Tag: opportunities
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The best way to know a city is to walk it. And here is a particular walk that Samuel Pepys took on his inspections of various shipyards (for his work):
He very often walked along the south bank of the river, into Redriff (now Rotherhithe), and on through the meadows and orchards and meadows to Deptford, Greenwich and even Woolwich. He enjoyed walking, and adjacent countryside were so little frequented that he often read a book as he followed the familiar grassy footpaths, breaking off to find stiles. You can take this route today through housing estates, past grimy churches and scraps of garden and over the foully polluted River Ravensbourne, your imagination struggling to clean up and empty the world as you go. The river was unembanked then, and at low tide a wide beach appeared. There is still a Cherry Garden Pier marking where he bought cherries in the orchards close to the river, and an inn at the water’s edge between Southwark and Rotherhithe on the spot where he often stopped for a drink. The fifteenth-century tower of St. Nicholas’s Church also remains at Deptford, where skulls grin over the churchyard gate. The green hill of Greenwich, rising solidly before you as you round the loop of the river, has changed little in three hundred years, and for Pepys this was one of the most familiar views in his working life.
— Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, p. 136It is so lovely to think of this layering of history over physical space, and London continues to be my favorite city because of these kinds of twinned pleasures.
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Posting for Life of B’s November Walking Squares Challenge: Early morning walk to Annaghmakerrig Lake.
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It’s been a hectic two days of hard traveling, but now self is almost to her destination, and she only has to get on the bus to Monaghan tomorrow.
Here’s her latest installment for Life of B’s November Squares Challenge: Walking Squares.
Dublin is warm! And sunny! Perfect walking weather. From her Airbnb on Aungier Road, she walked to the Chester Beatty Museum (in Dublin Castle), which is a jewel of a museum, with the most amazing collection of ancient texts, all compiled by one man, Chester Beatty, who deserves to be a household name. She spent about three hours there (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) today. The museum has a café/restaurant (called, appropriately, The Silk Road), where you can take a break and eat a wide variety of hot food and/or pastries/salads/cakes/coffee.
The Chester Beatty is a small museum (only 1 % of the permanent collection is on display at any one time) but this is the Holy Grail of book collectors. If you can, take a docent tour. They’re 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. There are also excellent downloadable audio tours (free)
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Fell back a little bit on Walking Squares, but am back now. Thank you to Becky at Life of B for hosting this challenge. November has been a lot of fun, looking through archives and at other people’s Walking Squares.
Self was fortunate enough to spend time the entire month of April writing in Northern Ireland, at River Mill, near Downpatrick. One of her fellow writers, Anna, a mystery writer from Dublin, asked if self wanted to go with her to a beach nearby. Self agreed, and that is how these pictures came to be.
We arrived at Rossglass Beach at the perfect time, just before sunset. The only other people on the beach were a group of teen-agers who decided to strip down and jump into the water. The mysterious mountains in the distance are the Mountains of Mourne. There is only one word for that setting: MAGICAL.
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Self was climbing up the walls after a whole year of pandemic lockdown. California Governor Gavin Newsom lifted the lockdown order in March 2021. The following month, self was taking road trips galore (so were her neighbors: 96-year-old Mrs. C went on a road trip to Seattle! Self remembers standing on the sidewalk and waving good-bye as Mrs. C and her sons and daughters drove off in a huge Cadillac!).
In April 2021, self signed up for a tour of the California Academy of Sciences. The tour was led by an in-house naturalist, everyone was still wearing masks, but oh, what joy to be out in the company of others!
It was self’s first time on the living roof. The naturalist explained that what held the roof together were coconut husks (like the ones we use to scrub our floor in the Philippines!). Six inches of soil were deposited on the roof, and then the naturalists left the roof alone to see what grew there.
The California Academy of Sciences runs entirely on solar energy. The round shapes on the roof are solar panels. It’s wild seeing the ferris wheel pop up across a meadow. Highly recommend this tour, if anyone is thinking of going.
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Yesterday, Sunday, self left bright and early for Golden Gate Park. She’d made a reservation to see the Ramses the Great exhibit. While walking from her car to the museum, she passed a stand of gorgeous yellow abutilon and just had to stop and take a picture.
Self has two different kinds of abutilon in her garden: an anemone pink, and a variegated orange. This is the first yellow abutilon she’s ever seen. So pretty!
Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day.
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Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Co. Monaghan, Ireland Posting for Mid-Week Monochrome # 107.
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- For the challenge this week, I am asking you to share images that focus on your journeys. Consider examples of historical modes of transportation if you happen to have some in your gallery, a horse-drawn wagon in Pennsylvania, or maybe an abandoned boat along the seashore.
— Journeys with Johnbo, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 215
Below: the bus self took from Belfast to Downpatrick, Northern Ireland
In April, self visited NI for the first time. She did a residency at River Mill, near Downpatrick. Crushed the writing: finished her horror story/alien invasion story, The Rorqual, and completely re-wrote a few others. Placed a story while she was still there: “Residents of the Deep,” coming soon in J Journal.
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When self travels, she loves taking candid pictures of complete strangers. She rarely takes pictures of monuments — not unless there are strangers walking in front of them. She is really interested in people-watching, most of all.
Last June, she was at the Raphael exhibit at London’s National Gallery (what a fantastic exhibit). Here are her candids (Thank you, Brashley Photography, for hosting the Mid-Week Monochrome Challenge):
Kanlaon 