For some reason, I have let months go by without posting anything - in spite of lots of photos and various expeditions. I just seem to have been so busy and, although I meant to write lots of things, I somehow never managed to find the time.
A few days after our return from Italy, some cousins came to stay. They did a good deal of London sightseeing, though we largely left them to it, after showing them how to get from London Bridge station to the Tower of London. I nearly always get my visitors to do that wonderful walk along the Thames and across Tower Bridge! I usually also try to put them on a number 15 bus outside the Tower after that, one of the most beautiful bits of the route being from St Paul's Cathedral to Charing Cross. If the day is fine, I push them off first at St Paul's for a walk across the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern, to appreciate the wonderful views, and perhaps to see The Globe Theatre. And when they get to Charing Cross, I usually walk them across the Hungerford Bridge to the South Bank - the East bridge for views towards the Tate, the West one for views of the London Eye and Westminster. It's at times like this I remember how much I love London, and feel sad that I don't live in the centre any more. For so reason, when force-marching my visitors around these landmarks, I never seem to take any photos myself, and always regret it later!
On this occasion, I left my cousins after their Thames walk and Paul and I visited the National Gallery for the exhibition Portraits in Vienna 1900. I was surprised by the Klimt portraits, as I don't know a lot about Klimt, only the pictures everybody would recognise, like The Kiss, and the portraits were very different. There were also portraits by people like Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl and Oskar Kokoschka. I do wish I had some photographs to help me remember it, but, as usual, photos were not allowed. However, this is one of the most beautiful Klimt portraits shown at the exhibition, which I found online.
We also managed a visit to Wakehurst Place at the end of October, where there were still a few wonderful autumn displays left.
This was probably the most spectacular.
Most of the bright colours were gone, but fortunately, not all of them.
This was a carved tree stump, which seemed to be very attractive to visiting children - there were special sticks provided for striking it with, to make different hollow sounds on various parts of it.
As November began, we picked up my daughter-in-law and grandson from Eurostar at Ashford - they had been visiting her family in France. The weather wasn't too bad for November, and we were able to make a number of visits, of which the most successful was a visit to Drusilla's Zoo. Not only were there lots of real live animals
like this pretty cute meerkat, who was quite interested in the little boy, there were some animatronic animals as well.
Our grandson was particularly keen on this crocodile, which sang a song while snapping its jaws.
The highlight of the visit, however, was Thomas the Tank Engine! He is a suitable size for little people, and we were able to have a ride in one of the carriages.
You weren't supposed to go inside the engine, but our grandson was determined to see everything, so he did have a quick look. There was no firebox and no steam of course, but I'm not really sure how much he understands of technology anyway - he was only about 30 months old in November - so I'm not sure what he was expecting to see.
We would have stayed longer, but he was completely exhausted from all the running about between the different animals, the jumping and running and climbing and sliding in the playgrounds and the excitement of seeing Thomas and some of his friends, so we took him home again. We'll take him back again on another visit, it was a real success.
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