London

Personal slant

My link to London:

Both my Maternal and Paternal ancestors emigrated to Greater London during the period 1870 - 1910. They came from what is now Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Latvia; an area of Eastern Europe known as the 'Pale of Settlement'. They lived in the East End around the area of Whitechapel, with my mother's family living in Hessel Street, just off Commercial road. Their stories however, are for another blog and another time.

I have family in London. My youngest sister and her school age son, my other nephew from my other sister, originally from Perth, my cousin and her family from my mother's side and my late father's 98 year old sister, plus her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

Had I not been taken to one of 'the Colonies' at an early age I would more than likely have spent my life in London, working in the markets and just seeing the world through the lens of my TV or worse, through the WWW not knowing the difference between a fact and a Trump.

All cities I plan to visit allows me to tick all three of my to do boxes - museums, art galleries and architecture. London is no exception.

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I arrived in London yesterday morning  (19th July) around 5:45 having spent almost 18 hours in night darkness. First time that has ever happened to me. The flight was ok but the seats were hard and that numb bum feeling settled in rather fast. 

Heathrow was so quiet at that time of the day. I had repacked everything just in case my suitcase never made it but lo and behold I was on the tube with backpack and case in hand by 7am, wondering why I keep listening to the reports of mountains of suitcases being left behind, going astray, or just taking forever to be taken off of the plains.

Oh yes the weather! It was warm but I am sure that many of the local inhabitants would argue over my use of the term 'warm'. The mercury hovered about the 38C to 40C mark. But come on, I have lived in Perth, WA for over 40 years. This is our normal February weather. My daughter works FIFO (Fly In, Fly Out for the uninitiated) in the Pilbara and the temperatures there go way higher. However for a northern population, these numbers are understandably high, school almost intolerable, sand frightening. I do feel for them as their homes are built with the winter in mind, not the summer. And for the record, I was living in London during the heat of the 1976 summer. We got so sunburnt back then, and just a few days before taking a long flight to Southern Africa.

31st July 

Spent a few hours at the Borough Markets, just south of the river, adjacent to the new London Bridge. Lots of stalls. Mainly food - bread, cheese, meats, beer & wine, oils, doughnuts, beigles etc.

 Images to come once I have down loaded them from camera to cloud.