posh blackfriars signage ... your pilgrimage has ended

holborn viaduct just after sunset in february

holborn viaduct is difficult to photograph after sunset

one of holborn viaduct's lions ... all rather venetian

holborn viaduct ... i have a strong weakness for tall women ... well, all sizes, actually

saint paul's

there is a small beach beneath the embankment at the royal festival hall

looking up from the beach beneath the royal festival hall

they've recently changed the lights on the millenium wheel from blue to red

i can't take sharp pictures of the millenium wheel at night because it moves quite a long way in five seconds

the marvellously good-humoured texican journalist, molly ivins has died

american visitors will surely be gladdened to see how our deep & lasting affection for their literature abides in multi-cultural modern wandsworth

more of yesterday's visit to those sackvilles at withyham

young sackville ... anticipating imminent resurrection ?

the sackville memorial at withyham church

the sackvilles in withyham church ... still mourning

nearby ... hereby hangs a whole bunch of tails

we'd like you to return this one for credit, please ?

the sackville monument at withyham church

i speculated on a short lunch break in withyham church, about two miles off my route

as i arrived, i found a sign on the door saying the church is kept locked and giving a phone number ... however, i heard voices within and entered

two builders were just packing up and about to lock up but they allowed me a two minute trot around the interior

i was astonished but there wasn't time to do justice to what i'd seen and i must return

the sackville memorial was carved by caius cibber, it is probably his best work but is poorly documented, & only after hours of searching the internet, could i find this black & white picture postcard from the nineteen thirties

it is a pretty good photograph but i can and must do better ... so watch this space

love in a cold climate

Yesterday morning, before four o’clock, I set out to walk to the bus stop at Putney Heath, about ten minutes away. As I arrived, the first snowflake appeared & in two minutes a steady whirl of tiny flakes enveloped the City. I turned my face up and was tickled by them. At South Kensington, some young Polish maintenance men had come up from the Underground to catch the bus home & seemed pleased to see some snow. When I got off the bus near Harrods, some young Africans were laughing in an unknown tongue, & around the corner in Sloane Street, a young English couple were already waiting at the next stop although no bus was due for twenty minutes.

There was no shelter. He was tall & slim and vaguely old-fashioned in his corduroy jacket, child’s scarf, & Brideshead haircut. Her short jacket and shorter skirt, gave her long body no protection against the cold & she looked desperately unhappy. Neither spoke. He paced up and down the curb whilst she squatted against a shop front, lit a cigarette and shivered. Oppressed by their misery, I wandered off a little way to shelter in a doorway. Then their conversation resumed. His first words were unclear, but her reply was shrill. “Well, you shouldn’t have called me a fucking slag ! What do you expect ?” His reply sounded like, “Oh, do you deny that you are, then ?”

Silence returned for a few moments until another, sweeter, voice approached from the direction of Sloane Square, accompanied by the steady clicking of very high heels striding upon leisurely long legs. The woman was slender & tall & black, and everything she wore was black. Her high-waisted ankle-length coat swung elegantly beneath a huge black umbrella, and as she passed us she was singing sweetly into a mobile telephone, her laughter-tinted voice as deep & melodic as her silhouette was dark.

Later, passing the tenements in Nine Elms, where grass and pathways were now unambiguously white, a young woman with a big anorak lay on the ground beneath a young man with a big rucksack on his back. She was writhing voluptuously, her arms relaxing behind her head, palms up, & her fingers pinching snowflakes whilst she yielded to his passionate kisses.