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millionreasons) wrote2021-08-03 09:27 am
millionreasons) wrote2021-08-03 09:27 am
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London Belongs To Me
This time last year, as many people were leaving, had left or were talking about quitting the city, I wrote a blog in praise of London, or at least my corner of it. This weekend, another couple left, for Lewes and a cute cottage with a garden rather than an ex-council place in Wandsworth and I can't really blame them, although I still can't think of a place I'd rather be. I don't get on with the countryside and the cities I do like (Manchester, Brighton, Glasgow) all have terrible weather (rain, wind, cold, respectively).
The received idea during lockdowns was that local was busy, central was not. Indeed, we went into the west end in March and walked about and I took pics of empty Piccadilly Circus, empty Leicester Square, empty Carnaby Street etc. But since lockdown ended, it's harder to predict where the empty/busy bits will be. Shoreditch and Farringdon both seem full of girls with orange legs in heels sobbing in gutters at 6.30 p.m. because the hen party prosecco has taken its toll. Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross is always hectic, perhaps because you can sit outside to eat and drink. Ditto Kingly Court (no tables available when we tried to have some lunch a month or so ago and ended up at Veggie Pret, which in a city full of good food was....average)
Conversely, we went to Hyde Park (Kensington Gardens) to meet some friends who were staying nearby. I met David on Oxford Street which seemed half as busy as it would usually be without all the summer tourists barging you with their backpacks. We went to look at the mound, which was as terrible as the reports said it was.
We sat in a little garden next to the Serpentine Gallery and Pavilion (above) for a while and then moved onto a fairy-lit rooftop bar. This was not the usual kind of place I'd go to at all, normally it'd be packed with tourists or people with jumpers around their shoulders braying about stock options, but it was half empty and we watched the sun go down over the water and it was all terribly pleasant. On the way back to the tube, we saw a woman feeding meat directly into the beaks of swans.
The received idea during lockdowns was that local was busy, central was not. Indeed, we went into the west end in March and walked about and I took pics of empty Piccadilly Circus, empty Leicester Square, empty Carnaby Street etc. But since lockdown ended, it's harder to predict where the empty/busy bits will be. Shoreditch and Farringdon both seem full of girls with orange legs in heels sobbing in gutters at 6.30 p.m. because the hen party prosecco has taken its toll. Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross is always hectic, perhaps because you can sit outside to eat and drink. Ditto Kingly Court (no tables available when we tried to have some lunch a month or so ago and ended up at Veggie Pret, which in a city full of good food was....average)
Conversely, we went to Hyde Park (Kensington Gardens) to meet some friends who were staying nearby. I met David on Oxford Street which seemed half as busy as it would usually be without all the summer tourists barging you with their backpacks. We went to look at the mound, which was as terrible as the reports said it was.
We sat in a little garden next to the Serpentine Gallery and Pavilion (above) for a while and then moved onto a fairy-lit rooftop bar. This was not the usual kind of place I'd go to at all, normally it'd be packed with tourists or people with jumpers around their shoulders braying about stock options, but it was half empty and we watched the sun go down over the water and it was all terribly pleasant. On the way back to the tube, we saw a woman feeding meat directly into the beaks of swans.
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I’m glad you have stayed in London so I can live vicariously through you!
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Maybe that’s the whole point of my life...