Snow is so rare here in London that when it happens it’s a big deal. Guessing that our local park would be rammed with people yesterday, we stayed in our garden and had an epically long snowball fight instead. I’d like to think that Oomoo will show this picture to his future kids one day, and say that their grandma/farmor always took snowball fights really seriously 😂
Went for an epic five hour bike ride on New Year’s Eve with my friend H to the City of London, to look at the buildings there, recommended by my friend D who’d walked around there a lot in lockdown 2. On the way we cycled past these residential towers on City Road which made me laugh. They looked what I imagine people in the 1920’s thought all buildings would look like in the year 2000. Luckily they don’t, as these are pretty horrible.
Most people think the same of the Barbican, built on a former WW2 bomb site between 1963 and 1982, but I love it. We stopped here to eat our packed lunches in the freezing cold; we and the seagulls were the only ones there. Staying in one of the flats here (I’m counting on Airbnb still being around for this) for a weekend is on my bucket list, and I’m looking forward to the day when that can happen.
I’d love to know why the water there is this colour. I’m sure there’s a really simple explanation.
After lunch we headed down to Wood Street where this tree, which is possibly one of the oldest plane trees in London can be found. The general consensus is that it was planted around 1760! It’s quite something standing under it. I must make sure I go back there in the spring/summer to see the full canopy.
Hello St Paul’s! If you ever find yourself in London in the future, when lockdowns and social distancing is a distant memory, I can really recommend going there and going full metal tourist. It’s one of my favourite touristy experiences I’ve had here. I’ll never forget the Whispering Gallery (it works!), and climbing up all the narrow stairs to the top circular outside balcony and taking in the view of London. It would never have occurred to me to go there if it hadn’t been for my cousin coming to visit years and years ago, and wanting to check it out. Tack M-Fe!
The architecture in the City is a real hodge podge of old buildings and boring as hell new glass box offices. This building really stood out though. We guessed that it was built in the 60’s, but we were a decade off. 30 Cannon St was built between 1974 and 1977, and has received listed status, so it can’t ever be pulled down in the future.
Speaking about pulling down a building; here’s Temple Bar, now placed at Paternoster Square. It was built between 1669 and 1672 by Christoper Wren (who also re-built St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire in 1666, and built most of the grand buildings and churches in London still here today), and was originally at the junction of The Strand and Fleet Street. It had to be taken down in the 1878 as it was creating a bottle neck for traffic (horse driven - obvs). It was carefully dismantled by hand, to eventually be rebuilt in the grounds of a well to do couple’s country manor in Hertfordshire, who would have parties in the room inside the arch in the 1880’s. It eventually made its way back to the City in 2004.
Just around the corner towards St Paul’s is Chapter House, also built by Christopher Wren in 1712. Seriously crushing on this building. I seem to have something for houses with brown window frames… It looks pretty amazing on the inside too from what I can see online.
Around the corner from Paternoster Square in the other direction we stopped to have a look at these air vents by Thomas Heatherwick built in 2002. Pretty cool.
H really liked this building which looks like it was built in the 1960’s. It’s now a not very cool hotel .
We also stopped at Postman’s Park, to have a look at the memorial plaques there.
The artist George Frederic Watts wanted to commemorate people who had lost their lives trying to save others and put up four plaques in 1900. There are 54 up now with lots of space for more names to be added and the last one was put up in 2007. It was absolutely heartbreaking to read them.
Older London and newer London. Such a crazy and eccentric mix.
It’s everywhere I tell you.
I have a vague memory of sticking my head into St Bartholomew the Great to have a nosey a very long time ago, but seeing it up close again makes me want to go back and have a proper look inside when it re-opens.
This tower is all that remains of St Albans, which after having burnt down the in the Great Fire was rebuilt by our busy man Chrisopher Wren in 1682. It later got bombed in WW2, and it’s now a rather fancy traffic island.
This is the gatehouse leading into St Bartholomew the Great seen from the back. Pretty amazing, nay?
Slowly making our way home we cycled through Charterhouse Square past this Art Deco block. Looks amazing from the outside, but from what I’ve seen interiors-wise it looks bleurgh.
Cycling back, under the Barbican in the Beech Street tunnel. It’s hard to ride a bike and take pictures at the same time, but it won’t stop me from trying.
And finally, cycling above Regent’s Canal for a little bit in Islington, looking at the back of some Georgian terraced houses - and canalboats. I reeeeeeeeally want to go for a bike ride along Regent’s Canal one day, but it’ll have to wait as it gets way too busy at the moment. Don’t much fancy catching Covid or swerving into the canal… Am going out for another ride tomorrow with H, and I’ll suggest we head back here to look at the houses, and I’ll make sure to bring my camera.
No need for fancy cat toys for this guy. What he likes to play with is very random (a piece of rope or the inside of a roll of tape for example), but his newest favourite is ribbons. Specifically chasing ribbons. My mother-in-law always wraps her presents with them or string, and whilst opening one of her xmas gifts Buddy pounced on one. As a result, almost daily, one of his humans will run through the house trailing said ribbon behind them with him chasing madly after it. I wanted to capture it and catch him mid-run, but as soon as he saw me with the camera he stopped. 🙄
DJ Buddy?! I so wish I’d not taken this and instead gone over to see which record he was selecting. I’m pretty sure it was a funk album, seeing as almost the whole collection is funk.
Classic cat behaviour going on here. When we got Buddy nearly five years ago he behaved more like a dog (which Maine Coons tend to do); he’d play fetch, follow me around from room to room in the house, and never jump up on your lap or lie on your newspaper as you were reading it, as most cats do, and our old cat Little Mo used to (awwww Little Mo!!!). Instead he’d lay by your feet and we’d forever trip on him, as it’s not usually a place where a cat goes and we never got used to him lying there. That’s changed now; no more fetch games, and there can be whole days where you’ve not seen him as he has gone and curled up somewhere, and now he lays on laps/chests happily. Luckily he doesn’t lie on newspapers as he’s a big fella.
When I saw this clock in the morning of New Year’s Day it said Jan 1 2020. I gasped in mock horror and exclaimed “Nooooooooooo! We’re stuck!”. Ha. Ha. The year count is not automated so it has to be changed by hand, and Buddy was very curious to see his taunter/nemesis up close. You see, twice a day the day flips from AM to PM and vice versa, and when it does it makes a loud cranking sound which Buddy is fascinated by. He somehow knows when it’s about to happen and will sit and watch and wait a couple of minutes before it happens, but almost every time he gets bored and walks away just before it changes, and therefor misses the flip. I can’t remember now if he’s ever managed to see it. It’ll be a day to celebrate when he does, as it’s been a five year long project for him.
I think I can count on one hand how many sunny mornings we’ve had this winter, but when they do come it makes breakfast a little bit special. I keep thinking that I should go and sit in the garden all wrapped up, with a thermos of tea at hand and catch some rays, but because of the time of year and the angle of the sun I’d have to sit in the plant border, so that obviously never happens.
I’ve kept the white mini bunting up in the windows from our xmas decorations, to keep the windows a bit more cheerful. Lots of people have left their fairy lights up post-Christmas, and I’m sure it’s for the same reason. You try and get your joy from wherever you can.
Speaking of Christmas, ours, as I’m sure most of yours, was very different this year. We spent the day at home, just us three, which meant that for the first time ever we had to cook Christmas dinner ourselves. I tried to convince the guys that maybe we could go for the easy option and cook something less tricky, but they weren't having it. I’m the everyday cook in the house, but really don’t enjoy cooking on a bigger scale, so I was relieved when Mr Famapa dived straight in and pulled it off brilliantly. It was actually a really lovely day, so relaxed and quiet, and a very fitting way to spend Christmas 2020.
There are now two guitar players in the house. Oomoo has been playing for a couple of years and Mr Famapa decided to have a go this winter and has gotten quite good - without any lessons. I’m still not back on the piano properly; I’ll have a go every now and then, but not regularly enough. I’m finding it hard to stay focused and use my time properly, and the days seem to just vanish. I can’t believe we’re almost half way through January already, but at the same time I’m glad that we are.
In all my years in London I’ve never seen these kind of fireworks on New Year’s Eve; here the big day for that is on and around the 5th of November. In Sweden, on NYE, lots of small fireworks go off at midnight, and when my Swedish friend M (who I go winter swimming with and who for obvious reasons couldn’t go back to Sweden for the holidays) asked if the same thing happens here I said no. So imagine my surprise when at the stroke of midnight our sky lit up with them. It made me a bit teary thinking of how in times of hardship we always try and make the best of a bad situation. That hope is innate.
My dear friend M sent us some jigsaw puzzles for xmas. I’m not sure I posted a picture of a 1000 piece miniature jigsaw I did of Van Gogh’s Starry Night in the summer. It was intense to say the least. I did really enjoy it though, so I was really happy to start on another Van Gogh jigsaw, and this time not a miniature one.
A very familiar sight around here. Oomoo got his own Kindle from his uncle for xmas, and I’m so grateful for e-readers now. I initially loved mine as it was so handy to be able to buy a book and read it straight away, but it was one particular book that killed it for me - Crime and Punishment. An absolutely brilliant book, but a nightmare on a Kindle. Halfway through the book the characters’ names changes, and trying to go back and forth on a Kindle, with no way of knowing of whether something was on a left or a righthand page to find something was impossible. So I gave up on it, and started browsing and buying books in physical stores again and never looked back. But an e-reader for a 10- now 11 year old bookworm in lockdown is PERFECT. I kid you not, but Oomoo read 80+ books in 2020. I managed my yearly average of 15.
When we moved into this house I made a mistake of hanging our dining room lamp over the table too high, and as the cable holding it got cut to length there was no going back. It’s bugged me for years, and in the autumn, after some random internet browsing, I found a company in Denmark that sold the cable separately. They in turn had to order it from Italy, and it took about two/three months for it to arrive (I’m so glad I ordered it when I did or it might have arrived in 2025 - because Brexit) and last month Mr Famapa switched the cables out. It’s so much better now! OMG, as I’m writing this I’m boring myself. Apologies. This has been a very longwinded way of explaining this picture, which are the reflections of the dining room fairy lights (which are permanent… I’ve just realised that I’ve always had fairy lights all year round since 1994) on said lampshade. Anywaaaay, in future I shall remember that all pictures don’t need explanations.