HQS Wellington, Dazzle Ships, and a pleasant London evening

I had a great day in London last Sunday, meeting up with a few old friends.  We met at the club, meandered towards the river, strolled through Victoria Embankment Gardens, and then had lunch at the Embankment Cafe.  Rather an amazing place, like something out of Mary Poppins!  The food was only OKish, but the location was wonderful.  Not too full, either.

Just down the river moors HQS Wellington, an old ship from 1934 which was turned into a floating Guild Headquarters for the Honourable Company of Master Mariners.  It is rarely open for visitors, so we were very lucky to happen upon it during our after-lunch constitutional.  There was a most interesting exhibition going on, about nursing services during the war, and several old mariners were on hand, only too happy to regale us with tales from the past.

We spent a most interesting hour on the ship, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  See link below for details if you plan a visit.

http://www.thewellingtontrust.com/home

Capes worn by Head Nurses

The fabric rose in the back was there to be bumpy, so if a nurse fell asleep sitting o a chair while on duty the bump would cause discomfort and wake her up!

Medical instruments from way back when

Mask for chloroforming patients

Scalpels

Diary from an Australian nurse

A commodore who favoured us with his stories told us, inter alia, about the camouflage painting of ships used during WWI - intended to bedazzle and confuse the Germans, they instead concluded the Limeys had gone quite mad....

See link in Wikipedia for details   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

 

Outside of the Wellington

Dazzling or what?

After the Wellington we skipped over to the Globe Theatre (still very much on my list of future blog-posts), and then trickled towards Borough Market (another blog-post in waiting and the site of a German Delicatessen), and finally snaked our way down the riverside until we hit Tower Bridge.

Here we decided to take our pleasure at leisure (so to speak) at Butlers Wharf Chop House, which did us proud, and whence we lingered until the fall of dusk finally reminded us of the passage of time and admonished us to return to our duties in this world.

The fading light shrouded Tower Bridge, just next to the Chop House, in an ethereal lavender light, which screamed out for a high quality camera, but since I only brought my light weight little cheapo one the photos are, as usual, decidedly sub-standard.

Walking along the river on the way to the nearest underground station we were surrounded by crowds of merry-makers, for it was a lovely evening, balmy and clear, very different from the muggy overcast day that had proceeded it.

Thus we concluded a truly lovely evening, a wonderful example of the joy to be had from convivial company in a gentil setting!  Verily there are few greater pleasures than whiling away a few idle hours talking and walking, gossiping and reminiscing, with genial friends one has known for many years, where understanding is near complete, and no disagreements cast shadows over the cheerful tranquility of one's disposition!

Or something sort of to that effect, you know what I mean!

A ship coming through!

The Tower, shrouded in darkness

Paris Montmartre

The weather was pretty miserable for May - overcast and with occasional spits of rain.  I had planned to go to the flea market in St-Ouen, but this was vetoes by my friend A, who considered it too criminal-infested for me.  So we went to Montmartre for our touristy fix.

Despite the weather the mountain was simply heaving with visitor, absolutely amazing!  We actually climbed up all the stairs, and arrived with shaky legs, but most others seemed to have taken the little train or the cable car - like fools we took it on the way down, taking it up would have been wiser.  You can use a Stif ticket on the cable car!

Montmartre is exactly like it is in the pictures and movies, just with more people.  Many more people!  One gets very rude and pushy in Paris, I think that is the reason why so many visitors think Parisians are rude - they are just trying to go about their daily business, having to push aside the tourists who are in their way.

Along the way I stopped to take pictures of the main tourist attraction - a young man with a football.  He played the ball continuously, first on a plinth, then climbing onto a lamppost.  When he eventually lost the ball the crowd sighed loudly, and clapped.  It was a jolly good performance!

View from cable car

Ditto

Ditto

Tiny house between giants near La Cigale .....

...... with a small stature

When I helplessly looked at the crowd of tourists sitting on the stairs which I was trying to decent, A just told me to go wherever I wanted to and push aside anyone who was in my way.  With that kind of attitude Paris should be the capitalists capital of the world!

Unusual wall-art!  A mangled bicycle sticking out of the wall of an ordinary house, behind the Gare du Nord

The Gare du Nord, from behind

Sticking the lens through the wire

Tent village of homeless people under a bridge behind the Gare du Nord

On my way home I had a very interesting experience - apparently I am not as dumb as I thought ....  Remember last month I went to Paris two weekends in a row because I had booked the wrong dates?  Well it looks like I hadn't - Eurostar switched computer systems and a lot of other people also 'booked the wrong dates'.  A glitch in the system caused whatever date one booked to be switched to a week later, or some such thing.  I had some interesting discussions with some of my fellow passengers, and one of the sales people in Paris was most helpful - because guess what, I had another wrong ticket!