Category: London Blog Posts

Back for Carnival, what a blast.

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London Living has been out of town and missing London. 2 visits to Scotland and one to Bristol have taken me out and about around the UK which has been fascinating but I was pleased to be back home in time for Carnival. It’s a fabulous event and being a Notting Hill resident is even more of a treat at this time of year. The build up starts a few days before as posh shops start boarding up their windows, giving a very odd feel to the area. On the day it starts quietly but by mid morning the noise begins to build and the smoke rises from the BBQs, then it’s all go and the place is rammed full of visitors. Some areas had rather more police than usual which was odd and somewhat unnerving. We wondered around, soaked up the atmosphere, felt the music blasting our ribcages, smelt the jerk chicken and imagined we were in the Caribbean for just a little while.

As for my time out of town, I can recommend Mull and Iona for the big skies and fabulous light, although we were not blessed with much sunshine which is a big feature of summer 2008 wherever you are in the UK. The second Scotland trip was my annual foray into the mad world of the Edinburgh Fringe where we rushed around town to see 4 comedies, 2 plays, a BBQ and a jazz brunch. What an wonderful opportunity to fill your days with a bunch of different shows and take a chance on new names.

Bristol has its charms too – SS Great Britain, a fascinating visit, its surrounding countryside, Bath, and we managed to get to 2 very constrasting music shows – a blues band in a tiny cramped buzzing pub and a classical concert in the cathedral. Always love those contrasts…

Back in London with a second trip to the Proms to see a more conventional classical programme which bizarrely featured one piece from the Bristol concert, Vaughan Williams’s Lark Ascending.

Next week sees me off to Spain for a week in Minorca in search of sun and lazy days on a lounger – can’t wait! So back in a week.

Jazzy days….

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Been trying out some of the ‘been there forever’ sights of London but mostly those here for just a few months. The forever – Buckingham Palace – open for the summer and all very impressive with lots and lots of gold paint. They have a room set out for a state banquet which was beautiful but the chairs looked very small and uncomfortable as only Betty gets a chair with arms.

Things that are passing through – Frank Gehry’s summer pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery which is light wood and glass and wonderful tho’ I did miss his usual style of curving metal. I was there in that wonderfully hot and sunny bit of summer we had so I saw it at its best. Ealing Jazz Festival Sunday also benefitted from the height of summer and it was baking and just got hotter as the afternoon went on. The good jazz took rather second place eating, drinking and keeping cool – apologies to the musicians!

More music this week than usual and more jazz. A jazz brunch at the Albert Hall on Sunday saw Edison Herbert and his group serenade us through a full English. And a second trip to the Albert Hall in one week (always the way) saw a marvellous world music prom give us a whistle stop world tour – Cape Verde, Spain (the extraordinary Son de la Frontera very proper flamenco), China, Gambia and finally a magnificiant show from Mali. Well done to the new proms supremo, Roger Wright, for putting this in the main evening slot not the late tube slot.

Other temporary delights – the Cezannes at the Courtaulds and Hadrian at the British Museum. Not enough wall in the Hadrian for my liking, isn’t that what he means to us Brits rather than huge models of his villa in Tivoli? Still, always great to be able to drop in and see the Rosetta stone and a Moai from Easter Island on one’s way out of a building.

Off to Scotland for a few days to visit the isle of Mull and then to Edinburgh for the Fringe, so back soon….

Sue

Sons et lumieres

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Paris was a delight – the sun on the river, the outdoors Rodin museum where there is space to think and a space for The Thinker, not too busy and the Eiffel tour lit up in glorious blue each evening and sparkling for 10 minutes on the hour which is quite magical.

London fell a little short on the ‘lumieres’ front as Kenwood open air concerts, back after a year’s break due to residents’ complaints, was good on the music but no fireworks. Something about protected bats being disturbed – well, they’ve survived at least 20 years of Kenwood fireworks, but what do I know except that it wasn’t quite the same. And, they’ve moved the site away from the lake. However, the classical pieces were great andOmara Portuondo was doing her Buena Vista stuff and it was dry 2 weeks running if you ignore the very small shower on week one…

Other sons et lumieres – an installation on the South Bank where you can walk amoung tall thin speaker like structures which have music coming out and light patterns going up and down them. Apparently as you move around them you affect the light and sounds but we couldn’t work it out at all.

The final ‘lumiere’? The appearance of the sun! Not constantly but enough to feel a bit like summer and get that awful sweaty feel on the tube , yes summer must be here so I’m off to soak up some light.

Sue

The rain came and loads and loads of tennis…

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So, second week after leaving work and this week’s highlights were: tennis, another street party, City of London Festival, Press Photographers exhibition and rain, rain, rain.

Wimbledon seemed to take up all of Sunday! It was compelling but also very hard to watch as a Roger fan, even from the sofa and goodness knows how exhausting it must have been to experience it in Centre Court. The rain added even more drama and gave us what must be one of the latest and darkest men’s finals to date and what is officially the longest.

Another street party – well more of a square party but that sounds rather dull and it certainly was not. It was in one of those amazingly beautiful London squares – all railings, greenery and surrounded by white stucco fronted terraces. For a modest entry price there was free drink, nibbles brought round as we stood and a chance to grill our local council members and MP on what’s happening with road closures, recycling, and other fascinating topics (!) to the sound of a jazz band. Some amount of drinking, meeting local residents and even nipping into the local pub after- good job it was only an 10 minute walk home and took place before the rain got set in.

A trip into the City for a friend’s work do led to a lucky find. We followed our ears which picked up jazz at 6pm just off Cheapside, very unusual in the serious surrounding of all the money making, and we found a Balkan jazz band playing in the Guildhall yard as part of the City of London Festival. Never heard of it before but it has free music over the summer across the City including on the steps of St Paul’s and at Liverpool Street Station to help out harassed commuters. Find more at http://www.colf.org/

The Press Photographers’ Exhibition in the National Theatre was sobering and interesting – sobering because of the number of stills and a video from Iraq and photos from Pakistan around the return of Benazir Bhutto. But also some great sport shots and quirky items. See attached: www.thepressphotographersyear.com/content/exhibition

And finally, rain, rain, rain. Annoying and always seems to lead to the break down of transport so I found myself and a friend stuck in Camden on Saturday for ages waiting for a bus home at 3.30am . Still there were lots of guys enjoying Gay Pride day long into the small hours so it certainly wasn’t dull. Inevitably decided on a taxi in the end and the sight of the little orange light was so welcome…

Sue

What a week…

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First post on my new London blog. I want to share London living – the fun and the frustrations. I’ve just left my full time job and it seemed a good moment to go into print and hopefully graphics, well, photographs if my blog skills allow, about a summer in London.

First week has seen a trip to Wimbledon, a London Walk, a street party and a comedy club. All this and it’s been sunny as well!

Bit more info to get those jealousy buds going…..

Wimbledon: no centre court tickets sadly so I headed down on the tube on Friday afternoon and joined the jolly queue hoping the dark and rumbling clouds didn’t deliver. About an hour later I was in and wandering around the outside courts with easy view of the matches and the amazing speed of the balls (one of which hit a photographer in a painful place of the same name!) Bumped into a friend who gave me his centre court ticket for over 2 hours of top class tennis from Ancic and Ferrer into the dark and gloom at 9.15. What luck…

A London Walk around Kensington led by the excellent Russell was an insight to an area often just rushed through on the way to the Albert Hall or ignored when going to the shops. A few moments behind the main road take you into old and graceful squares full of stories.

Comedy in Crouch End. As ever a mixed bag but Danny Bhoy was the stand out winner on the bill, along with Dominic Frisby the compare who outshone some of the acts. Contributions from the audience included cheery drunk doing a wonderful comedy fall off his stool.

Street party: where I live we have an annual get together in the small public garden in the middle of the street. A wonderful point in the year when those of us who normally rush out of the flat to work and back late evening get to say hello to people who live very close by. Interesting people – artists, doctors, film makers, some finance guys, some retired, many many families with youngish children – and me.

There’s a flavour of the week – missing out the drinks with mates and the lounging around in the sun.

Back with more next week……
Sue