You want water in motion, Sofia, for your Lens-Artist Challenge? You’ve come to the right place. We speak of little else in England this year. Look at this.
A dismal moment sheltering by the River Skell in Ripon.
Or this, taken through the windows of Christ the King Cathedral, Liverpool.
A (typical?) view of Liverpool.
But without this rain, we wouldn’t have those glorious tumbling riverside views: these are both from Yorkshire: I’m focussing on England for this post – it seems appropriate.
The River Wharfe at Grassington
The River Ure at Redmire Force.
Water’s playful too: especially in the hands of a sculptor. Here’s Atlas with his sea gods at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. A fuller image is shown as the featured photo.
Atlas , Castle Howard
And a child in Granary Square, London is certainly having fun.
Fountain, Granary Square, Kings Cross London.
But we’ll conclude with a more typical London view, overlooking the River Thames.
When Patti proposed, for this week’s Lens-Artist Challenge, that we focus on cities, I wondered where to start. Busan? Barcelona? Bamberg? Instead, I’ve decided to return to the city where I lived between the ages of five and sixteen, and to which I often return because my son and family live there: London.
We’re going to journey up the Thames, from Woolwich where the imposing flood defences of the Thames Barrier are sited through the city as far as Tower Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We’ll travel, as so many tourists and even daily commuters do by Thames Clipper, the city’s very own London bus of the waterways.
Here’s the Thames Barrier, its metal hoods stretched assertively across the river, protecting it from the ravages of high tides and storm. You can read all about it in another post of mine, here.
The Thames Barrier on a grey day.
As our Thames Clipper passes through Greenwich, there’s the Old Royal Naval College, and the famous 19th century tea clipper, the Cutty Sark.
To the left, the Old Royal Naval College. To the right, the Cutty Sark.
Passing through the Docklands, we’re reminded of the city’s industrial past, when this was the area for receiving and despatching goods from all over the world.
Once a busy wharfside storehouse, now elegant apartments
These wharves are now repurposed as sought after apartments. But even with the modern Canary Wharf behind, we shouldn’t forget the Dirty British Barges (sorry, John Masefield) that continue their work of haulage up and down this busy river.
And maintenance works goes on …
Then it’s Westminster. Here’s Westminster Abbey and The Houses of Parliament, but what a shame that my most recent photo has Big Ben bundled up in tarpaulin.
Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament AKA The Palace of Westminster, and a wrapped-up Big Ben
Then it’s the former County Hall, with the London Eye in front.
And on to the beating heart of the city: Tower Bridge, which I have never seen raised, though it still happens often enough. And here too is HMS Belfast, which saw 25 years of service during and after WWII. This most ancient part of London, site of Roman walls, and the Tower of London, is also where London’s most modern high-rises are found.
Are you getting a bit windswept and weather beaten here at Blackfriars Bridge?
It’s raining as we look through the arches of Blackfriars Bridge.
You are? Well, we’ll finish with a miscellany of photos. Enjoy the rest of your day – but just enjoy the view from the Millennium Bridge across to Saint Paul’s Cathedral first.
From the Millennium Bridge to Saint Paul’s on a rainy day.
If London -and the quirkier aspects of its history – interests you, I recommend hopping over to Steve’s blog: A London Miscellany. He’s a mine of useful, and useless-but-fascinating information.
Several readers of my blog threw up their hands in horror in reading of our horrid journey-from-London-to-Yorkshire-that-wasn’t yesterday. The frightfulness we and hundreds and hundreds of others encountered made the national news. So I thought I’d bring the story up to date.
Today was easy. The train company, LNER had announced that anybody affected yesterday could, for the next two days, catch any train that would reach their intended destination. We imagined that every one of these trains would be full to bursting, standing room only. Unless … we travelled early.
So….
5.00 a.m. Catch the first train of the day from Hither Green.
5.30 a.m. Arrive London Bridge tube station as entrance gates clatter open, and take escalator to Northern Line.
Wait on platform till 5.45 for train to Kings Cross., with just a few scuttling mice for company.
6.00 a.m. Catch train bound for Edinburgh, which takes us to the station nearest our home.
Near York, begin to understand what yesterday’s difficulties were about.
8.55 leave train to be met by a friend who arrives with his car to spirit us home - the long way round because of flooding. Nearing home, we see a rainbow ….
9.29: Arrive home.
Perhaps this proves the truth of that old saying about the early bird who catches the worm. I only wish I’d taken Before and After shots of the concourse at Kings Cross Station yesterday (maelstrom) and today (perfect peace). Two nervous little Country Mice are rather glad to have finally scuttled home.
There’s an American bird – the Passenger Pigeon – that is thought to be extinct. It turns out this isn’t true. It’s come to London. Let me explain.
We’ve had a bit of a horrid day. After our wonderful Christmas with the family (London Branch) we were due to travel home today. Kings Cross Station, when we arrived, was crammed with travellers staring at the Departures board, unable to begin their journey. We joined them. Five minutes before our train’s scheduled departure, it was cancelled. Not that we had been able to fight our way through the throng to get on it. And so it went on. Finally, we abandoned all hope. We turned round to beg another night from the London Branch.
And that’s where the Passenger Pigeon comes in. As we got onto our local train, we spotted a bird – a pigeon – in the luggage rack, intent on joining us for the journey.
He must have realised he didn’t have a ticket. Just before the doors closed, he pulled himself energetically together … and flew off.
The other day I showed you the thieving squirrels of Mudchute Farm in London’s Isle of Dogs. Today it’s the turn of the thieving goats. Mind your scarves! The goats find them delicious.
Last week, I invited you to join me in Spain, and hunt for the symmetrical. This week, we’ll stay closer to home, and have a countryside wander looking for the asymmetrical for Dawn’s Lens-Artist Challenge.
What we’ll do is start off in the Yorkshire Dales. Let’s peek over a drystone wall and look at the patchwork of small fields that has evolved over the centuries, way before agri-business and the space-gobbling demands of giant machinery.
Conditions are harsh: not too many trees then. But those there are battle to reach maturity and stay upright against prevailing winds. Symmetry is the last thing on their minds.
Look carefully. At the right hand side of the hollow trunk, some fond grandfather (I’m guessing) has fashioned a door to the hollow trunk, to make a very special tree-house.
Let’s hurry back to civilisation, before darkness falls. Here in Studley Royal is a blasted tree that always reminds me of the antlers of the red deer stags who call this area home.
And here too are ancient tree roots, complete strangers to symmetry: some of the older stumps house fungi.
Oh look. Darkness is falling.
Let’s hurry into town. Bright lights, big city. Perhaps we could grab a warming mug of hot chocolate to thaw out our chilly fingers. And that’s where I’ll leave you for now. See you soon, I hope.
It’s a bit of a stretch to get from Studley Royal to London in time for the final photo-op of the day (250 miles). Photographer’s licence.
Last week – half term in London – I was on Granny Duty. And my daughter and granddaughter were over from Spain too. So one day, we went to Mudchute Farm. This is a community-based city farm that’s home to sheep and cows and ducks and geese and hens and all the usual suspects. But towards the end of the day, squirrels came centre-stage. They’re not part of the farm. But they’ve learnt that it’s a great place to hang out. All that free food. And some of it from visitors. William at one point dropped his apple core – accidentally of course: we’re not litter-louts. Before he could do anything about it, a cheeky squirrel had scuttled out and grabbed it: and retreated to a goat pen so she could eat it in peace.
Once upon a time, the River Thames flowed gently through the city, slow and wide, or wider, according to the weather. At various points in the 19th century and particularly when Joseph Bazalgette was master-minding the critical job of master-minding a sewer network , the Thames was edged with a series of embankments. This had the effect of making the river narrower, deeper, and therefore faster flowing.
By the middle of the twentieth century, this was becoming a problem. A few times a year, high tides were presenting a danger of flooding to London. Something had to be done. That ‘something’ turned into the Thames Barrier at Woolwich.
In 1972, the Thames Barrier Act and Flood Protection Act was passed by The Greater London Council, and in 1972, work commenced.
'The gates, each of which are 19 metres high and weigh 3300 tonnes, divide the river into six navigable spans, four of 61metres (200 feet), and two of approximately 30 metres (100 feet). The barrier was designed to be solid, durable (serving London until at least 2030), failure proof and bomb proof. It has so far survived 12 collisions with ships without sustaining any serious damage.'
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
The barrier was originally designed to protect London from a very large flood (1 in 100 years) up to 2030. By October 2021, it had been closed 200 times – it’s 208 times now. And the barrier has been modernised and improved to take it beyond its original shelf-life.
Much of the science behind it is beyond me. But it’s a beautiful thing in its own right, and I can appreciate that: even if I don’t understand the engineering. This short video may help.
Without the Barrier, all this is at risk.
For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday. And if you haven’t visited this post and voted … please do.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
You must be logged in to post a comment.