London and stuff

Oh my, we have had the most glorious days at last, although today it is much cooler.  But the week preceding the Olympic opening has been fine and warm (the English would say hot).

How many of you watched the opening ceremony of the games.  We had Kate and David Church join us for a meal and we set up  so we could watch it on the big screen in the barn.  We loved the lack of flashiness that other openings have displayed, and particularly liked the message of inspiration to the next generation they portrayed.  Thought Rowan Atkinson and the Queen stole the show.  Apparantly the skit with HRH was filmed 3 months ago.

The coverage here is super biased towards GB and as usual the media have hyped up the performance of all their athletes and have had to do a bit of humble pie eating.  For the opening event which was the Kiwi ladies football game played in Wales, our team did not even get a mention.  We would have had a profile of all the opposition players to the inth degree.  However as they are hosts, I guess they can be like that.

Our trip into London was great and we always have a wonderful sense of excitement being in that wonderful city.  Our hotel was very central in High St, Kensington and this allowed us to cover huge areas on foot.  We checked into our hotel and then walked into Oxford St to meet my brother Bill for lunch.    Along the way we passed the Royal Albert Hall - it is such a glorious building.  The proms season was about to start that week so we picked up a programme in the hope that  we may get to a concert.  The idea for the proms is to bring classical music to everyone so not only can you buy seated tickets for a show, but if you queue on the day you can buy standing tickets for two different spots (either in the centre, or up the top which is apparently better acoustics and you can have a picnic) for £5.  How great is that.  The performances run everyday  for 53 days.   Around this area are all  

 the schools of music buildings and hostels which are quite grand.  Next to the RA Hall is the Victoria and Albert museum which is my favourite in the whole world.  Had to pop in there for a quick look and then we discovered the science museum across the road.  We also managed a visit to the British Museum which is another magnificent building. 

Bill took us to an excellent italian restaurant and I am still salivating over my seafood spagetti.  It was delicious.    We walked down to the Tate modern art museum after lunch and were thoroughly confused and mostly unimpressed by most of the art.  The building itself is fantastic.  It started its days as a coal fired power plant and they have done the most amazing transformation of it.  We caught parts of a tour of art students led by an art professor and it was interesting listening to the interpretation of some works as explained by her, but we were still scratching our heads when we left.

Friday we were booked to have afternoon tea at Kensington Palace in the Orangarie.  It certainly gives a new importance to oranges having to grow them in an orangarie all those years ago.  They were meant to reflect ones wealth.  This one is now a cafe as I guess they can import the oranges from Spain.  The Palace is home to a whole bunch of royals.  William and Katherine live there as did Princess Margaret when she was alive.  I think Charles and his sidekick is there too.  It is a much more modern looking building in dark brick and the part we were allowed to tour through has lots of history.  Obviously you are not allowed in the state apartments.  We walked back to the hotel through the Park private road which houses mostly international embassies.  The London Plane trees are giant and gorgeous and provided much needed shelter from the rain.  The street is under CCTV surveliance and some of the embassies have armed guards outside.  You are certainly not allowed to take any photos.

The next week took us across to the town of Wynchcombe.  We had spotted a rather lovely painting by a dutch artist who lived in the latter part of the 1900's on one of our earlier  visits to the town and could not stop thinking about it.  John made the decision that we really should have it, so after moderate haggling we managed to secure it.  The previous owner had a gallery, but had passed away and his wife was selling it.   It is very restful - is a painting of two old fishing boats up on a sand bank.

The fine weather has allowed us to get right around the garden and tidy everything up.  Feels good to have it back up to date.  It only took two days of hot sun and the ground started to crack - just awful soil.

We spent a weekend in Chelmsford with Bill and Ali.  We drove across leisurely on the Friday taking the back roads and avoiding major roads.  We had time to visit Maldon which is famous for its salt.  Jamie Oliver is the main promoter of the product and it was a small family business until it got a mention from him.  We were entertained by a gypsy wedding which was held in the church opposite the cafe where we had afternoon tea.  The Bride was very frou frou and she was carried away in a cinderella coach with two horses.  One had to see it to believe it.  The main reason for the weekend was to help them with their allotment.  It is a new project for them, which they are just loving.  Quite a big parcel of land and they have divided what was a jungle into small beds.  Part of it still needed digging over so we helped them with that and dug out nettles that stood about shoulder height.  Saturday we spent at a wonderful food festival near where they live and as it was the first fine day for weeks, it was a real success.