Month: January 2018

One of the main complains about London is that it’s dirty, smelly and grey.  London can be very dirty and very smelly BUT London is NOT GREY.

If you look at a map of London you see two very distinct colours – blue and green. Blue is obviously the Thames and green is the parks and open spaces. There are bits of green all over London (on one of the train lines out of Liverpool St you pass through Bethnal Green, Cambridge Heath, London Fields and Hackney Downs).

These sorts of green spaces with playgrounds, lidos, tennis courts, cafes and all kinds of exciting entertainment are found all over the city and I love them.

But…if you were to ask me to pick my favourite green space, it would have to St James Park https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/st-jamess-park   and my favourite spot in St James Park is the Blue Bridge across the lake. Look one way and you see Buckingham Palace and the other you see The London Eye. It’s a tough choice which view is better.

Not only does St James Park have great views it is also teeming with wildlife (according to the royal parks website there are 15 different species of waterfowl, I don’t know what a water fowl is but I want to find out). The biggest wildlife draw are the 3 pelicans, they’re called Louis, Vaclav and Gargi and you can see them being fed at 2.30pm every day.

It wasn’t until I moved to London that I even knew there is a ‘city’ within this city. It’s so confusing. People would talk to me about ‘The City’ and I’d think ‘yes London is a city, that’s right’. It was a while before I realised they were talking about a tiny bit of London.

I love stomping around to the City of London. During the week it’s fun to watch the suited office workers marching purposefully, often talking energetically on their mobiles. I like to guess what they’re up to, imagining they’re planning another multi-million pound deal (in reality, they’re probably just thinking where they’ll get their lunch from). I also love visiting The City at the weekend, the contrast with the weekly crowd is vast…there is no one there. You’ll see a whole lot of tourists around St Paul’s but the heart of The City is generally empty and a quiet haven.

When you’re walking around The City there is a real feeling of stepping on history. This area truly is where London began and where it has existed (almost continuously) for close to 2000 years. I find it amazing that (despite constant building) it’s still possible to make out the Roman street system. (Bishopsgate, what is now the A10, was the main Roman route out of London to the North and we’re still using it now).

The contrast of old and new is possible to see all over London but nowhere more than The City. Just have a look at St Andrew’s Undershaft, it is totally surrounded by glass and steel squeezed in between the Gherkin and The Lloyds Building.

But for me, it’s The City Dragons which are fascinating. Once you start looking Dragon symbols are absolutely EVERYWHERE, on every lampost, every bollard, many building, plus Dragon statues welcome visitors in and out of The City. The funny thing is that no one really seems to know why Dragons were adopted as The City’s symbol. It might be something to do with St George and his slaying of the dragon or simply that dragons are scary and would deter unwelcome visitors. Next time you’re in The City count how many dragons you see – I’m sure it will be in the hundreds.