Ascot
The Royal Ascot races – one of the highlights of the summer calendar in London. It was Queen Anne who first saw the potential for a racecourse at Ascot, and the first race meeting ever held at Ascot took place on Saturday 11 August 1711. English people really like sticking to their traditions!
Lou and a group of mates decided to make a day of it and head to the races. Emails were furiously exchanged on what dresses, hats, shoes to wear as well as what food we were going to bring. As it turns out, we needn't have bothered.
In short, it poured down. It was cold and wet and muddy and our plans for sitting in the sun drinking bubbles and eating cake in our pretty dresses changed to sheltering in the beer tent with muddy shoes eating hot chips. Not very glam.
And because of this we even missed seeing the Queen. Oh well, ticked the box.
Highlight: Being able to take my shoes off at the end of the day
Lowlight: The weather, as always. Come on England, sort it out.
Interesting Fact #1: Royal Ascot is the most valuable race meeting in Europe with nearly £4 million in prize money on offer.
Interesting Fact#2: Over the 6 day meet 63,746 glasses of Pimm’s and 6,780 punnets of strawberries were consumed.
London Sevens
This was really hyped up. Locals were saying how great the event was and how crazy it ended up. This was enough to convince Lou to join a group of Kiwis and Aussies and attend the Saturday of the weekend of London 7's.
For once it was sunny and clear with a cool breeze, we started off at a local Twickenham pub where Lou was introduced to her new favourite drink, Crabbies which is alcoholic ginger beer….mmm delicious. After a few drinks there we made our way to the stadium and proceeded not to watch any rugby.
The crowd was tame. The costumes (apart from ours) were lame and the atmosphere subdued. But it was still a fun day in our little orange group, but probably won't spend my money on it again next year.
Highlight: A fun day with good friends in the sun
Lowlight: Every single person we walked passed trying to nick our Nemo hats. NOT FUNNY
Interesting Fact: Clownfish (which Nemo is) are sequential hermaphrodites, meaning that they develop into males first, and when they mature, they become females. Weird, but interesting (sorry I couldn't get an interesting fact about the Seven's).
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Not a lot is known about the early days of Shakespeare, but they do know that he became a shareholder in the newly built Globe Theatre in 1599, but abandoned this in 1613 when it was burned to the ground.
The Globe Theatre that we visited is about a hundred yards from its original site, the reconstruction is based on illustrations and article but they freely admit that it's a best guess. It was completed in 1997.
It does look very cool inside though, it is opened topped and the stage is decorated with lions and other crazy animals that don’t' really have anything to do with the play being performed. The cheap tickets (which we got) meant that you stood in front of the stage, whilst the more expensive tickets got stall style seating and they could pay extra for a cushion.
We knew that we would have to stand but we didn't really comprehend how tiring that would be after a gym session and a full day of work. But we took our places and got ready to watch Hamlet. Unfortunately on that day it was cold and windy, we were standing amongst a group of German high school kids on a school trip who couldn't understand English and were bored senseless so they were chatting amongst themselves and to top it all off, the actor playing Hamlet was such a weird looking individual that it was impossible to take him seriously.
As a result, we snuck out after about 45 minutes. We did get the feeling for it though and apart from Hamlet, the actors were very very good.
I think if we were ever to do it again we would pay a little more for the seating tickets.
Highlight: Walking into the stage area, it is quite amazing and you can really picture all the poor people crowded round the stage yelling stuff.
Lowlight: Hamlet - Stop over acting.
Interesting Fact#1: On 29 June 1613 the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry the Eighth. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching.
Interesting Fact #2: it was Lou's idea to leave early not Hamish’s.
Ace Café
The Ace Cafe London is a transport cafe in Stonebridge, north west London. It is a notable venue in motorcycle culture which originally opened in 1938 to accommodate traffic on the new North Circular Road. Because the cafe was open 24 hours a day, it started to attract motorcyclists. It became popular with the Ton Up Boys in the 1950s and the Rockers in the 1960s (I am assuming these are the names of gangs, but this is off their website)
We decided to make the hefty trip north one chilly Sunday morning for brunch (the only way to get Lou to a motorbike shop is if there is coffee there). It was a bit of a mission, but once again we passed through places in London we had never seen before, and this time it really made us appreciate living in Fulham…
We found the café, which was populated by lots of bikers having breakfast as well as a range of other people that made for an interesting mix. The café is set up like an old American diner complete with rubbish coffee next to beer taps. The food was fine, big plates of grease sums it up. Lou got the vegetarian cooked breakfast and is pretty sure that it was cooked on the same grill as Hamish's meaty breakfast as it had a distinctly balcony flavour…
We had a nosy round the rest of the café, there wasn't as much motorbike stuff as we thought but it was still cool to have a look.
Highlight: Finding the place! And Bubble and squeak, definitely going to give that one a go
Lowlight: Lack of motorbikes
Interesting Fact: The cafe was rebuilt in 1949 after being destroyed in a World War II air raid.
Sonisphere – Knebworth House
Metallica is the greatest heavy metal band of all time. Metallica are heavy metal rock gods and something Hamish had wanted to witness live since he was 15. Strangley "friends" however did not share Hamish’s view and hence he could not find anyone to go to the festival with. Never fear! Nothing could stand between Hamish and living a dream so he took a Friday off work, hired a car, drove himself to a 3 day festival in Stevenage just to see 1 band play then drove back that same night.
The festival itself is based around metal and rock music. Other notable acts included – Megadeath, Anthrax, Slayer, Motorhead, Weezer, Biffy Clyro, Slipknot and many more. Hamish brought a 3 day festival ticket but left after Metallica a happy man.
The festival demographics was bogans, skinheads and the occasional goth but Hamish blended right in and head banged the set away. It was an amazing night and will never be forgotten.
Colombia Flower Market
One sunny Sunday morning we rose extremely early for a Sunday and headed east. Lou had wanted to visit the flower market for ages and Hamish being the nice guy that he is, agreed. The journey is long, but we made it.
The first thing that strikes you as you get to the start of Colombia road is the noise of all the market stall holders yelling "sunflowers for a fiver, roses for a fiver, you won't get them cheaper than this, lavender from France for a fiver". We soon figured out that 90% of flowers were a fiver. The next thing that struck you was the massive array of colours. The flowers were actually incredible; every single type of flower, plant, and vegetable plant or fruit tree was there. And to complement it, all the proper shops were selling gorgeous wee flowerpots, vintage clothes and cool jewellery.
Columbia Road began its life as a pathway along which sheep were driven to the slaughterhouses at Smithfield. Like much of the land in East London it was finally built on to serve the needs of a growing London that resulted from the explosion of Empire during the Victorian era. The flower market originally began with plants brought by handcart from nearby market gardens in Hackney and Islington and market pitches were claimed on the day on the blow of a whistle.
The only thing that would have made this road perfect was a really good coffee shop….there were lots of coffee shops but alas no good coffee. We made do and enjoyed some coffee and cake in the sun before Lou had to make her mind up about what kind of flowers to buy. She ended up with 20 roses for….a fiver. Such a bargain and they were beautiful. We also bought a cool modern art print from one of the many arty stores.
Lou would definitely go back there with girlfriends, Hamish maybe not so much.
Highlight: The colours, sights, smells. A nice little village feel in the middle of East London.
Lowlight: Lou discovered that after 4 years of being with Hamish that he didn't like carrot cake, and Hamish discovered that after 4 years of being with Lou that she didn't like sunflowers. We learned a lot that day.
Interesting Fact: The market was originally held on Saturday but due to the increasing Jewish population in the area it was changed to Sunday.
St. Paul's Cathedral
We had a spare weekend in London and since summer hadn't arrived we decided to trek east and visit St. Paul's Cathedral. The City end of London is really interesting on the weekends as it is essentially a ghost town apart from tourists so we felt we fit in nicely with our huge camera out on display.
The first thing that struck us was how pretty the gardens were, seriously English people are so passionate about their parks. We had a stroll round before confronting the masses at the front.
The statue of Queen Anne at the front is pretty impressive, pity about the bars covering it up!
A bit about the cathedral, before we go on, St Paul's Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral dedicated to Paul the Apostle and sits at the top of Ludgate Hill. The highest point in the City of London. At 365 feet (111m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962, and its dome is also among the highest in the world. On 2 December 1697, thirty-two years and three months after a spark from Farryner's bakery had caused the Great Fire of London, St Paul's Cathedral came into use.
This cathedral has survived despite being targeted during the Blitz- and in 1940 a time-delayed bomb that had struck the cathedral was successfully defused and removed by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers. Had this bomb detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral, and as a result of this action, Davies was awarded the George Cross.
We decided to stump up the £14 to get inside the cathedral itself, and we got an audio guide that was good. The inside is just massive, the mosaics and paintings on the ceiling of the dome were actually breath taking. It's quite funny watching people walk in as everyone just tips their heads right back with their mouths open actually breath taking. It's quite funny watching people walk in as everyone just tips their heads right back with their mouths open and stares for ages. It's amazing to think that this building was the venue of the marriage of Catherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur in 1501 and then the wedding of Charles and Diana almost 500 years later.
We were also just in time for hourly prayers which was a nice touch. We got to go right to the back where the gold alter is and then headed up to the Whispering Gallery which is called that because apparently a whisper against its wall at any point is audible to a listener with an ear held to the wall at any other point around the gallery. We tried this and it didn't work.
We then continued heading up the stairs, and came out at the Stone Gallery, which is the lower balcony, we were both impressed that we could get outside to enjoy the views that you don't really get in London. But we kept climbing (major burn in the calf muscles) up to the Golden Gallery that is the tiny bit on top. Even though we knew it was safe, Lou couldn't help but wonder how good Christopher Wren was at building structures that were made to last? I mean seriously, what did he know?
Next we made our way slowly down with about a million other people and kept heading down into the crypt which is where a variety of famous people have their tombstones including Christopher Wren himself, Lord Nelson, Lord Wellington, and Florence Nightingale. Definitely very impressed with the Church and I'm going to throw it out there – best we have seen in Europe so far and it's been right on our door step the whole time!
Highlight: The mosaic ceilings – over 6 million pieces of coloured glass were used. Lou is already designing the mosaic feature in our future house…
Lowlight: Other tourists, but if you can't beat em, join em.
Interesting Fact: In 1716 the total costs amounted to £1,095,556 (£147 million as of 2011).
Lou and a group of mates decided to make a day of it and head to the races. Emails were furiously exchanged on what dresses, hats, shoes to wear as well as what food we were going to bring. As it turns out, we needn't have bothered.
And because of this we even missed seeing the Queen. Oh well, ticked the box.
Highlight: Being able to take my shoes off at the end of the day
Lowlight: The weather, as always. Come on England, sort it out.
Interesting Fact #1: Royal Ascot is the most valuable race meeting in Europe with nearly £4 million in prize money on offer.
Interesting Fact#2: Over the 6 day meet 63,746 glasses of Pimm’s and 6,780 punnets of strawberries were consumed.
London Sevens
This was really hyped up. Locals were saying how great the event was and how crazy it ended up. This was enough to convince Lou to join a group of Kiwis and Aussies and attend the Saturday of the weekend of London 7's.
 |
| Fishfaces |
Lou was thinking it would be like Wellington 7's so effort was put into the costume – Finding Nemo was the theme. In the end, there were about 40 Nemos' in our group as we made the train journey to Twickenham.
For once it was sunny and clear with a cool breeze, we started off at a local Twickenham pub where Lou was introduced to her new favourite drink, Crabbies which is alcoholic ginger beer….mmm delicious. After a few drinks there we made our way to the stadium and proceeded not to watch any rugby.
The crowd was tame. The costumes (apart from ours) were lame and the atmosphere subdued. But it was still a fun day in our little orange group, but probably won't spend my money on it again next year.
Highlight: A fun day with good friends in the sun
Lowlight: Every single person we walked passed trying to nick our Nemo hats. NOT FUNNY
Interesting Fact: Clownfish (which Nemo is) are sequential hermaphrodites, meaning that they develop into males first, and when they mature, they become females. Weird, but interesting (sorry I couldn't get an interesting fact about the Seven's).
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Not a lot is known about the early days of Shakespeare, but they do know that he became a shareholder in the newly built Globe Theatre in 1599, but abandoned this in 1613 when it was burned to the ground.
The Globe Theatre that we visited is about a hundred yards from its original site, the reconstruction is based on illustrations and article but they freely admit that it's a best guess. It was completed in 1997.
 |
| Inside the theatre from our "seats" |
We knew that we would have to stand but we didn't really comprehend how tiring that would be after a gym session and a full day of work. But we took our places and got ready to watch Hamlet. Unfortunately on that day it was cold and windy, we were standing amongst a group of German high school kids on a school trip who couldn't understand English and were bored senseless so they were chatting amongst themselves and to top it all off, the actor playing Hamlet was such a weird looking individual that it was impossible to take him seriously.
As a result, we snuck out after about 45 minutes. We did get the feeling for it though and apart from Hamlet, the actors were very very good.
I think if we were ever to do it again we would pay a little more for the seating tickets.
Highlight: Walking into the stage area, it is quite amazing and you can really picture all the poor people crowded round the stage yelling stuff.
Lowlight: Hamlet - Stop over acting.
Interesting Fact#1: On 29 June 1613 the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry the Eighth. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching.
Interesting Fact #2: it was Lou's idea to leave early not Hamish’s.
Ace Café
The Ace Cafe London is a transport cafe in Stonebridge, north west London. It is a notable venue in motorcycle culture which originally opened in 1938 to accommodate traffic on the new North Circular Road. Because the cafe was open 24 hours a day, it started to attract motorcyclists. It became popular with the Ton Up Boys in the 1950s and the Rockers in the 1960s (I am assuming these are the names of gangs, but this is off their website)
We decided to make the hefty trip north one chilly Sunday morning for brunch (the only way to get Lou to a motorbike shop is if there is coffee there). It was a bit of a mission, but once again we passed through places in London we had never seen before, and this time it really made us appreciate living in Fulham…
We found the café, which was populated by lots of bikers having breakfast as well as a range of other people that made for an interesting mix. The café is set up like an old American diner complete with rubbish coffee next to beer taps. The food was fine, big plates of grease sums it up. Lou got the vegetarian cooked breakfast and is pretty sure that it was cooked on the same grill as Hamish's meaty breakfast as it had a distinctly balcony flavour…
We had a nosy round the rest of the café, there wasn't as much motorbike stuff as we thought but it was still cool to have a look.
Highlight: Finding the place! And Bubble and squeak, definitely going to give that one a go
Lowlight: Lack of motorbikes
Interesting Fact: The cafe was rebuilt in 1949 after being destroyed in a World War II air raid.
Sonisphere – Knebworth House
Metallica is the greatest heavy metal band of all time. Metallica are heavy metal rock gods and something Hamish had wanted to witness live since he was 15. Strangley "friends" however did not share Hamish’s view and hence he could not find anyone to go to the festival with. Never fear! Nothing could stand between Hamish and living a dream so he took a Friday off work, hired a car, drove himself to a 3 day festival in Stevenage just to see 1 band play then drove back that same night.
The festival itself is based around metal and rock music. Other notable acts included – Megadeath, Anthrax, Slayer, Motorhead, Weezer, Biffy Clyro, Slipknot and many more. Hamish brought a 3 day festival ticket but left after Metallica a happy man.
The festival demographics was bogans, skinheads and the occasional goth but Hamish blended right in and head banged the set away. It was an amazing night and will never be forgotten.
Colombia Flower Market
One sunny Sunday morning we rose extremely early for a Sunday and headed east. Lou had wanted to visit the flower market for ages and Hamish being the nice guy that he is, agreed. The journey is long, but we made it.
Columbia Road began its life as a pathway along which sheep were driven to the slaughterhouses at Smithfield. Like much of the land in East London it was finally built on to serve the needs of a growing London that resulted from the explosion of Empire during the Victorian era. The flower market originally began with plants brought by handcart from nearby market gardens in Hackney and Islington and market pitches were claimed on the day on the blow of a whistle.
The only thing that would have made this road perfect was a really good coffee shop….there were lots of coffee shops but alas no good coffee. We made do and enjoyed some coffee and cake in the sun before Lou had to make her mind up about what kind of flowers to buy. She ended up with 20 roses for….a fiver. Such a bargain and they were beautiful. We also bought a cool modern art print from one of the many arty stores.
Lou would definitely go back there with girlfriends, Hamish maybe not so much.
Highlight: The colours, sights, smells. A nice little village feel in the middle of East London.
Lowlight: Lou discovered that after 4 years of being with Hamish that he didn't like carrot cake, and Hamish discovered that after 4 years of being with Lou that she didn't like sunflowers. We learned a lot that day.
Interesting Fact: The market was originally held on Saturday but due to the increasing Jewish population in the area it was changed to Sunday.
St. Paul's Cathedral
We had a spare weekend in London and since summer hadn't arrived we decided to trek east and visit St. Paul's Cathedral. The City end of London is really interesting on the weekends as it is essentially a ghost town apart from tourists so we felt we fit in nicely with our huge camera out on display.
The first thing that struck us was how pretty the gardens were, seriously English people are so passionate about their parks. We had a stroll round before confronting the masses at the front.
The statue of Queen Anne at the front is pretty impressive, pity about the bars covering it up!
This cathedral has survived despite being targeted during the Blitz- and in 1940 a time-delayed bomb that had struck the cathedral was successfully defused and removed by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers. Had this bomb detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral, and as a result of this action, Davies was awarded the George Cross.
We decided to stump up the £14 to get inside the cathedral itself, and we got an audio guide that was good. The inside is just massive, the mosaics and paintings on the ceiling of the dome were actually breath taking. It's quite funny watching people walk in as everyone just tips their heads right back with their mouths open actually breath taking. It's quite funny watching people walk in as everyone just tips their heads right back with their mouths open and stares for ages. It's amazing to think that this building was the venue of the marriage of Catherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur in 1501 and then the wedding of Charles and Diana almost 500 years later.
We were also just in time for hourly prayers which was a nice touch. We got to go right to the back where the gold alter is and then headed up to the Whispering Gallery which is called that because apparently a whisper against its wall at any point is audible to a listener with an ear held to the wall at any other point around the gallery. We tried this and it didn't work.
We then continued heading up the stairs, and came out at the Stone Gallery, which is the lower balcony, we were both impressed that we could get outside to enjoy the views that you don't really get in London. But we kept climbing (major burn in the calf muscles) up to the Golden Gallery that is the tiny bit on top. Even though we knew it was safe, Lou couldn't help but wonder how good Christopher Wren was at building structures that were made to last? I mean seriously, what did he know?
Highlight: The mosaic ceilings – over 6 million pieces of coloured glass were used. Lou is already designing the mosaic feature in our future house…
Lowlight: Other tourists, but if you can't beat em, join em.
Interesting Fact: In 1716 the total costs amounted to £1,095,556 (£147 million as of 2011).
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