One more day in Engish

Looking down from Greenwich Hill

 Slept really well, and woke at 6am! (Can’t do that tomorrow...)  Hotel breakfast was basic, to say the least, but at least it was there.  I’d had alternate plans for the day, depending on the weather;  galleries, if it was rainy, Kew Gardens if the sun shone.  In the event, the sun REALLY shone, and I changed plans again and headed for Greenwich, hoping to get some breeze.  Long queues in bus lineups (buses queueing, not the people...) is one of my hates – London traffic is awful.  I’m not sure regular folks drive – it seems to be mostly buses and cabs – and lots of kamikaze bikers. Very scary!  But the flip side is you get to see little remnants of old London – with delightful names like Ave Maria Lane, Distaff Lane and Turnagain Lane.  

Warehouse development

The journey downriver is fascinating in the opportunity to see how development has adapted the commercial side of river life into residential living.  Warehouses have been adapted into apartments, and the hoists that would lift goods from waterlevel into storage are now defined by outside stairs or balconies.  Even the new buildings are being built on the same lines.

Walking past the Cutty Sark

Arriving at Greenwich, I bypassed the Cutty Sark, and headed uphill to Greenwich Park, taking the border path.  By the time I got to the top, I was realising that there was some pollen around that I was reacting to, and I had no antihistamine!  I’d planned to take some time in the Rose-Garden, but discovered that it had been adapted from the very rosy original into a pollinators garden – nice for the bees, but not so much for me.  I took the path past what were labelled as Saxon burial mounds and headed for the main area, where I could find tea and some napkins to mop my streaming nose.

The original Observatory

I decided not to visit the Observatory – £20 was a little steep to do the formal visit – but went past it, and the Meridian line, and along to the General Wolfe statue, given by the Canadian people, which stands at the top of the long slope down to the College, with the London skyline behind it.  I was very glad I’d not come up that way – it was a very steep slope!

General Montcalm

I headed back to Greenwich, and explored the market a bit before finding myself a bite of lunch and a quiet corner in my favourite bookstore, Waterstones. All the Greenwich walking had taken more time than I’d planned, and I decided that it was time to aim for the Uber boat, and head upstream.  I’d hoped to get one of the sightseeing boats and some outdoor space, but no luck without a lot of waiting; our very crowded boat headed towards Bankside and I got off next to the Globe theatre (play was in intermission) and walked around the outside of the Tate Modern, but there really wasn’t time to go in.

walking the Millenium bridge

The walk over to St Paul’s was via the Millenium bridge – pedestrians only – and a great view of the Cathedral as you reach the top of the curve.

The roof of the Chancel

At St Paul’s, the evening service was not Evensong but a Eucharist for the Feast of Corpus Christi, and  sung by the Cathedral Consort, the associated adult choir. Lennox Berkeley Mass for Double Choir – wow, they were good!  They didn’t do it all – just the Gloria and the Agnus, and the rest of the mass setting was accompanied plainsong, but the Offertory anthem was Messiaen’s “O Sacrum Convivium”, which I love!  No sermon, but the service ended with a procession around the outside of the Cathedral. I didn’t stay to walk – I had enough walking planned, and headed over to Trafalgar Square and for St Martin-in-the-Fields, where I had a ticket for the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki – the grand old man of period Bach.  

Instrumentalists getting ready

It was a wonderful performance, only blemished by my tiredness, and tendency to nod off.  I hated myself, but decided to vanish at the intermission, and head back to my hotel, with a VERY early start in the offing.