Saturday Snapshots

Walking

As most of you know I’ve been coming to London for several years. In the early nineties it was as much as three or four times a year and even after starting Earthlink it was once and sometime twice a year. I like staying in the area around Victoria station, one because I love the stations itself and secondly it is where you catch the train to Gatwick.

This makes it easy for get away day. But, it is also not a bad walk to a lot of places of interest like the Tate and even Trafalgar Square.

Today, after I checked in, I noticed that as this was a travel day for me my step total was not very good. I have been shooting for at least 10,000 steps a day and have been sort of proud of myself when I exceed that number. So off I go.

First I stopped at Starbuck to do today’s post then on to the Tate and after the Tate back to the hotel. Now none of that would have been worth commenting on except that it was raining. Off I go in the pouring rain thinking well a little water won’t hurt me. I still have the question about sheep. Why don’t they shrink in the rain?

What is remarkable is the way the distance seemed so short. I’ve have done that walk before and it always seems to be so far that sometimes I might use a taxi. But, today in the rain it felt like I had barely started before I was finished.

I supposed that is part of the benefit of losing the equivalent of a small child that I had been carrying around my middle, and all the walking that I have been doing.

Talk about cocky, this afternoon I will try to walk from Victoria Station to Convent Gardens and back. If I do that you’ll never hear the end of it.

Wellington Hall:

There was some sadness on the walk. In the past I have stayed at a Kings College Residence Hall called Wellington Hall. During the off term the college had offered rooms to tourist. It was one of the best bargains to be found anywhere. You got the room and breakfast for a fraction of what you would pay at a hotel.

This was a terrific place; it was a beautiful old Georgian building that faced a private park. This was the first place where I had to confront communal bathrooms. The bath was down the hall and even though the stalls and showers had doors that offered a bit of privacy, it still was boys and girls together. Thank you Ali McBeal.
In the earlier days I had stayed here because it was cheap, not because I got to shower with strange girls, as I know the more skeptical of you will believe. However, the last couple of times I tried to make reservations there I had no joy. I even had a friend here in London try to call them to see what was going on.

We found out nothing that shed any light, in fact, didn’t really get any answer except that the building had been sold. As it was a glorious old place, I figured that somebody would be restoring it and hopefully I would be able to stay there again.

Today I found out why I couldn’t contact anyone at the Hall. On my seemingly rain shorten walk I took a detour and went by the square. I found that the building has been torn to the ground and a large, and from the pictures outside, ugly apartment building is being build.

God, I hate getting old.

It’s all Sci-Fi

As I mentioned I am staying at the Victoria Thistle Hotel. It is an old building that like everything here it goes back before your great-great grandparents were born. However, in your grandparents time a new wing was added. That is where I am staying.

In the old hotel all the ceilings were fourteen feet high, but the new wing is build along more modern lines, which means eight-foot ceilings. Of course, the two buildings connect so when you take the elevator to the fourth floor you turn right and keep walking until you pass over into the new wings and you now find yourself on the fifth floor.

You get off on the fourth floor and walk a long, very long way until without climbing anywhere you are on the fifth floor. It is a very surreal experience. Dali would have loved it.