Tuesday 30 June 2015

Memories

This is on the porch in front of Westminster Cathedral. I remember my parents visiting me here in 1983 and we stood in the same spot, chatting to the priest for a while.


Poor old St George

Interesting piece in the Victoria and Albert museum.
I thought St George had his hands full with the dragon, but that was the least of his problems.


Saturday 27 June 2015

Westminster Cathedral


The Byzantine grandeur (plus a few rough edges) of Westminster Cathedral, after Vespers on Friday. A joy.


Lily pads


Some pretty impressive lily pads at Kew gardens.


Tuesday 23 June 2015

La Mia Casa a Londra

I'm staying at St Monica House, which is run by an order of nuns called the Augustinian Religious Servants of Jesus and Mary.

I hadn't heard if them but they started in Italy and were founded by Sr M Teresa Spinelli, who has a busy life story, involving leaving an abusive husband.

It's a good place to stay.


Just resting

The tombs I have seen usually try to show the importance of the occupant. On the other hand, this one in the Victoria and Albert museum in London show a noblewoman testing quietly. I like it.

The V&A is much more than I expected, a huge collection dedicated to, but not about Victoria and Albert.


Friday 19 June 2015

Wide Brown land

I'm now at Bangkok airport, with 4 more hours to wait for my connecting flight to London.
The plane left at 10am this morning and I had a window seat, so I saw Australia from 36,000 feet, going right across the centre to the north of Western Australia.

The centre of Australia is horrible and terrifying. It looks like a place for a Mars rover, not humans. Even from such a height, the flat red sand went as far as the eye could see. It was surely impossible that there was anyone alive down there.

When we crossed the coast, on the other hand, it was beautiful. The coast is jagged, with many inlets and lakes, the green vegetation goes right up to the shore where there is a Sandy beach. The water is a light blue, and it looked calm and shallow.
Having said that, there were no obvious signs of human habitation. No buildings of any sort, no roads, no boats on the sea, only pristine, lonely nature. Does anyone do anything there?

In contrast, when we passed over Indonesian islands, there was obvious human activity. Why the difference?