New Year's Day

We watched the midnight fireworks on the Thames from our balcony.  This image combines three photos - two shots of the fireworks and one of St Paul's dome, combined into one posterized image.

It was a lovely bright cold day for the New Year's Day Parade.  Here is a collage of shots.

The day ended with a colourful sunset.  From a rooftop near St Paul's you can see the Eye, Houses of Parliament and Battersea Power Station in the distance.

St Paul's cathedral, again...

We don't normally go to church but this morning we went to Choral Mattins in St Paul's Cathedral.  It was lovely - the bells were pealing outside, the organ welcomed us in, the sun was shining through the stained glass windows, and the choir sang like angels.

 

I took a couple of photos on the way back to the flat.  This is the only trace above ground of Old St Paul's cathedral that burnt down in the Fire of London in 1666.  Some of the foundations are picked out by a low wall and this plan is laid into the stone.  It shows the "footprint" of the new cathedral built by Sir Christopher Wren superimposed on the footprint of the old cathedral.  It was made by Richard Kindersley who carved the lettered standing stones in our garden at Newmead.

 



The sun was still shining as we crossed Paternoster Square at 11am.  The sundial on the Stock Exchange building cast a shadow above the shadow of the "pineapple" at the top of the monument.  It's an unusual sundial, called an analemma sundial, which marks noon on each day of the year.  An hour later and the shadow would have touched the left hand curve for 30th January.  It was also made by a Kindersely workshop, but not Richard himself.

 



Stourhead on Christmas Day 2012

Now I have "officially" got my 5D for Christmas, John has started to use the 7D.  Here is MY edit of HIS Christmas Day photos in Stourhead Gardens.

Night shots on the river

Grainy, hand-held shots, but it's amazing what the Panasonic Lumix will do at its maximum ISO (6,400).

Yes, it's THAT  VIEW  again!

Those silver balls are still there too, but a bit scratched and worn now.  I waited for a bus to trundle past...

The 45-175mm lens zooms close in

The view to St Paul's from the Wobbly Bridge...

...down river to the Shard...

...with Tower Bridge in the distance.

On my way home, the full moon peaked through the clouds over the rooves of Smithfield and the Barbican.

Next time I'll take a tripod.

Foggy, drizzly day in Norwich

Norwich has a beautiful Norman cathedral with a medieval spire, here glimpsed from the river bank, and looking quite like Salisbury...

This lion stands proud in front of the 20th century City Hall, but here you can see the medieval Guildhall in the background.

Beautiful fountain figure in front of the 18th century Assembly House

A quaint area called Tombland - here suffering from a bit of sag...

And one for Josie!

It's not even much fun being a pigeon in the market place on a day like this :-)

Autumn colour at Stourhead

The colours are muted at Stourhead this autumn.  There was a frost on Friday night, but the strong wind on Saturday was blowing the leaves away before they could change colour.

The garden was packed with people, lots taking photos, but some just strolling...

The first glimpse of the Temple from above the lake is wonderful in any season.

Odd Corners of Old London - Part 3 Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe is another old docklands area on the south bank of the River Thames in the East End of London.  I can't pretend that it has a lot going for it - but if you take the train from Wapping (on the north bank) to Rotherhithe (a journey of all of 4 minutes), you pass through the Thames Tunnel.  This tunnel goes under the River Thames and was the first successful tunnel built underneath a navigable waterway, an amazing feat of engineering at the time, and still going strong.  It was built by Marc Isambard Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel between 1828 and 1843.  The Brunel Museum is in the engine house of the tunnel, and it held the steam-powered pumps that extracted the water from the tunnel.  I'm going to visit it later in the year with a group from the V&A, so more then...  Meanwhile, here is a close-up of one of the benches in the garden, with a cute train chuffing along the back:

I was there at low tide and strolled on the "beach":

And of course there is a great view of the Shard up-river:

On the way back to Clerkenwell, I went past the Shard which looks very impressive from underneath: