Tag: Trafalgar Square

More gorgeous London Chrismas lights!

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There are so many fabulous Christmas lights in London this year I just had to put up another selection for you!  I still have some lights left to visit, so there could even be part 3…

Not quite fitting the heading of lights, but very Christmassy none the less, were the sights on show this Saturday in Trafalgar Square where I stumbled upon a massive Santa gathering! Hundreds of Santa were streaming out of the tube stations and off the buses to hang out together, sing songs, do congas and (shock – horror!) drink beer!  Everyone was having such fun it was infectious, although the tourists who had come to check out the Olympic clock were rather bemused. They kept asking ‘why’? It seems the only answer was to have fun…

 

Nearby Covent Garden always looks beautiful at Christmas and I was eager to see if the giant reindeer was there again. Yes, he was although he had set up camp round the other side of the piazza. I missed the real ones who had been there during the day but I love this chap with his proper red nose!  There was also an intriguing and beautifully lit chalet which turned out to house a digital installation work by Martha Fiennes called Nativity. The market sections were decorated with enormous baubles and the whole area looked wonderfully festive, as I’d hoped.

Regent Street is a posh shopping street but they have a habit of putting up the most commercial lights with product placement to the fore. This year, however, they have been more restrained and have some lovely lights about sledges and elfs!

 

All the big shopping areas in London are great for lights, festive window dressing and decorated trees – even skating rinks!   Here is the last set of photos showing: the window at Selfridges, the tree at Whiteleys;  and the skating rink at Westfield Shepherds Bush.

 

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed more Christmas in London!

Bye for now,
Sue
itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon

Outdoors London: going to the ball and a huge flower show!

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It’s mid July and outdoors London is in full swing even if the weather is not keeping up but I’m hopeful it will improve very soon. I was at 2 major outdoors event last week – a live screening in Trafalgar Square from the Royal Opera House and Hampton Court Flower Show – both good fun and luckily we escaped without getting rained on at all!

A really big screen was put up overnight in Trafalgar Square for a live screening of Massenet’s Cendrillon (or Cinderella as we know her) from the Royal Opera House. This was in panto style with great costumes, sung in French with subtitles. Although it would be wonderful to be in the Opera House, the outdoor version does have 2 great advantages: it’s free as the Opera House can be very pricey; and, as it’s televised you get some great close ups. They followed the story pretty closely and in the tradition of panto the principal male role was played by a woman which was rather strange as it resulted in soprano wooing soprano, where the spoken voice is less obvious, this was unexpected especially as the Prince looked like a young KD Lang!
The Square was completely packed with a lively crowd all sitting on the hard floor but eased by free blow up cushions courtesy of the sponsor BP. We enjoyed the show and look forward to next year already.
Photos take us through the first half of the event as we saw them on the screen (with Nelson’s Column in the background): the intro from Deborah Bull with crowd in the Square behind her; the ugly sisters before and after they are dressed up for the royal ball; our first view of miserable Cinders who has to stay home; Cinders and the Fairy Godmother after she has waved her wand; the wonderful carriage with horses (Carosse in French); Cinders arrives at the ball in her dazzling white dress while everyone else is in red; and, finally, the first kiss.

 

Hampton Court Flower Show is a major annual event in the gardening calendar and also for those who like a good day out! We were kindly invited by friends who had a stall in the massive Country Life tent where you could buy a huge range of lovely things – none more so than on their stall of course – Floreat was best! This show is absolutely enormous and you could spend all day walking round without going back on yourself and some of the tents were the size of the centre court at Wimbledon! We saw show gardens, amazing flower displays, everything you could ever need in your garden, and everything you will never need in your garden! As we were there on the last day, there were great bargains to be had as they began to close up and they pulled the show gardens and sold the plants off for a few pounds. As a result people were struggling out with huge plants and it’s a long way to the car or train station so goodness knows what state the plants and their owners would be in by the time they got home!
Photos show: Hampton Court’s Long Walk with tents all around; flower displays; a garlic garden(!) ; fabulous colours x2; blue and white agapanthus; and, a cactus garden, looking a bit like a cake stall!

Bye for now, Sue

http://itsyourlondon.co.uk/ @itsyourlondon

London’s largest roof top bar!

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This week’s highlights were a massive bar opening, a black cab tour and nosing around some beautiful private gardens – the usual great mix!

The Trafalgar Hotel (on Trafalgar Square of course) have revamped their rooftop bar and it is now the largest in London so they threw a brilliant party to celebrate its opening. The weather was a worry as it had rained on and off during the day but we were lucky and the clouds held off raining but gave us dramatic skies. The views over Trafalgar Square and toward the London Eye and Houses of Parliament are exceptional and add to that a great bar, lots of heaters, big umbrellas, a covered area with a second bar, it all adds up to a great venue. We were treated to champagne all night and a special performance by the lovely Beverley Knight in the stage/DJ area. Ice sculptures, dancers and fire throwers all added to the party atmosphere. What a great night!
Photos are: the ice sculpture; Trafalgar Square view; the outside and mobile bar!; Houses of Parliament and Big Ben; the London Eye and a gathering storm; Nelson’s column almost at eye level; sunset over London; and, the lovely Beverley Knight – yes I was in the front of the crowd!

 

 

 

As a special treat for a great group of London bloggers, John the Cabby (as he’s known on twitter @Johnthecabby) took us round his tour of London for a couple of hours. It’s always fun travelling in a cab and John has his own commentary as we pass by the great sights of London. Given the combined knowledge in the cab (the other 4 are masterminds – Laura, Ian, Tom and Matt), John’s challenge was to find something new to us all. He really excelled and even found a doorway which he’d not seen before – the entrance to a 17th prison just by Parliament! Thanks John for a brilliant morning!

 

 

Photos: yours truly pretending to be a cabby; the real thing!; and, the plaque giving the details of our new find.

It was Open Garden Squares Weekend so we set off with our trusty Oyster card and a £7.50 ticket giving us entry to every garden and tried to work our way through a list of gardens not normally open to the public. We strolled around: the residents’ gardens by Regents Park with a famous underpass formerly used by posh nannies looking to get their charges to sleep; a tiny garden at the Academy Hotel; a Japanese roof top garden at the University of London; a strip of garden along a side street trying to make the most of a precious piece of inner city green; a perfect garden square in Bloomsbury; a tranquil oasis just by the Mall; the palatial lawns at Marlborough House (with a royal pet cemetery!) and, the spacious private gardens of Cadogan Place. The last one was our favourite and not just because they had a jazz band and were serving freshly made Pimms! We bare touched the surface of the list of 200+ gardens but felt we’d poked our noses into some new areas and seen loads of wonderful plants and expertly cared for gardens.

 

 

 

Photos are: The Academy Hotel garden; the Carlton House gardens; Marlborough House lawn and royal pet cemetery; and, the jazz tent at Cadogan Place.

Bye for now , Sue

 

 

 

 

 

@ityourlondon

When London caught Royal Wedding fever!

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This was the week when London caught Royal Wedding fever and I’m going to show you just how much we were taken over by it! The weather was beautiful, London looked amazing and we really got into the party spirit.

The first set of photos show you the streets and shops all decked out in bunting and flags. You can see Notting Hill streets, street stall,, even Ann Summers getting covered (just) in the flag, and the most over the top of them all – Regent Street – winning the prize for the most possible flags in one street award!

 


Finally the day of the wedding arrived. You had to get up in the middle of the night and ideally camp out for several days to get a spot on the route itself and I decided not to try this as being rather short of stature I’d probably not see very much . I was offered an exclusive ride on the London Eye to see the procession to the church so here’s a photo of the royal car passing Big Ben and a shot of the Mall as it looked the day before the big moment. From the Eye we walked through to Trafalgar Square to see the service on the giant screen where it was absolutely packed with people trying to catch a glimpse and be part of the party.
The next party was Hyde Park where, surrounded by thousands of Londoners and visitors, we saw the balcony moment, the WW2 fly past and then the band struck up and there was dancing and flag waving everywhere! Dressing up as well of course with knights and lots of brides. And finally the street party back in Notting Hill. What a day!
Good job we had a long weekend to recover!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bye for now.

 

Sue

 

The Olympic countdown is on!

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Last week saw the kick off of the 500 day countdown to the start of the London 2012 Olympics – which sounds like a lot of days still to go but it’ll soon be here and the excitement is bubbling up. The railway station St Pancras unveiled a set of huge Olympic rings for everyone to see as they arrive on Eurostar tho’ possibly a little cruel to the French who lost out in hosting 2012 and this is the first thing they will see when reaching London!

The BT Tower gave us a sound and light show with a big 500 days sign, a countdown and then huge loud fireworks which were brilliant but lasted a really short time – sign of the times perhaps! Still it was fun and I was interviewed live on BBC Radio London so I could tell Londoners all about it – fame at last! One final Olympics happening was the unveiling of the clock set up in Trafalgar Square which is counting down to the Olympics in days, hours, minutes and seconds. It’s proving a hit with visitors who all wanted their photo taken in front of it!

Spring has sprung in London so we booked ourselves for lunch into one of the buildings with the best views over this great city. The top floor of the Hilton Park Lane has a bar on one side and a Galvin brothers restaurant on the other. My cheeky request for ‘the table with the best view possible’ worked and we were given a large round table overlooking Hyde Park. The sun was so bright that the photos are not all that great (sorry about that) but you can see the huge expense of Hyde Park, the iconic Battersea Power Station, the back door of Buckingham Palace (good to be nosey!), a view over the City including the ever growing Shard tower and a quick snap of the outside so you know what the building looks like if you ever get a chance to visit. The food is great too and they do a wonderful special lunch deal which doesn’t break the bank, especially as they thrown in a free glass of champagne. It was a long lunch as you can imagine…..!

Bye for now,

Sue

Tea tasting, toe tapping and book reading in London!

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I know I’m always saying that London offers the most amazing range of experiences, often just on your doorstep and this week’s blog shows that my last 7 days have been no exception. I’ve picked just 3 highlights: tea tasting, book readings and a bit of jazzy fun.

First tea tasting. In Notting Hill a man called Pei Wang has set up the ground floor of his house as a calm refuge to taste and learn about tea. He is absolutely charming and a group of 4 us tried out his Saturday morning one hour tasting event, which is free – amazing! He’s so enthusiastic that it lasted rather more than an hour and we tried 3 lovely new teas, my favourite being Dong Ding Oolong so I bought a whole packet to enjoy at home. He explains all about the teas you taste and can answer any question you may have about the ceremony itself and the teas’ properties including even the right sort of water to use. His knowledge is endless and we learned so much about what seems such a simple drink when you bung a tea bag into a mug! Here it is about taking your time and savouring the tea and choosing one for its taste but also being aware of the benefits that different teas bring to your health.

In his Chaya Teahouse you can have afternoon tea or try one of his tea appreciation classes or master classes (with great good) and I guarantee you will feel a million miles away from the hurly burly of your busy life after an hour or so in this tranquil hideaway. I could even manage a trip to the madness of Oxford Street afterwards without too much angst!

Look up Pei Wang at http://www.teanamu.com/. The photos show Pei himself, pouring my tea into delicate cups, his house and the tea tasting table set up for us.

Friday night was World Book Night in Trafalgar Square and I went down to find out what it was all about. The square was all lit up with a large stage set up so we gathered waiting to see what would happen. World Book Night is a major event to encourage more reading and on the next day the organisers were galvanising a huge number of volunteers to give away a million books to get people started! The Friday event was a great part of this celebration of reading as a whole host of top authors and famous folk were reading a small piece from a favourite book and it was captivating. Reading ranged from their own books to Dickens to a piece about a bad hangover, read by our very own Mayor Boris Johnson! I also saw: Alan Bennett, Rupert Everett, DBC Pierre, Sarah Waters, Andrea Levy, Mark Haddon……. all hosted by Graham Norton and here are photos of some of them and the square. It’s in the diary for next year already and I want more – it was such a treat to hear such great readings on a dry but chilly March night surrounded by fellow book fans.

And finally, the toe tapping! Kensington Roof Gardens was the swanky venue for a great jazz night starring Rebecca Poole. The Roof Gardens are just that, being a huge outdoor space on the top of a former department store with Spanish, English and Monet style sections (most famous for their flamingos who were not to be seen on a chilly night) and luckily a large marquee section too so we were indoors. I know Rebecca and she is great fun to go and see with her warm personality, husky jazz voice and great range of songs – her own compositions and covers. We even had a quick twirl together at the end of one song when she joined in the dancing on the floor! I’ve seen her many times and she just gets better and better so keep an eye open for her next show….

 

Bye for now,

Sue

ttp://itsyourlondon.co.uk/

Classical music, rain and bin bags!

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London – so varied, so interesting, such unpredictable weather! I like to think it’s always sunny in London but we do have rain or our parks wouldn’t be so lovely and green. This week’s wet highlight was Kenwood – a series of open air picnic concerts set in the lovely surroundings of Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath. We went for the summer proms featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons which turned out to be accurate as we had sun, cold and the most amazing downpour I’ve been out in for a very long time. We were half way through the picnic when the heavens opened on us and despite enormous amounts of plastic we were soaked to the knickers! No photos of this as the camera was safely away in one of the few dry sections of the bag. Being British we ‘kept calm and carried on’, sat it out, finished the picnic and enjoyed the concert tho’ sitting in damp clothes is not my favourite feeling. Here’s a photo of the venue just before the rain…..

Trafalgar Square was hosting a pop-up maze with blue plaques all around inside the maze telling visitors all about the West End. It wasn’t large enough to get lost in but was good fun and in the middle were singers from Dover Street jazz and I read that there were different performers each day. Just a bit of fun and why not. A couple of photos to give you the idea, one on the inside and one of the famous lions taken in the queue – yes of course there’s a queue – surely part of the fun!

It was classical music week with a trip to the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall where we saw Elgar and Vaughan Williams performed by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It’s a beautiful venue and I love to hear music there. It was good to see it full as the Proms are a fabulous national treasure from the BBC – the world’s largest classical music festival with over 70 concerts spread over 3 months every summer. ‘Prommers’ queue on the day (queueing again!) for standing tickets at just £5 which makes it brilliantly accessible for the less well off but hardy folk. Luckily for me we had box tickets as I’m too short and too lazy to stand for a couple of hours! Here’s a photo of the inside of the wonderful hall, taken just after the performance finished in case you were thinking I’d taken in mid symphony which would be a major Proms crime…

One of my local galleries was holding their Summer 2010 Collection which was very interesting. Salon Contemporary on Westbourne Grove showcase the best of new British talent in this annual event in its 4th year now and new graduates get to show their work in the trendy gallery. It was invite only and was absolutely packed. The most eye catching was Hye Young Ku who works with bin bags and combines a static piece with performances and the photos shows her is in her bin bag bed creation within which she sang short sets. Salon Gallery has regularly changing exhibitions and is an important champion of new work. They also initiated a great new local initiative, First Wednesdays, where local galleries and fashion shops open late on the first Wednesday of the month (it was in the name I guess!) which just makes Notting Hill even better.

Eating and drinking this week – my fabulous picnic at Kenwood was a highlight! I love putting together my picnic with its massive over-catering and plenty of hot food. Also a trip to the refurbished Chepstow in Notting Hill and Smithy’s Wine Bar in Kings Cross where the Dover Sole was very highly recommended.
Here’s hoping for no rain as I’m off to the Edinburgh Fringe this weekend!
Bye for now.
Sue

Happy Birthday your Majesty!

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This week saw the official birthday of the Queen, her real one is in April but she has a second one when all the pomp and circumstance is rolled out. We got our spot opposite Buckingham Palace at 9am, way ahead of the crowds and waited in the sunshine while men on horses, men in carriages and men on foot kept themselves busy and all dressed up in their very shiniest uniforms. Then finally the royals rolled out in their carriages and there she was – very smiley and with Prince Philip who was completely submerged in a huge bearskin! There was more marching than you can imagine and a 41 gun salute from Green Park. The bands played all the usual marching tunes including one loved by the England football fans which made me wonder whether that had been put into the programme in honour of the evening’s World Cup match against the USA (I’ll gloss over that result!) And for the royal spotters here’s a photo of the classic line up on the Buckingham Palace balcony – see how many you know and yes, Harry was missing!

 

It was Open Garden Squares Weekend in London when hundreds of gardens are open to the public many of which are private and inaccessible to non residents. A single tickets gives you entry to them all so I rushed around to pack in several of the more unusual including the roof top garden on the Ismaili mosque in South Kensington, where no photos were allowed but you could get access to their modern styled prayer room – even to women. The guide managed to explain the background to the Ismailis in a few minutes so we all left with a better understanding. One of the stars of the weekend was the Kensington Roof Gardens which is a private club and restaurant owned by Richard Branson where the gardens on a sunny day make you feel like you are on a Spanish holiday. They famously have flamingos living there to add to the exotic feel and they are beautifully pink. Other gardens I visited were so big they felt more like parks but there were also tiny treasures just big enough for the houses that surrounded them but all spoke of a life of substantial money and luxury….

 

Another London treat was the live screening in Trafalgar Square from the Royal Opera House of 3 ballets. This was a wonderful treat as the tickets for the indoor version are terribly expensive and to see it for free with great sound and picture quality was huge fun if a little chilly as it was a particularly poor evening. The programme was 2 modern ballets, Chroma and Tryst followed by a more traditional Symphony in C and to my surprise it was Chroma that mesmerised me with its raw passion and driving score. The dancers wore just singlets and knickers and no ballet shoes so it felt very different to what you would expect from the Opera House and Wayne McGregor’s choreography was completely engaging at all times. These 2 photos show you how the screen works with a close up on Chroma and a shot of the inside of the Royal Opera House to see how the other half enjoyed the show.
A new local pizza restaurant to mention this week – Otto. Started by a couple of young guys who love cornmeal pizza bases and huge toppings. They’ve just opened and started with such a bang that they ran out of food on their first night! Luckily they had restocked by mid week and served a very tasty pepperoni pizza but it does fill you up so certainly go for a half each. They’ve taken over an old cafe which never seemed to work and have kept the casual cafe feel while making it more welcoming so I wish them well.
It’s all world cup for the next month with Wimbledon squeezed in as well as Royal Ascot horse racing so fingers crossed for good weather!
Bye for now,
Sue

Libraries and a ship in a bottle…

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Last week was as busy as ever with a Library themed day out, a sighting of giant ship in a bottle, an evening with the Mayor of London (!), and of course more elephants!

 

Firstly our Library Day. I designed a day out for some ex colleagues as part of my business offering (It’s Your London) as one of them is a former librarian. We started with champagne and then a leisurely lunch at Shanghai Blues, an elegant Chinese restaurant in the former St Giles Library in High Holborn. An excellent meal from their set lunch menu. Cabs were required then to take us to Lambeth Palace where they had opened up their library to celebrate it’s 400th anniversary. There were the most amazing books to be seen: an Irish book dated 945 was the oldest; a copy of the Guttenberg Bible the first printed book to reach this country; and, the enormous and fabulous Lambeth Bible dating from 1150. They were all in incredibly good condition, easy to view and accompanied by an informative audio guide. Lambeth Palace itself is a wondeful building dating from 1663 and is the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

After our bit of culture, we walked along the Thames and up Whitehall to take in the sighs like proper tourists do. From there the intrepid explorers set off in search of more theme activities and finished the tour in the Library Bar at the Lanesborough Hotel where the cocktails did not disappoint! The Lanesborough is super luxurious and it’s strange to think it was formerly a hospital until the lease ran out….

 

A visit to Trafalgar Square to view the latest addition to the Fourth Plinth is a must. This time it’s a huge replica of Nelson’s ship The Victory with batik sails to represent the many and complex links between Britain and the continent. It’s really lovely to look at and a very striking addition to the square.

 

 

My evening with the Mayor, Boris Johnson, was actually a public meeting for small

business owners in London to ask questions to Boris and a panel, although Boris was clearly the star turn. He is very entertaining and disarmingly funny, even joking about the problems he’s already having with the new government despite them being largely the same party as him! He’s battling for money for London’s infrastructure and that’ll be one to watch. Many questions about Congestion Charging, electric vehicles and money and support for new businesses.

Elephants of course: here are 2 from Trafalgar Square. It should be noted that they do move around so you can never be sure which one will be where!

 

Bye for now – looking forward to next week,
Sue

Rain and rainforests

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I have to admit it does rain in London sometimes and this week was one of those weeks and some! So it was fitting that the rainforest came town in the form of the ‘Ghost Forest – from the Tropics to Trafalgar’ an outdoor exhibition which highlights the extent and danger of deforestation. Ghost Forest brought us 10 stumps of rainforest trees from Ghana filling up Trafalgar Square in an haunting and beautiful display of fallen giants. The square was well chosen as Nelson’s Column is about the height of one of the fully grown trees and we learned that Ghana has lost 90% of these trees in the last 50 years . I went to see them by night in the rain and by day in the sun, so I’ve posted one photo from each visit and you can see the trees against the backdrop of the square and the National Gallery. The trees are now off to Copenhagen for the climate change conference.

 

 

 

 

 

London Jazz Festival was in full flow this week – good indoor activities for rainy evenings! There was a huge range of artists in town for this and I chose to see the African Jazz Quintet at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill. They were really good and for me the saxophonist was outstanding though my friend thought the guitarist was the star but the photo is mine so it’s of the sax guy! The music was full of melody and life and the band were clearly having a great time as well as the audience.

 

 

 

Another great escape from rainy days in London is the amazing variety of courses you can take. I treated myself to a one day on British cinema at the City Lit college and we watched clips and discussed how the cinema showed us the massive social change just after the 2nd World War (lots of great black and white movies) . Not everyone’s cup of tea but I thought it was fascinating and on that day the college were running everything from singing to keep fit to professional study. Afterwards we caught up on cinema as I’ve been a bit lax lately and went to see An Education which was really evocative of the 60s and had some great performances.

 

Restaurant update. In London you can get special deals through a website called OpenTable  and we picked up a great deal of 2 courses for £14.95 at Brasserie St Jacques in St James’s. It’s a good quality French restaurant with excellent food and charming staff who were keen to tell us that on Tuesdays they will be bringing opera to diners at their tables, rather than the enjoyable background jazz we had. I’ve also been frequenting coffee venues in Notting Hill and can recommend Daylesford Organic and 202 on Westbourne Grove as this week’s favourites for meetings and catch ups. Good coffee but don’t expect it to be cheap!
My neighbour’s just turned up for coffee, so bye for now.
Sue