and failing to go to Oxleas Woods (too busy no parking), the river shore (same problem), giving up and going to TK MAXX where I got a couple of late Christmas presents, then home again for a late breakfast (scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon-mmm!), we then went to Greenwich and walked around there for a while. For the first time for days we have had some sunshine, which made interesting light for the photos, with the clouds that were blowing in too. It is about three o' clock in these pictures so getting quite late, and the sun was low in the sky and the light golden. Beautiful! I went around snapping like a tourist and thought I would share my walk with you. 

 The gates at the bottom of the park, looking through towards the Cutty Sark and Canary Wharf.

 The Admiral Hardy pub in the market. I liked their display of lava lamps in the Eat window.

 The entrance to the market with angel and lights.

 The window of the newish yarn shop-a lovely shop which I hope stays for a while. The shops on this row come and go very quickly-the rents are very high I think. It was closed today luckily or I would have probably been tempted.

 The roof of the entrance to the foot tunnel.

 The high river.

 Sun on Docklands.

 And on some houses just across the water.

 Cutty Sark reflected.

 Golden sunlight on chimney pots. This is my favourite picture I think.

 Cafe Sol.

 Another entrance to the market.

 I love this large papier maché holy family.

 The old market, still with cranes. I don't know when the developments here are supposed to finish but they have been going on for a long time.

 The Mitre. Another pub we used to frequent. 

 St Alfege's church.

 The cinema and the clocktower.

 Café Rouge.

Sunset over Blackheath on the way home.

Hot chocolate and reading with snoozing cats all around. They are tired from the firework disturbance last night I think!

Magical Greenwich

I love Greenwich, as you can probably tell, the amount of posts I write about it. It is a feast of visual inspiration. Yesterday it seemed to take on a magical persona at first... Changelings in the market.
An elephant walking across the plains of the window sill.
A giant silver moth flying across a table.

A man on a door knocker with ears growing through his tin helmet.

A ship sailing through the streets.

And a tree winning a long running battle with a fence.

Later, Greenwich seemed to take on the character of different and far away places...

A French flower stall.

An Italian market.

Or Central Park in New York.

Greenwich is soon to become a Royal Borough. I thought it already was one!

A Rare Sort of Day

A rare day where I read in front of the fire, dozed, watched a film, and not a lot else. I seem to have been reading this book for ages, and have found time today to finish it. I really enjoyed it for its portrayal of the court of Mary 1st and for the central character Hannah, a girl/woman living in very difficult times, an independent thinker, highly educated, hiding her faith, and someone who managed to be a loyal friend to people who were in conflict with each other. She was most inspiring.

Then I read this book. The author was given a toy rabbit, and had a dream of it lying on the bottom of the sea. From that dream came this beautiful story. I had not heard of it, and bought it on the recommendation of the woman who came to do our staff meeting the other day. She was introducing a reading project and the main interest in the meeting for me was the long list of books! She said that this one would 'make you cry' and it did. I highly recommend it!

I did go out to Greenwich to get something to eat. The sun still has not come out so the mood was gloomy. The way the clouds hung around the top of Canary wharf and other tall buildings reminded me of being in Scotland in a cloud.

I liked the flashes of red of the cars and bus.

The Cutty Sark is still being rebuilt, and I had a look through the window to the work. Lots of activity and some good advice on their signs. They could mainly apply to the house too.

I have been listening to Dracula on radio 7 (my new favourite radio station) and looking at these boxes made me think of Dracula being transported across the sea. The steps that have been destroyed in the background have not been there that long. I wonder what they are doing to this area. I think it is all being tarted up in preparation for the olympics. I think that is the target for finishing the Cutty Sark.

Fancy fiddly photo shop, clouds, cats, sunset

Cassie is happy with the new arrangements in the kitchen. I had a reorganise last night-as far as is possible in the space, and Cassie's post has a much better view from the top now.

Sunset clouds when I got in tonight.

Cup of coffee and digestive biscuit. It was one of those cups of coffee that taste just right!

Different version.

Scratchified photo of the garden as it looks now. To the right is where I am going to have the border. Left will be the grass.

Chasing the sunset.

This is from Saturday. It is The Queen's House in Greenwich.

The photoshop effects applied make the modern tourist look ghostly to me.

There is no actual sensible link between all of these photos-and believe it or not I do try to make them! Well there is a link-they are all from today, and they were all altered slightly or lots in photoshop.

Advent Calendar 7th December

Miscellaneous

Peter DeWit cafe in Greenwich. They do a delicious full English and have lovely colourful chairs! If you look carefully at the top right of the photo you can just about see the bird silhouettes painted on the wall near the counter. I always mean to do some of these at home as it looks good I think.

Lisa of Parallel Botany had a post on red, white and blue last week and I thought of her when I saw these enamel spoons in the market. I love this colour combination too.

This stall is my favourite one in the market. The woman who runs it goes to France regularly and buys all her goods in flea markets there. There are always stuffed animals and birds, small needlepoint pictures, religious items and unusual lamps and kitchen items. I like talking to the stall holder-she is slightly moany but in an interesting way, and, to my mind, she has excellent taste! I have bought a number of things from her over the last few years, though nothing today.

Look at this snake skin! It must be about eight feet long. I wasn't tempted by it, though I did find it interesting. There was a large plastic crow that I resisted as I could not think of a place for it. There was also a wicker dress form which the stall holder claimed was from around 1900. It was beautiful-very delicate, with an absolutely minute waist. It was also £80-and I didn't want it that much!

On the way home we saw these police horses on the way to the Charlton football match. Charlton won-they have had a good streak recently apparently!

I also saw this vast expanse of hoarding, around a site that used to be a garage-about five years ago when I was first driving. Now it is going to be something else-I wonder what?

I am also wondering how long this will stay blank. It is such a tempting expanse, just waiting to be filled with pictures and words-even I am tempted!