London Pub Walk, a magician, a Captain and the Royal Albert Proms,

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Peter fights the Cap'n while Wendy and a lost boy look on.

The George Inn on Saturday night

School holidays have arrived . We have been seeing friends, going to local parks, doing a few interesting things and getting ready for High school (uniforms and school supplies).








We went to a place called the Magic Cavern which was the basement of a pub nearby dedicated purely to Magic. Our Magician was called David and he did some interesting things like make things disappear and appear , the inevitable card tricks, some pretty impressive predictions and finished with a hugely popular tying of the thumbs then hands through a hoop trick. Very entertaining and good fun because you are very close to the magician (only about 30 people in the audience). The girls were mesmerized the whole time so it was perfect.

I forced Herve along to a BBC Proms performance at the Royal Albert Music Hall in Kensington this week to hear a recital. I thought it would be nice to see inside the famous hall and listen to some classical music and we were not disappointed. The hall is very impressive inside and beautiful and when the music started we both thought it was wonderful, but I didn't really look what was on when I booked the tickets, other than knowing it was something to do with Macbeth. I chose the performance for the convenience of the day. So imagine our horror when we realised it was an Opera!!

Now I realise some people appreciate Opera, even the odd person under 70, but we are philistines and began to make jokes during the applause time about flying paper aeroplanes and hitting the Soprano mid high-note. We had to wait (will anyone think less of us if I say we had to "endure") an hour and a half to make our exit so we saw a fair share of the Opera, regardless. well, I did anyway..when I looked over at Herve he looked to be asleep! When I nudged him during applause, he said the chairs were really comfortable and he could sleep 'if it weren't for all the noise'. I suggested we ask the singers to keep the levels down as my husband was trying to sleep up here,.. and it was about then that we realised we would never see the second half.

Alas, our venture into the world of culture was very short lived.

More entertaining, we went on our first London Walk. We chose the Thames Pub Walk and had a great time out. It stops off at pubs along the Thames from Blackfriars Tube, along the North bank, then over the Millennium Bridge, passed the Tate to Youngs pub. Here our guide talked about the London skyline, very interesting, about the London Fire and being Cockney..you're only a true Londoner if you are born within the bell ring of St Mary Le Bow, also the Church of St Brides being the inspiration for the world's first wedding cake, etc. Then back to the 18th century Anchor pub, passing an old red light district of London where there is a replica of Sir Francis Drake's The Golden Hinde ship, the only ship of 4 that returned the journey (at this time, 1577-1580 , people didn't know if it would sail right off the end of the Earth!), Passed the Clink Prison Museum, (of 'in the Clink" fame, which was apparently owned by the Bishops at one time, as was the entire red light district!) with a fake rotting body in a cage to commemorate when dead bodies were hung up as deterrents of crime ; a real cathedral (the Southwark) and a cathedral ruin. From here we passed through the Borough market and lastly stopped at The 17th century George Inn where you can easily imagine history come to life. ( I imagined David Copperfield sitting inside with the waiter eating all of his supper)
Our guide was wonderful, called Angela I think.

Tonight we have just come back from an outdoor performance of Peter Pan in Hyde Park (we watched on from picnic rugs) and it was brilliant. Wonderful acting and fun acting too, almost like a pantomime when Cap'n Hook came onto the stage and we all hissed and booed. I think all of us (a friend of Christine's too) appreciated being outdoors and you could bring a picnic so we munched as we watched. Great night. (luckily no rain although it is raining right now.

I have heard that more torrential rain is forecast for England next week.

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Photos

David the Magician
The classic photo where mum embarrasses her children by asking the Magician to pose with them.

Royal Albert Hall.
Looking uncertain...

Thames Walk: St Pauls from the Millenium Bridge
You can notice in this photo from the pedestrian bridge, all the construction that is happening on the London skyline.

Thames Walk: Tate Modern from the Millenium Bridge
The Tate was an old coal fired (from 1947), then oil fired Power Station to 1981 when it was closed due to increased oil prices, making other methods of generating electricity more efficient. Now it houses a great collection of modern art.

Thames Walk: Southwark Bridge withTower Bridge behind.
The River Thames was a dead river as recently as 1957 (if I remember correctly) and was basically the town sewer. The last 30 years in particular have managed to save (re-oxygenate and conserve) the water and now it has many fish and aquatic life.
This photo is taken at low tide. Last week, with the flooding, the river was dangerously close to overflowing, right near the top!

Thames Walk: Shakespeares Globe Theatre
This theatre was made using only traditional materials and methods that would have been used to make the original Globe theatre that burned down (except the roof thatching is now fire proof!)

Thames Walk: The George Inn
he George is London's only surviving galleried coaching inn dating from 1676.(It was rebuilt after the great London Fire of 1666) The ground floor is divided into several connecting bars and the middle bar was a haunt of Charles Dickens. It is easy to imagine history come alive in a place like this.

Comments

[valerie]

great
Hi Fran, This was most interesting, I hope we can visit some of these places. Love Mum

[danule]

it's sunny. sort of.
Rain in London! that's new. hey what that bright light on the albert hall?

[Francy]

That bright light in the sky?
I think it might be sunlight. Although I could be wrong, my memory of sunlight is vague.

[Jim MacKenzie]

:)
It's nice to see all these places come to life in the photos and descriptions. It's hard to imagine that a month from today I'll actually be in London to see them myself.