Moving in

Moving crates all stacked up in the new space - just waiting to be unpacked. Its a lovely new office, perhaps I'll take a picture once everyone is unpacked.

Funny that they are called Teacrates, what's that all about.Headed home now - need a nap.

Moving out

Here's the office on saturday afternoon, all packing is done and we are off to the new location. On Monday morning the onslaught begins, that's when all the staff shows up and unpacks the boxes and makes the new LOVELY office a big old mess.

Skate! at Somerset House

This lovely Ice rink is set up at Somerset House, a "magnificent 18th century building which houses the celebrated collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Gilbert Collection and Hermitage Rooms." In the winter they install an ice skating rink in the courtyard. It is marvelously beautiful. After friends skated, they cleaned up the ice. I love Zambonis, so that's when I took the picture. Note the flaming torches above the tented area. They are big into flaming torches here in England. We had a great time--despite the rain.

What a mess

This is a view of the London office of my firm. We are just about to move to a new office as things have gotten a bit out of hand in this one. We have four separate locations around London and its getting crazy to try and get around between them so as of Monday - we will all be in one location, nice and shiny and new. Cannot wait

Knitting at night - in a pub

Last night, I was invited to join a friend at her knitters group. It was a very fun crowd at a lovely Islington local called The New Rose. It was a great assortment of knitters doing a variety of projects. Since fall/winter lighting has set in for Londoners, these intrepid knitters had come prepared for the ambient pub lighting with a series of headlamps and other lighting devices so that tricky decreasing could be done while still drinking and chatting.

Knitter on the left side of the picture even helped out knitter on the right by taking a break from her task to share her beam. Very resourceful.

More visitors

I did however get a picture of Robert, looking completely dissolute. I still am not sure what his intentions are for that flamingo but they cannot be good.

Jeremy and Shira Visit

OK so this is really a picture of them visiting me in SF and they didn't believe me when I told them it was going to be cold in August.

Somehow I managed to not get a picture of them when they were in London. They came to visit two weeks ago and Robert also came into town from Oxford (see next post).

I didn't realize I was lonely until I walked into the hotel bar and saw them sitting there. It just kind of hit me that I hadn't just hung out with anyone - no agenda, no work, etc. - since I moved almost two months ago.

We had a great night out, despite the fact that Robert and Jeremy had offal for dinner. I was sorry I had to leave when it was time to go. It did remind me how much I like my friends though, I assume I'll have friends like that here, too.

Boxes arrive

Its a bad, bad photo; but it shows my packing label which came on over 180 boxes. Delivered to my most recent home. Yay. Except now I have to unpack those boxes. Oh well. More, once I've got at least half--that's 90--of the boxes opened.

BTW, note the spelling of "clock" - for the record, someone else labeled these boxes, I know how to spell clock. Despite their spelling these movers were great.

Mysterious thingy

Tonight is my last night of homeless wandering. Unfortunately after my most recent back-and-forth to San Francisco, I couldn't get a decent hotel so I'm in a local hotel in Islington. It is the very bare-bonedness of this hotel that is dreary. I'm so sleepy that it probably doesn't matter. However, a brief tour of the hotel room, reveals this mysterious thingy on the wall. It says "unistrut" and I have no idea what it is supposed to do.

I spend a lot of time staring at things in London trying to figure out what they are for, I think I might just launch off on a whole new tangent, taking pictures of things I don't know what to do with in London. So, does anybody know what a "unistrut" is or why it would need to be embedded in a wall at eye level in a not-very-expensive hotel in Islington?

Someone is watching

London has congestion charging; that means if you drive a car into certain areas of London during a work day you must pay 8 Pounds. To catch scofflaws they have these unbelievable camera set ups on streets near entrances to the pricing zone. This is a picture of what they look like.

Very Police-stateish, right? So on the one hand you have every planners dream - a way to charge autos for using relatively scarce city street space. On the other hand, if you want to effectively charge folks you need to track their movements, which results in these rather scary camera pods looming around certain street. You can help but think of the movie Blade Runner when you see these things. It doesn't help that it was particularly grey the day I photographed it, further enhancing the Blade Runner effect.

Of course, you can opt out of the whole tracking-of-your-movement thing by walking but there are still cameras watching your every move.

Garage Blobitecture

Walking through Guy's Hospital last week, I noticed this funny cladding for a garage and substation. Its still under construction so you can see the square panels as they are fitting them into place. The end result is not bad, its better from the street than your run of the mill parking structure/electrical substation eyesore.

I have no idea about the expense, so I don't know if its easily replicated. The again I don't know if I would want a whole group of parking decks/electrical substations all suddenly coated in blobitecture. I suppose if its a one-off design its pretty expensive, on the other hand in the little-ish streets of Bermondsey, the elegant wavy shape is very cool to walk by. I cannot wait to see it fully constructed, I'll post another picture then.

Krispie Kreme in Harrods

OMG. For those of you that know me you may remember my disastrous investment in Krispie Kreme. I bought 100 shares when I moved to SF, based on the quote of a very fit friend about Krispie Kreme actually containing heroine because he couldn't NOT eat them. That was enough for me, if a fried and frosted southern treat could tempt a dedicated sportsman then perhaps I should invest. The stock price went up up up then down down down down. Now I just keep it in the portfolio to remind me that buy and hold doesn't always work...

When researching the stock I had heard they had an outlet in Harrods, but had trouble believing it until I ventured into the foodhall and lo and behold - "Hot doughnuts Now." Sort transported me back to the outlet on Ponce DeLeon in ATL, and the many late evenings that ended there. I'm all misty eyed as I write. I did not partake of the goodies, I will leave that for a future date however please note, that they do indeed have a krispie kreme in London.

In re-reading this post, I find it very surreal, kind of like the Bar B Que thing - I'm starting to sense a bad food theme for this blog. Must change that.

November 5

That date probably means nothing to my American friends to but Brits and the British diaspora it means huge bonfires. Since bonfires are not really probable in urban London, it means fireworks. They have been going off all over town for the whole weekend but have reached a crescendo tonight as darkness fell.

Now most folks LOVE fireworks. I have a healthy fear of fireworks -- especially the amateur kind, after an unfortunate incident in the early 90s involving my innocently standing around on a hot July 4th night watching my friend Leigh set off fire works. To this day he says he is sorry he set me on fire; however that doesn't make me like bangs and pops any in my general vicinity. I've gotten much better in the last 10 or so years - at least I'm not keeping the cats company under the bed any more.

They must be shooting them off over the river because the noise is much louder than the local hoddies shooting them off. I've been out to look at them and they are visable all around so its not just one show. It has been booming, banging and flashing since about 5. Now that its getting closer to 10 pm, it is starting to slow down. Well my first Guy Fawks has been survived!

Why they drink so much tea

This morning I went for a walk so I could stare at the sun. I am concerned about SAD here in the land of overcast. I feel it is important to chase the sun and get it to beam directly into my open eyes--if and when it makes an appearance. After my sun worship and brisk walk I concentrated on some work I had to do back at my digs.

I sat at the computer for six hours all together. I had to stop when I realized my fingers where stiff with cold (sounds very Dickins-ian doesn't it?). That is when the penny dropped, "I understand why they drink so much tea here." It is very cold - BOOM - all of a sudden. One moment you are barely able to breathe on the tube because its so hot, the next you are happily snuggling between the woman with shopping bags and the man reading The Evening Standard.

Needless to say, I have been unable to figure out how to turn on the heat in the temporary abode. So, my only recourse is extra sweaters (not that I have many because they are all on some ship somewhere), socks to bed and lots and lots of herb tea. Today, I go so cold I just started to drink hot water with lemon, because I could not face more tea.

Temporary Housing

This is a view of the former Sarson Malt Vinegar Brewery, south of the Tower Bridge at Tanner Road. My temporary apartment is in this complex of open plan offices. It is in an area called Bermondsey, famous for being a dumping ground for "stinking industries" in the 18th and 19th Century. Stinking industries included leather tanning, and the production of other malodorous commodities like vinegar. In the 20th century, the area became a growth area for council housing estates and weirdly a huge antiques market.

The neighborhood is currently achieving a certain amount of regeneration. It well located between the Tower and London bridges and the new city hall is right on the river at the north end of the neighborhood. It contains the usual jumble of gentrification butting up against long term residents of modest means. From a planning perspective, the council housing is not that bad and the block structure is quite fine grained. The older building are warehouses but on a small scale and mostly brick.

Its been an interesting place to live and while I'll miss it, I am looking forward to my swanky new digs in Hampstead. That will be another slice of life entirely.