New Year wanderings in London

We drove to the station for an early train while it was still dark. Some people still had their Christmas lights on, visible through the mist hanging in the fields. Euston and the Royal Society of Medicine where we were staying were very quiet. The main reason for coming down so early in the year was to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum but I had booked that for the Monday in the hope it would be quieter. This turned out have been a good idea as the woman on the desk said that it had been full over the weekend. The museum is a wonderful building with the obligatory dinosaur hanging in the main gallery.

You could spend hours looking at all the exhibits but we confined ourselves to the photographs which were outstanding.

Oxford Street still had its lights up, the same ones that I photographed a few years ago but not all were lit.

We found some bargains in the sales although James’s search for a particular style and colour of sweater proved unfruitful until the last afternoon. Another interesting find was that Waterstones in Piccadilly has a floor of Russian books. I had only on Friday morning put a stressed Russian translation of Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ on the bookshop internet sales site which I thought was a little unusual for us. Having done our little bit to help the economy, we spotted Joe Lynam and a BBC film crew setting up to report next to House of Fraser presumably on seasonal spending. Just before our evening meal in a local restaurant we had a drink in the Cock and Lion pub in Wigmore Street. The walls are covered with photographs of Edwardian London. James however, was a little more interested in the live sport they show.

James wanted to look at the market in Camden Passage. We had coffee in a boulangerie where frangipane tarts decorated with crowns for on sale for Epiphany. The bakery across the road had to stress that it was an English one. Only in Islington do you find a gluten-free bakery shop and the charity shops very few clothes in sizes above a women’s 10.

Later, en route down Regent Street to Liberty we passed the Canada Goose shop which opened its UK flagship store in November 2017. Then, there had been large crowds of animal rights activists with claims that coyotes and geese are mistreated to make the brand’s products. They have been accused of producing parkas with trims made from coyote fur. PETA claim the coyotes are caught in the wild in steel traps. On the day we passed by however, there was only one man demonstrating. In Chinatown where we ate on our last evening, the protest was about banning live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. The RSM had an exhibition entitled ‘Women and their olive trees’. The paintings were produced by an art class in Israel of 35 women aged 17-80 from Lithuania, Umm al-Fahad, Tiberias, Romania, Nazareth, Isfaahan, Argentina and the Caucasus who were from a variety of religious and backgrounds.

The exhibition has travelled throughout Europe and is due to travel around the UK. All too soon it was time to return to the station and I was coming down with a virus so needed the comfort of home for a while.

Even slower Sunday

Another sunny morning so we strode across Hyde Park among all the dog walkers and joggers to Knightsbridge. Destination: the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. Well worth a visit and a potent reminder of the time and effort needed to get really great shots. Post-production fiddling appears to be allowed (unlike anything submitted to the National Geographic). Inspiring and also a challenge as I hope to improve my photography when I have a bit more time. The museum was extremely busy when we had finished viewing so we escaped to a nearby cafe. The Harrods map room is no longer and the map seller the extremely helpful member of staff found for me in Beauchamp Place is closed on Sunday so the bank balance is safe. James was getting agitated as the Scotland-Ireland rugby kick-off approached so having wandered back towards the RSM I suggested we might find a pub to watch it in and so we were ensconced in the Cock & Lion in Wigmore St to see Scotland defeated. James was happy and I had to get in touch with the 1/16 of me that is Irish. Later it was back to Euston and an uneventful train journey home.