Musings in London...

Gloomy walkway to a pub under railway overpass near London Tower Station. [4086]

The lead-in to our Arctic expeditions had us flying from Sydney to London. After researching, we avoided Qantas (too expensive!) and opted for British Airways on the basis of only one aircraft for the entire journey so, even if late out of Sydney, we couldn't possibly miss our connection in Singapore. BA16 left Sydney a few minutes early, the stopover in Singapore was maybe less than an hour, and we arrived at Heathrow early. Nothing could be faulted about this flight in a new Boeing 787. The crew were attentive, service was excellent, but we have to say that the new seat pods in Business Class were cramped compared to our memory of older 'planes, and the floor-plan was weird. First-world complaints from a trouble-free and comfortable flight! The arrival at Heathrow was similarly smooth with no queues and no delays. Immigration through an automatic machine, baggage out quickly, nothing to declare at customs, and no queue for taxis. The first human we had contact with after deboarding was the taxi driver!

Historic firestation in Tooley Street, rebirthed as an upmarket restaurant. [3986]

One of a multitude of fabulous fast food offerings at the Borough Markets. [4068]

Three iconic double-decker buses await the lights near London Tower Bridge station. [4092]

Absurd and loud, these Pediibuses, driven by alcohol charged revellers, mix with the traffic near Tower Bridge. [4093]

A half week stay in London was for the purpose of getting over jet-lag, not so much for sightseeing. This is a city we have visited many times previously, before COVID of course, and so we spent our time here mainly just walking around. We did have one important task: we discovered that our paper currency (saved up from previous trips) was no longer legal tender and could only be exchanged at the Bank of England HQ in Threadneedle Street. We've done this before and can't work out how we still had old notes. Didn't we swap them all over last time? Obviously not. Anyway the procedure at the Bank is slow and cumbersome, security guards manage the long queue, and it took about 90 minutes in total, as they satisfy themselves that the punters there are not money laundering. People with much bigger bundles than we had got a comprehensive grilling. Our paltry transaction was trouvble-free.

Not only New York has a Flat Iron Building. This one in Southwark, London. [4163]

Grungy grotto somewhere near the London Festival Hall. [4155]

One place we hadn't discovered before is St. Katharine Docks. On the site of and named after a long gone 12th Century hospital built next to the Tower of London, commercial docks were established here in 1828 but could not service increasingly large vessels. After a long period of neglect, the docks are now reinvented as a marina and a village of upmarket residences and restaurants. Just further downriver is Wapping (meaning marsh), an East London suburb heavily bombed during the Blitz, and now a trendy gentrified residential enclave. The 1758 Town of Ramsgate is a famous pub in Wapping, supposedly the oldest on the river and is next to the site of the Execution Dock where convicted pirates, including the notorious Scottish privateer Captain (William) Kidd in May 1701, were executed.

Ornate decoration on the heavy bollards at St. Katharine Docks. [4116]

Great place for a cleaning ale is the Dickens Inn at St Katherine's Docks. [4121]

Narrow path to the river beside The Town of Ramsgate Hotel. Maybe this is where Captain Kidd was taken to the Execution Dock to be hanged? [4010]

Moving memorial, by Wendy Taylor (2007), to the people of Wapping who suffered terribly during the Blitz of WW2. [4019]

Rope Circle by Wndy Taylor adorns Wapping's Heritage Basin. [4029]

The great coal-fired power-station at Battersea, built in the 1940's and decommissioned in the 1970's, has, after several planning false starts, just (last year) been rebirthed as an elegant retail shopping complex complete with brand-name stores, restaurants and cinemas. The area surrounding the building is now packed with many apartment blocks of interesting architecture. While some industrial artifacts remain in the power station, notably overhead cranes, and the four iconic chimneys still stand proud (one with an observation deck), the history of this grand building seems have been subservient to the business imperatives of profit. A lost opportunity, maybe, but business is business. Next to the power station is the 80ha Battersea Park, established in 1858 from marshland and market gardens. It was warm and sunny for our visit, and this large green space was crowded with Londoners enjoying the lovely sunshine after a period of unusual cold and gloom. Battersea Power Station tube station is London's newest (2021) is on a new spur of the Northern Line and was built to service the new suburb and shopping complex, and was very convenient to take us back to our hotel at Tower Bridge.

The now reborn Battersea Power Station, tightly surrounded by multiple apartment blocks. [4174]

London's Peace Pagoda beside the Thames in Battersea Park. [4181]

An early rose in the gardens of Battersea Park. [4202]

Boating with the ducks on the lake in Battersea Park. [4210]

Coal-fired electricty generators have been replaced by upmarket shops in the Battersea Power Station. Only the overhead crane has survived. [4215]

A bucket list item we had never achieved on previous visits was Kew Gardens, the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world", founded in 1840, and near the end of a long London Underground journey to the southwest in the general direction of Heathrow (whose arrivals overfly the gardens with annoying and monotonous regularity). At 120ha, the gardens are huge, and it took us the best part of a day to cover a good part of the territory. The highlights of the gardens include several temperate houses, some of historical interest being early wrought iron constructions. It was a nice day, and the spacious gardens were very popular with visitors, and the entrance is a pleasant 300m walk from the tube station through the Kew Gardens town village.

The 1848 Palm House at Kew Gardens houses endanged tropical plants and was the first large scale structural use of wrought iron. [4247]

At tree-top height in the Kew Gardens Palm House. [4264]

Inside the Waterlily House at Kew Gardens. [4280]

The Princess of Wales Conservatory features warm arid flora. It is an enormous 10 Zone computer controlled addition to Kew Gardens, opened by Princess Diana in 1987. [4307]

Reflective artwork "The Breach" by Leandro Elrich, a comment on the loss of biodiversity, within Kew Gardens. [4320]

18m up and 200m long, the Treetop Walkway of weathering steel at Kew Gardens offers visitors a unique view of the canopy in the arboretum. [4323]

Inside the Temperate House in Kew Gardens. [4335]

Looking up the Great Pagada Vista with runs from the rose garden in Kew Gardens. The pagoda was a gift in 1762 to Princess Augusta who founded the gardens. [4341]