Tag Archives: london

How Much Purple is There on These Houses?

While walking through Richmond, we came along a street of older houses in what seemed like quite a desirable neighborhood. The dominant feature of most of these houses was the preponderance of wisteria on their frontages. Some of the plants were confined to one house while others seemed to span whatever property that they felt like. The purple blooms were most impressive, and it seemed like they were competing to see which house could be more purple than the next. I don’t know how long wisteria blooms for so did we get lucky with our timing, or could we have been there at a wider range of times?

Jackdaws Searching for Snacks

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We stopped for a small snack at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park after our walk. We were heading to lunch later, but you don’t want your energy to drop so a cake of some sort is a necessity. The tables around the café provided plenty of food for the local jackdaw population and they were very keen to get whatever fell from the plates of the customers. With the sun on them, they looked really cool. I didn’t know what they were at the time, but the grey heads were quite distinctive, and I did a search later on t identify them. Funny to learn these things so long after I had lived in the UK.

Deer in the Royal Park

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Richmond Park is famous for its deer. You don’t have to go far in the park to come across some. They seem pretty relaxed despite the presence of so many people nearby but I imagine it is a long time since anyone in the park was hunting them, so they don’t see us as a threat anymore. As we went for a stroll, we came across a few groups of deer busy munching away. Occasionally, they would look at us as we got closer but their lack of interest most of the time was obvious!

Richmond Park Scenery

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I last visited Richmond Park in 1990 in my last year at university. I went there with a couple of friends for a day out in the sun. For some reason, I have not been back since. Why we never went there, I do not know. Nancy was quite perplexed to discover such an amazing park that she never got to see when we lived in the UK. Definitely something we missed out on.

Anyway, be that as it may, we did make the time to have a trip to the park when we went up to Richmond during our UK visit so we could meet up with family and see some other parts of the area. I really had no idea about the layout of the park. It was way hillier than I remembered. We drove through the park for a while and then found a spot to leave the car and take a stroll.

It is a gorgeous place to wander. We didn’t have a huge amount of time so weren’t going to walk a long way but we did have a nice stretch of the legs. Plenty of deer to see in the park but they will get their own post. Being spring, the trees were starting to look full. While plenty of people were around, you felt like you were alone quite quickly. We passed an enclosure that was designed to give the deer their own space. They didn’t seem too interested in it and were quite comfortable everywhere else! Our route back brought us to a garden as part of Pembroke Lodge. This was also the spot with a café which was far more important. Next time we are back, it would be good to explore the park more extensively.

Some Ted Lasso Tourism

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On one of our days in the UK, we made a trip to Richmond. It is over 30 years since I have spent time in Richmond, and it was nice to go there again. A first for Nancy too. We were having lunch with family but got there a little early to walk around. One of the things we wanted to do was check out the area around Richmond Green. This was a location for many of the scenes in the TV series, Ted Lasso. It was on our way anyway, so we stopped to have a look around.

Looking like a tourist is never too appealing and I imagine plenty of people come by because of the show. The pub that they feature apparently has fan memorabilia for the show’s imaginary team. Some of the shops also have “Believe” signs above their doors. TV does a good job of cutting together unrelated spaces, but you can easily recognize some of the places. We did struggle to identify one or two other spots, though. There is some demolition and construction underway now, so I wonder if that took out any bits that were previously used.

Royal Exchange

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We were walking through the city checking out areas that we didn’t normally go to when we worked in Town during our visit last year. Our route brought us up to the Royal Exchange. It is a really cool looking old structure but one that has been adapted to modern uses. The inside is some pretty high end retail and we weren’t buying whatever they were selling. However, I did love the look of the place. It was also quite funny because I bumped into an old work colleague that I knew from Seattle (who has moved back to the UK). Not what you expect in a city the size of London!

St Pancras Sculptures

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While walking through the station at St Pancras, I realized that there are more sculptures than I had thought. The one of Sir John Betjeman I knew of from previous visits, but the others were new to me. I rather like the stark nature of their textures and imagery. They have a rather aggressive feel to me which got my attention. It’s nice that public spaces make the effort to add art to the functional areas.

Retro Saudia Jet Compared to the Original

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While the 787-10 was never built at Everett, there have been a few that have come here for completion before delivery to their airlines. One such jet was for Saudia or Saudi Arabians Airlines. It was painted in a scheme that was a close resemblance to their livery from the 80s and 90s. I had thought that it was a retro effort on their part, but I have since heard that this might actually be the livery for the fleet going forwards.

Whether that is the case or not, I did take me back to a shot I got in 1988. I was working for the CAA in the UK on noise measuring duties and got to spend a week inside the fence at Heathrow taking readings of departing aircraft. One of these was a 747-300 of Saudia. I had my camera with me that week and was able to get photos between taking readings. I thought it might be interesting to compare the old Saudia livery with the newer version.

London Before Sunrise

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Our return flight home included a layover in London. Our flight in arrived before sunrise and brought us up from the south over to the east end and then back across Docklands, south of Westminster and in to Heathrow. I fortunately had a window seat although I was a bit far from the window itself so there was a certain amount of shooting while reaching across. Trying to pan appropriately for the movement of the aircraft was a touch tricky but I managed to exploit the low light capabilities of the camera to get some okay shots.

We flew across Biggin Hill and I was able to shoot almost straight down on the runway and ramp areas. Then we came up towards Woolwich and I could see the ferries and London City Airport. From there it was not far to the Thames Barrier and then the O2 arena. The high rises of Docklands were next. On to Tower Bridge with the Shard and London Bridge Station. Next stop was The Palace of Westminster with the London Eye and Waterloo alongside. Last was Buckingham Palace and Knightsbridge. Some fun sights to see. In daylight, I can navigate this area easily but, when it is dark, you have to work from key references.

Looping Around the T5 Piers Waiting for a Gate

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In February, we headed to the UK for a family wedding that we had really been looking forward to. The overnight flight to Heathrow got us across the Atlantic. When we landed, we headed for Terminal 5 to unload. However, our gate was not yet clear. We had made good time across the water, so we were a little early and the late departures of BA were not designed to accommodate that! Instead, we started doing laps of the concourses while they waited for us to have a gate open. We ended up parking on a taxiway for a while and then doing another half lap. While this was not ideal, I did end up taking a few photos of the BA jets around the airport.