Normie does London

It is said that the biggest London tourist attraction is the gigantic (once the world's largest) Ferris Wheel called The London Eye. It certainly is striking at a distance - as close as I got.

While walking along the Thames in Westminster, in the rain of course, I saw a pretty little sailboat.

London has been harvesting the empire for centuries so it was not unexpected to spy a once-was neighbor, a totem from Comox Valley, British Columbia on display in the British National Museum. The totem looks slightly out of sorts? So do the Elgin Marbles taken from the Acropolis.

I studiously ignore the goings-on of royalty but I supposed Westminster Abbey to be the location of the latest royal nuptials. The architecture is fairy tale-like magical. I find the pomp and glitter of royal weddings to be supremely boring but not the architecture.

Westminster Palace holds more historical fascination as host and home to the House of Commons and Lords, mother parliament for Canada and model for many world governmental institutions. Here is Big Ben, the London Eye and Westminster cuddled together in one frame!

Westminster Palace has marvellously tectured architecture with a Neogothic or Gothic Revivalist sensibility.

Continuing on is Big Ben as seen from Trafalgar

.

Trafalgar Square used to be loaded with pigeons and tourists. Tourists seem to have displaced the pigeons. Some of them (tourists that is) were perched on the lions guarding the Nelson's Column.

Up the way from Trafalgar is Piccadilly Circus with its lights, clubs, shops and hustling shoppers, workers, tourists, buses and cabs. Along the way is the Garrick Theatre. Verity and I went to see - believe it or not - Pygmalion.

London, South Shore and Greenwich

Under the Thames

With Verity in class, many days I was free to amble about. Several occasions I ended up on the Thames south shore. The day I went to Tate Modern and National Theatre I forgot my camera so those will remain in memory.

The day I went to Greenwich was different. After walking under the Thames I emerged to see the First Shop in the World, the conceit being that the nautical shop at Longitude zero is somehow first.

It had pleasant sailing junk and touristy stuff, mostly landlubber gear and not an old salt in sight.

As I near Greenwich Observatory I noticed a strange line across the road. Sherlock-like, I quickly deduced it to be Longitude zero!

Here is a lady leaving the east.

Then some lads leave the west.

Finally, for those who think my wandering indicates basic personal indecision, here I am astraddle Longitude zero, left leg heading to the orient, right leg to the occident and my nether regions, confused in between.

Now for something somewhat different, the National Observatory, an institution that had great responsibility for the slicing and dicing of planet Earth. Which in turn, helped Britannia rule the waves for a couple of centuries.

Around the World

One - Around the World
Two - Wonderful Daughters
Three - Marvelous Cities:

Friday, May 27th - sitting in the Garage nursing my jaw after a root canal, I got serious: Why not do it, go around the world? Immediately I made flight reservations with departure one week hence on a "Three Marvelous Cities, Two Wonderful Daughters, One precious World" circumnavigation.

Only later my brain slid into action - Idiot! I need a tourist visa to get into China! The jaw started throbbing again. I swung into action. Get thee to Vancouver to get a visa or eat the price of my 'round the world' tickets.

A couple of days later I say good-bye to s/v Anya. Departure is never glamorous. Packing, driving, line-ups, jump a ferry, more line-ups, jump the shuttle, realize you are going in the wrong direction and do it over again.

The Vancouver ferry had this surprise for me whilst sailing through the Gulf Islands.

Then Vancouver and the pursuit of a Chinese tourist visa. I love Vancouver when the sun shines, a global jewel! After some ado I got my visa! On the right, see ships heading to China? Me too!

Then I am off flying. Weird! During the London flight a crazy feeling overcame me. A mad feeling of deja vu.

As I looked out of seat window 11A onto the port-side engine cowling while crossing Davis Stait to Greenland, I knew the picture - I had seen a cowling, the pack ice breaking up below, the midnight sun skirting the northern horizon. Almost exactly forty years earlier!

Forty years back, in almost the same seat, watching almost the same scene unfold, I flew into my first real international adventure, a six-week tour of Europe with Corina's choir starting in London. My aide de memoire? The choir sang happy birthday to me! It was a magic time, as was this, really my introduction to the world!

It took a time for all of this to penetrate my spacey mind but when it did, things came together in a beautiful way, a way that enhanced my upcoming adventure immeasurably!

Some hours later I flew into the morning sun and Gatwick where, surprise again, I was met by other globe-trotters, sister Elaine and Steve, who had just landed on their way to their wonderful retreat on Lamorna Cove at Land's End. A place I hope to crash one day.

I made my way into London by train and metro where I found my hotel, then Verity's summer abode and finally, and happily, Verity!

Oleo!

Autumn, Winter and Spring tidbits.

Fred and Judy snapped this picture of Anya under

motor off Salt Spring.

In early autumn I made a run to Calgary and on the way stopped to see the Adams River Sockeye run. That was spectacular - here are some of the sockeye that eluded me in Georgia Strait one mere month earlier!

Cowichan Bay - the big social event is Wing Night down at the pub.

Fred and I were snacking on wings and looking out over the bay on such a night when I spied this tawny monster, a Northern Sea Lion (Stellars) hauled out on the Government Dock. Three times the size of a California Sea Lion! I have seen quite a number of Stellars Sea Lions but never from a barstool.

Then winter settled in so I left Anya for my Dalton Hotel winter refuge in Victoria and what itself became a special adventure, one better discussed elsewhere.

February I popped over to the eastern seaboard to have dinner at a local NY Italian spaghetti joint with Felicity and Jules - Lancer stayed home. As usual I did the NY galleries and museum circuit while happily wandering - the Metropolitan, Googenheim, MoMa, etc. I did a bit of jogging in

Central Park.

Then I was off to Boston with Felicity to catch up with Verity. They attended to all the business that young, active, busy co-eds (where the hell did that term come from? - sounds sexist to me?) as students must attend to while I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where I pondered Paul Gauguin's wonder, a piece that figures prominently in some writing I presently slave away at.

My first ever trip to Boston was great, made more so by Verity and Felicity's wonderful sense of adventure and keenness!

After a long Boston weekend Felicity and I returned to NY where I continued my usual activities, saw Felicity off to classes on the rainy mornings, jogged the banks of the Hudson and walked Lancer. Later, by middle of the night cab then plane, I departed NY for home.

Winter still held dominion on my return. To cope, I took to the mountain on several occasions, snowboarding. The snow was magnificent. The thrill was therapeutic.

One tenuous spring day I spied a little blue sailboat, much like the one the girls played on in their infancy on the lakes in Alberta. It looked just like Miss Piggy P and so I snapped this picture.

That pretty much takes me to that fateful morning in late May when I had a my root canal.