A Winter Weekend in London

Especially in winter, it isn’t always possible to have a break that goes according to plan: flexibility is the watchword! And so it was last weekend, when it was our intention to introduce Eleanor to some of the delights of west London, especially the London Wetland Centre at Barnes, following our lovely trip there on equivalent dates last year…

Firstly, weekends mean the risk of rail replacement buses. And this time it was all the way from Witham to Newbury Park, and an additional hour of travelling time each way. But it did give us the chance to sit under one of the iconic structures of Modernist design, the Newbury Park bus station canopy, in the best lighting conditions: it was shaping up to be a lovely sunny day.

It was still lovely and sunny when we exited the tube at Putney bridge, casting shadows on walls and lighting up the seedheads of Common Reeds by the river.

Moving past the church, we came to into Fulham Palace, itself an impressive building…

…but just as impressive was the walled garden, where on the south-facing wall Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’ was in full, rampant flower and drawing in all manner of insects, most notably lots of queen bumblebees.

Otherwise in the sunny warmth, insects were being attracted to other winter-flowering shrubs such as Mahonia and Laurustinus, while irises, hellebores and snowdrops were there waiting to welcome spring.

In the grounds, there is plenty of dead wood, especially in the natural play area, where various jelly and bracket fungi and King Alfred’s Cakes were all fruiting profusely.

From there it was a lovely walk along the bank of the Thames to our hotel for the night in Hammersmith. This was just across the river from London Wetland Centre and had its share of waterfowl, including numerous dabbling Teals in the shallows:

All that and the frankly obscene number of planes dropping into Heathrow. Has nobody heard of climate collapse? This day of sun was unexpected, coming hard on the heels of storm Éowyn, widely reported as one of the strongest storms ever to have hit our islands. Extremes upon extremes… when will we wake up and take some responsibility for those who will come after us?

As the evening progressed and new weather warnings started to come through, the sting in the tail of Éowyn (or maybe the first vestiges of Storm Herminia?) … the names don’t matter, but the forecast was for much more rain and very strong winds. So next day we decided not to head to the windswept wilds of Barnes, and instead in to the relative shelter of central London, a chance to show Eleanor something she had just learned about at school (the Monument) and iconic buildings like the ‘Walkie-talkie’.

We have planned to take her there at some time, up to the Sky Garden at the very top, but today it was closed, so we continued on to Canary Wharf where the Docklands Museum and especially the Crossrail Place Roof Garden kept us busy, interested, dry and sheltered.

One of the great things of London of course is that there is so much to do, much of it free, such that plans can often be flexible right up to the last minute to help mitigate the worst of our weird weather.

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Eleanor, as so often, was happy everywhere so long as she had a camera to help her navigate through life. And she had three, both our phones and Papa’s bridge camera, all of which were used often deliberately and appropriately.

I may be biased (#ProudPapa) but I just loved her successes, hearing the joy in her voice as she captured the approaching train. Or the pigeons. Or the squirrel ( “it looked at me!”).

The way she explored interesting details of and perspectives on the world around us …

And new for this particular trip her evident fascination with repeated patterns and distinctive textures, both man-made …

 

… and found in nature.

It is a genuine privilege to try and perceive the world as her seven year-old eyes and brain do.