Around London Bridge

An early rendez-vous at London Bridge, so an early start. Paced down to the station by a neighbour who started about 100 metres ahead of me, a chap of much the same age as I, and I while I kept the distance, I failed to close it. All very frustrating given that I imagine I take more exercise than the chap in question.

Wanting to catch a train before 09:30, my senior railcard did not work and off-peak rates did not work. But the ticket office clerk worked out that by buying a single to London Bridge (full price) and another single back to Epsom (half price) I was not that far adrift of my usual purchase of a one day Travelcard. So for once, I economised.

Snoozed on the way, to wake at Norwood Junction. Exit, then past the mighty robot to find that there is still a left luggage office, offering much the same sort of service as ever. Google having led me to believe that left luggage had been fragmented among operators offering various mixes of lockers, space in hotels and spaces with various retailers. It had sounded all very app-full.

Allowed back onto Platform 4 to wait for the train I was meeting, part of the Thameslink service between places like Peterborough and Brighton. Where I was able to find a suitable place to sit to admire the country end.

Swinging around to my right, a modest tower with some kind of canopy on top. No idea then and no idea now what it might be for. Picture quality not great at this level of zoom either.

A bit further to the right and we had a cradle crane sticking out of the side of the Shard. How many of them does it have?

Eventually worked out where the pantographs, which I assumed would be needed north of the river, lived when the trains were south of the river.

Exit to take a snack at Olle & Steen - and to be impressed at how the town planners have succeeded in making London Bridge a place to visit. Lots of young people and holiday makers milling about. Just like Kings Cross. Kløben bun and orange juice for me. Kløben bun and something else for her.

Entertained by a very thin young man passing by in bare feet, carrying his shoes, as I recall. Not something I would care to try in central London. See reference 6 for the last such. Even more foolhardy to my mind.

Out to inspect the Belfast, from the shore that is. The naval uncle's ship during the Korean war. Somewhat diminished by an Atlas cruise ship being tied up alongside.

Possibly the trip advertised above somewhere on reference 1, the website of a cruise operation headquartered in Fort Lauderdale. Pricing a bit tricky, but maybe in the range $3,000-$7,000 per person for 10 nights. The bottom of the range is called 'Adventure Oceanview Stateroom', so you should at least get a porthole, if not a proper window for your money.

A chap in the shop told us that while the cruise ship might be tied up alongside the cruiser, the passengers were not allowed off that way. They had to get a shuttle to take them to the other side of the river where there were proper facilities for their reception.

Passed on the nearby authentic public house experience, probably the establishment at reference 2.

Passed through what used to be the warehouse, now Hays Galleria. The elaborate nautical art work all present and correct. Reference 3, however, seems to be all about commercial letting of the buildings round about and it took Wikipedia and Bing to turn up reference 4. 'The Navigators, 1987, a sculpture by David Kemp', to my mind more something for a seaside amusement park than art, even corporate art. Must have cost a bit though, in time and materials, never mind artistic endeavour. I wonder now what sort of maintenance effort it burns up? Was that part of the original deal with Mr. Kemp? He appears to have been a busy and successful sculptor, if reference 5 is anything to go by.

And so we worked our way back to Borough Market. Noticing on the way that all the sparkly new development had not completely squeezed out the graffiti people. Some sort of club, bottom right, to the left of the ice cream joint.

Market busy with tourists, a lot of whom were taking street food. Which included the paella which I would have fancied had there been some proper seating - and if I had found out from where it was being sold. Hygiene problem with leftovers notwithstanding. Smokies appeared to be missing too. We settled on a wine bar called Bedales of reference 7, stronger on wine, as it turned out, than on food.

So the wine was fine, the food was OK, more by way of a snack than a meal, chunky chips served in hot red goo  (patatas bravas) followed by ham croquettes - these last being small crumb coated spheres full of some very soft and savoury off-white goo. Complicated and insubstantial. While the service and ambience did well enough.

Brandy not really their thing, but they were able to fish this bottle out of the back of the bar somewhere, which did well enough.

But not best pleased this morning to find that they had marked the wine up by a factor of the order of ten on the price at reference 8. Which seemed a touch greedy, even for a trendy wine bar in a tourist spot. Some compensation in the form of 'haute valeur environmentale' (HVE).

Picked up some cherries at £18 for something over a kilo. Rather dear, but they did turn out very well.

The last stop was Guy's Hospital, now in partnership with St. Thomas's down the road and with some other kind of link with King's College Hospital. Presumably all part of the ongoing struggle to rationalise provision of both training and treatment in this part of London. At least it still says Guy's over the main entrance.

A second visit to the handsome chapel. Only slightly marred by some water damage in one corner of the ceiling. I suppose the chaplain has a hard time competing for funds in today's environment, the chapel not being a fee-earning part of the business.

A handsome garden courtyard. Not the sort of thing I have come across in other hospitals of my acquaintance, the nearest thing that I can think of being the rather bleak bit of garden on the Westminster Bridge side of St. Thomas's. The sort of thing that works really well in a space of this sort - but which would not work anything like as well in a suburban garden.

We do have some of these Sisyrinchium striatum in our own garden, not as many now as a few years ago, and they are just coming into flower. Nothing like as tall as the ones at Guy's though. A native, I learn this morning from reference 9, of the alpine meadows of Argentina and Chile. There used to be lots of them at the GOGGS end of the lake in St. James' Park and I think we have come across them at Wisley.

Closing with a short time out outside a plant room, oddly on view. And so back to the station for a train to Epsom, in time to take a small regular pasty to make up my lunch. Not something I take very often, but it went down well enough on this occasion.

PS 1: I thought that it would have been a nice touch if the Belfast and Guy's were to run to little stalls for old boys, so that people with a connection could chat about old times over a cup of tea, or perhaps something even stronger. I suppose Belfast old boys are getting a bit thin on the ground now, but there must be plenty of Guy's old boys (and girls) knocking about.

PS 2: oddly enough, I got stuck on searching for reference 6 today by including the word 'bare' in the search term. This being the same mistake as I made last time that I tried to find it, back in 2020. But I got there in the end.

PS 3: I noticed some young birds at reference 10. Yesterday evening, a jay emerged from the relevant bit of hedge with a large lump of something or other in its beak, which it started to consume on our back lawn before flying off with it. It must have noticed the young birds too.

References

Reference 1: https://atlasoceanvoyages.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/london/thehornimanathayslondonbridge#/.

Reference 3: https://www.hays-galleria.com/.

Reference 4: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-navigators-london-england.

Reference 5: https://www.davidkemp.uk.com/about/.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-blade.html.

Reference 7: https://www.bedaleswines.com/borough-market/.

Reference 8: https://www.cavedejurancon.com/vin-jurancon-sec-brut-ocean.html.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyrinchium_striatum.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/tweet.html.