Summer Time!

That means time to "stand around out of doors drinking" here in London. This is a picture of some folks from work headed to a pub; Sarah carefully showing us the way. She's taking ACTing classes so its all about the gesture now.

Will you look at that crowd!? Beautiful Friday evening; work is over and all of London decides to go for a drink. So I decided to take a few more pictures of crowds out side of pubs. This is my tribute to my recent vistors Jen and Bob and their pub a day feature.

Another pub

To the left of the previous pub

Yet another out door pub scene

Just down the hill from the previous pub.

Vacation photos

Can you imagine sailing here?

This is a picture from the 'rents recent sailing trip. There are many more beautiful pictures like this one but this one struck me because the ocean is such an amazing colour of blue, its astonishing. As I mentioned in my last post, the weather has finally shifted here in London and it has not rained all day.

So now, dear readers, I want you to send me links to all your vacations so I can enjoy other holiday the pictures.

Good or Bad Infil?

I know its a less than inspiring picture but its purpose is to show a newer (mid 20C?)brick multi-family home right next to an older (late 19C) brick multifamily dwelling. Both have pretty bad street frontages, i.e. high brick walls smothered with ivy, but at least is fairly uniform - for example the side walk is the same and as you walk in front of the houses basically what you see is the brick fence wall and green top. Really the only difference is the flat roof and the internal steps are clad in glass.

There is a lot of this new v. old in neighbourhoods in London. Perhaps because I'm a pedestrian here I notice it more than in the states. I think its because the city is older and has had reason to replace housing. I admire the fact that they kept the building palette similar (brick and white) and that the size of the buildings are similar. This weekend I'll try and get some more pictures of this infill at different scales, it looks like it will be a nice couple of days - or at least it won't be raining the entire weekend!

Tour de France in London

Amusingly, the Tour de France is starting off in London this year. Actually its a prologue time trial but the city is really getting ready. Between that and the Wimbledon finals, this weekend is all about sports.

The problem is how do I tell my Mum that after all those years silently complaining about the "pop/grunt/pop" of tennis on the TV in the background of my life; I now rush home to see the BBC "Wimbledon Today" program every night at 8. Oh, I guess I can just write about it in my blog...

London Bombs

Woke up yesterday morning to news that a car bomb had been found and defused outside a night club in London's West End. Kind of creepy, weird. Just for the record I was no where near the area where the car bombs were discovered.

By days end it had become obvious that there were 2 bombs and so London really was lucky not to have had serious carnage.

Part of me is obviously clearly NOT thinking about it. I remember visiting London in the 1970s and going to a boat show with family and the show was evacuated because of a bomb or bomb threat. Its just the edge of a memory but now I'm wondering how a city deals with the threat.

Obviously London has been dealing with it for a long time with "the Troubles" -- which how they refer to the whole Irish period of strife. Its odd being an American here because while we shoot each other with alarming frequency, we haven't been that big on blowing each other up. There's something very disturbing about bombs. And how as an American, who is walking around with the baggage of 9/11, supposed to feel when London has decades of internal British strife and the terrible events of July 2005.

After the Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, I started looking at buildings and vehicles differently. Of course the bombings in the Mideast, Afghanistan, Iraq all make you think about it - but it seems such a disconnected thing to your daily life. Which is odd given the history but there you go.

New parking deck in Perigueux

On Wednesday we went to the local market town to do the shopping. These towns are very interesting because apparently they have reinvested hugely in the older sections of towns spending major money to bring back the old central areas and also introducing close larger floor plate shopping areas and parking. These are pictures of a contemporary park on structure. Its the above ground face of four decks of parking supporting the traditional town center and a fairly newish collection of big box retail. Sounds like it could be horrendous but actually it worked quite well.

We did our weekly food shopping in the market stalls which temporarily take over the refurbished Renaissance and 18th century squares (!!), then wandered around the streets to look at smaller retail shops. I like the idea of this very close but still separate series of spaces in one town.

There was a pretty interesting looking playground (we were there pretty early so not many folks about). Playgrounds seem to be getting much more interesting again. after that horrible plastic period, at least the new ones I've seen look like they are interesting. Funny how for years I never looked at a play ground or jungle gym until I started hanging around them with friends whop are parents and I started noticing how terrible the are. I wasn't really paying attention when I took this picture so sorry for the big pole in th middle.

Perigueux getaway

This is the house I stayed in near Perigueux which is in the Dordogne region, sort of southwest France. The house belongs to a British friend who lives in San Francisco. Her family bought it in the 1970s and have slowly made it habitable - Its VERY habitable now. Lovely Lovely Lovely.

As my friend's husband said, the big effort of the day was moving from the upper terrace, where we've had a lovely breakfast, down to the lower terrace for lunch. Lots of wine and cheese.

My friends have two boys and I'm really trying to ingratiate myself with all of the offsprings of my friends so I will be invited back to family holidays - "We love Sian!" Anyway, we played backgammon, Battleship, carved spears and arrows out of wood, got grossed out by slugs, went swimming in the pond, went fishing and generally had a good time.

Happy anglers

Upper terrace breakfast

Lower terrace: rain shower and puzzle

France - Bergerac Airport

Very exciting, my first Ryan air flight. VERY cheap airline that gets you from London to most small airports in Europe. This round trip ticket was something like 80GBPs, the actual flight was about 33, but takes were another 30 and then you have to pay to check a bag. But really astounding to me, is the fact that you walk across the Tarmac to get onand off the plane - it was all very Casablanca.

Truth is the flight wasn't bad but the luggage retrieval was a bit of a scrum - as all 200 passengers wait in a shed. the the bags come rolling down this ramp. Lots of impatient folks. Then customs was funny because most folks have EU passports until they get to me with my blue US passport (you start to notice passport colors here). The line come screeching to a halt, backing up behind me. "Where do you live?" She asks me in French, which oddly I understand but can only think of Estas-Unis, which looking back I'm still shocked I remembered. The lady then gives me that you are a dumb american look and says in English "where do you live." When I fianlly squeak out Great Britain, she sighs and walks over to a desk and stamps the hell out of my passport. Mean while the folks behind me are starting to wave pitch forks and exclaim there rights. The whole thing took about a minute but there is wine to be drunk and bread and cheese to be consumed...

Anyway, my friends were patiently waiting for me outside the shed and we went on our way.

Family Bar-B-Que

Headed to visit family near Sandhurst for a Bar-B-Q. Canadian Llewellyns, British Llewllyns, Jersey Llewellyns and London Llewellyn (me!) rendezvous at the marquee (tent) in the back yard for some drinks and Que. I've been through this station, Clapham Junction everytime I head out of Waterloo. Don't know why it makes me laugh but it does - so I took a picture.

Lunch was lovely and it was a great way to kick off a weeks vacation.

My Uncle Roger wanted me to send the following picture to Dad.

Building decorations?

I've been trying to get a decent picture of this unique gable decoration for about three months. With the new camera (ZOOM! so 21st century) I finally managed it.

I am still trying to figure out why you would hoist the head of a boar up to the gable of your house in leafy North London, perhaps someday I'll knock on the door and ask.

More standard building decoration

This would be the more standard form of decoration found in "leafy north London" suburban locations.

I have to admit that I am stunned at how long flowers bloom here in London, perhaps the idea of the English rose is actually something.

Miami Beach

Not the usual sunset picture for Miami Beach but I bought a new camera and had to take a picture. I was in MB for a meeting and it was hot - how is it I ever managed to live in hot, flat and wet Florida?

Note to Ali: Don't yell at me I was only there for about 48 hours - but I'll try and make it back soon.

In an effort to avoid cleaning, I re-arranged my books by colour

Ironmongery

I am struck, as I walk around in the UK, by the real investment in fences and doors. Its called ironmongery and its like wrought (sp?) iron at home. There is not much of it anymore in the US - at least where I'm from in Florida. There's some in the spanish/cuban influenced areas like Ybor City in Tampa or possibly on balconies in New Orleans but I cannot think of a modern development that has such beautiful metal work.

This gate is from an old school yard and I really thought the pattern was beautiful. You get the security and beauty at th esame time. Much more successfull than chain link fence with barbed wire across the top which seems to be the default method of security in my home land.

On th eother hand domestic fences are really bad here in the UK, when it stops rainging I'll get out and take some pictures of that. So maybe its just that commercial fences are better and budgeted for with longevity in mind.

Store names

Across the Street from each other in Hatton Garden, In London, are these two shops. I've always wondered about them. Why, if you are setting up a shop in London's diamond district, would you name your shop after another city? Manhattan's of London and Beverly Hills London; do you suppose in Manhatton and Beverly Hills there are shops named after London?

By the way, I work in the Diamond District I'm not shopping for Diamonds, just in case you are wondering.

AUGH! The perils of new cultures...

This weekend I found a petshop. Yay! Perhaps I should have looked for one before the cats arrived but I didn't. A friend told me about one in Highgate Village.

I won't bore you too long with the transit details but will tell you that the Northern line was partially closed, the 260 runs only on weekdays and C11 is not the most direct route to Highgate from Hampstead. I found the shop and had a little exploration of the village. After a nice a nice lunch I took my cat supplies (2 collars, a pet hair brush and a litter scoop) I returned home.

Don't read further if you are not a cat person...

Cat litter in the UK is like everything else, not quite the same as the US. On the plus side they sell it in packaging that it is possible to carry, even in SF they sold it in 309 pound bags - not transit friendly. The downside is that my first choice was really bad, it consisted of something called fullers earth. Which basically is dried clay. When you add cat pee to dried clay you get cat-pee-mudd. Which seems to be a very stupid idea: impossible to clean up and really useless even with the nice new litter scooper. So now I'm into crystals. The cats have been home by themselves all day and I hope the switch to crystals was not to sudden.

OK I promise no more cat-talk back to the city blog.

Cats finally join the household

My cats finally made it into the UK. It took six months, microchips, multiple blood tests, 2 new crates, Pet passports (who knew those existed?)and a long suffering friend in San Francisco. But my two cats (17 and 15 years old!) finally arrived at my London flat on Wednesday. I found cat food but need toys, scoopers and the correct cat litter. Long week ahead.

Dylan

Morgana's too freaked out to come out from under the bed but Dylan is always up for a walk around. So far so good.

He looks like he's saying, "Where the heck am I now?"

White Spring

OK, I'll stop but boy oh boy am I glad its spring here.

Purple Spring

All three of this weeks photos have been taken on my walk to the tube in the morning. These gates are usually closed so I got a great flowering picture and a view into the little courtyard. The longer I live with out a car, the more amazed I am at how much space they take up in our daily lives. I could have cropped out the car but its just such an interesting juxtaposition quaint little house draped in purple with a car nestled in for the night.

Pink Spring

As this tree loses its blossoms, the ground is covered with tiny pink petals. It looks like a carpet of spring.

Yellow Spring

I know its looks like I've gone all bonkers and garden-y but you cannot imagine the joy to walk around in London right now. Its sunny and everything is blooming. I think for at least a week this blog is gonna be about flowering things. We will get back to the silly signs later.

Polite Notice

This was new to me, the phrase "polite notice." IN the US, I think we would say "Warning" or "Attention" and then go on to say that if you put your bike here we are going to cut off the lock and haul it away. Some how this seems so civilized. The best part is that this sign is on a fence across from St. Paul's Cathedral, so politeness was probably required. I also wondered since the sign is dated, that if you had left your bike there prior to 21 January 2002 it would have remained there unmolested?

British Sandwiches

British Sandwiches, they are nothing to write home about but they are cheap, fast and everywhere. The fact that there is an British Sandwich Industry Award will improve the situation, I'm sure.

Special Greeting on the Celebration of my Birth

I have a history of REALLY celebrating my birthday... for a week. My friend Suz once accused me of making it the whole month. So I'm scaling back to just the week. But its a big week because its my parents wedding anniversary, my birthday, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, then my father's birthday - all in one week! So, of course, there is celebrating and phoning across the Atlantic, and singing into message machines the "Happy Birthday" song as terribly off key as you possibly can. I wonder if the Queen feels left out? Perhaps her relatives do the same thing.

Now that I think of it, I have been know as the queen of the world - QOTW for short - so perhaps I should have a special day all of my own which my subjects will celebrate as they will. Its good to be the queen.

No. No. No. No.

This pub was very sure of itself becasue the sign it has posted on the street says (can you read it?) "No Smoking, No Credit Cards, No Mobile Phones, No Cameras, No Backpackers."

I ignored the no cameras, no phones bit and took a picture of the sign. When I went inside with my friends, I discovered where Bennigans and other US faux pubs get their decor ideas from. This pub was an original, if-you-like-something-hang- it-on-the-wall-pub. It was reputed to be very unfriendly to non-regulars. Hence, the warnings I suppose. But they did serve good drink.

Went to Cornwall for Easter Hols

These Brits do holidays (vacation days) right. At Easter, we take off Good Friday and Easter Monday. I can remember trying to get through the vacation desert beginning of the year in the US with nothing from MLK Day to Memorial Day all the way in May! Not so here, in February and March many folks went skiing and now there's two days holiday at Easter yippee.

So for my first slew of holiday days, I talked a friend of mine into traveling. My companion of the road suggested Cornwall and driving around just to see things. It was excellent and I didn't take one picture. Oh, I'm sure I can dig up some links to pictures and places but the scenery was so great and the driving so perilous that I ignored the pictures and just enjoyed. Rugged cliffs, crashing seas, lambs gamboling across newly green fields, spiky hedgerows, unexpected daffodils, churches and villages; it was like being in an Agatha Christie novel without the dead bodies. I expected Tommy and Tuppence to attempt to pass us on those tight hedgerow roads. It was a visual feast and not one I could be bothered to try and capture.

London Lion Scarf

Lion Scarf - small
Originally uploaded by beagleskin.

Raising money for cancer research, the London stitch n' bitch knitting group knit giant scarves for the 4 lions at Trafalgar Square. Pretty cool, huh?

London certainly is a good place to be a knitter - perhaps because its so chilly or because pubs can be a great place to knit? There is a great Yahoo Group called Handknit UK and more than a few knitting groups. Since I've been here all I've been able to concentrate on is scarves and the occaisional baby sweater. Perhaps its time to get something a little more challenging going.

Remember the knitting in the dark pub headlamps? or what about the knitted Ferrari?

Florida Gators again

Breaking news...reporter-Mum sends an email to SFO-to-LON HQ to report that the University of Florida Gators (one of my Alma Mater Studiorum) have once again achieved some level of sports authority...

...(since you missed out on the Gators winning the football national championship) I'm here to tell you they won the (basketball) Final Four - March Madness - whatever - championship last night, and the strange thing is they beat Ohio State again. I bet there's a serious anti Florida feeling in Columbus today. Can a Waterford basketball be far behind??

- Mum

Please note that even my Mum knows that I have trouble with the seasons in sport and clearly points out that they have just one a basketball tournament. Pretty important distinction for someone like me who is still trying to figure out why they call it cricket anyway.

Coffee tardis and Porridge bar

I'm not sure how to explain this to y'all. But for a country where its bloody freezing most of the time' there are an awful lot of outside food vendors in the UK. These two happen to be from my recent farmers market collection.

Picture number one is a red tardis from the science fiction series on BBC, Dr. Who. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space and its shape is based on some sort of police box. I have no idea what the tie-in with coffee is but it seems to be workingbecasue I saw more than one of these. My Dad (AKA Male Parental Unit) has been a huge Dr. Who fan for years. So this food distribution access point is published for him.

The second picture is of Stoats' Porridge Bar. Another oddity, people in the UK (or in this case specifically Scotland) will stand in line to buy porridge with various toppings. I haven't discovered the difference between porridge (UK) and oatmeal (US); I think it may be the same thing. Its just that in the US, we eat oatmeal ONLY at home and only when its super cold out; here it seems to be considered a tasty treat to be enjoyed by the whole family.

Saturday in Edinburgh

In addition to the Orange walk, I quite a day in Edinburgh. I started by just wandering around and found the Edinburgh Saturday Farmers' Market - I must have farmers' market radar. Then I went up to the castle to check it out. Just adjacent to the castle is a Patrick Geddes (planner's take note) designed flats called 14 Ramsay Gardens. They have great views and must be right on top of the Tattoo. Its a weird location for such a fairy tale looking place. especially when you compare it to the castle. In the pictures I'm standing on that tarmac parking lot and just swinging around facing west to the castle and east to Ramsay Gardens.

Post Castle gawk, I visited the Whisky Heritage Centre - who could pass that up? It was that or the Wool Heritage Centre and Whiskey won out. You kind of have to see that for yourself. So I'll leave it at that.

Topography of Edinburgh

To give you an idea of the prominence of the castle, here's a (admittedly bad)picture of a sculpture of the city. That huge lump in the fore ground is the promontory on which the castle sits. To the immediate north is the New Town, with Princes Street and Princes Street Gardens between the castle and the gird of New Town.

Princes Garden and Scot Monument

As I may have mentioned the weather was amazing on Saturday in Edinburgh. Apparently it is rarely sunny and as you can see it was a clear and sunny day. All the benches in Princes Park were filled with folks soaking up the sun. I had to show this picture because this is a bustling downtown shopping area that was packed with residents and tourists. The park was a welcome respite from hustle and bustle.

Plus, I had to show the monument. Scot (born 1771) was sort of a professional Scotsman, he reinvigorated Scottish nationalism/historicism. After his death, a design competition was held, and won by George Kemp. John Steell carved the statue of Scott but its the Neo-Gothic monument above the statue that really sets it apart. The monument, inaugurated in 1846, stands 200 feet high. There are 287 steps to the top -- I did not climb it.

Just goes to show you that planning and design are really really cool.

Oh, goody, it is a parade...

I had an interesting day in Edinburgh on Saturday. The highlight of which was getting caught up in an "Orange Walk" which was not quite as friendly as I had thought it would be.

Coming from Florida I assumed there would be citrus involved . Anyway, after touring the new Scottish Parliament Building (short review: hugely over budget but absolutely fabulous building) all traffic on the Royal Mile was diverted so I had to walk back up the hill. That's when I started to see the worrying signs: huge police vans with riot shields, horses wearing riot gear, many many many police and a crowd of really really white people - a bit like stumbling across a KKK march in the South, I expect. But then there were the women and children divisions...

Weirdly, they were wearing band uniforms like high school bands in the Macy's Christmas Parade, playing drums and piccolos, and carrying signs saying "Defenders of the faith", "No Papacy" etc. Except for the signs, I expected the bands to suddenly stop and do a breakdown; you know like FAMU does when they are in a parade, but no they only just kept on marching - endlessly.

Basically, it was very surreal.

I never found out what the LOL on there insignia meant but a history of Orange Order can be found here.

Did I mention the women's accordian division?

Most of the drummers had tatoos

Train to Scotland

I've headed up to Scotland; Edinburgh to be specific. I have a peer review to participate in on Thursday and a talk to give on Friday then I am staying through Sunday just to soak up the city. It is a planner's dream.

There's the old town: the castle and south--all crazy shapes on hilly forms about a mile long and 400 yards wide according to my guidebook and then there is the new town: a rational planned 18th Century construction north of the castle.

Our office in Edinburgh is at the base of the castle in an old church building, oddly over looking the cemetery where Burke and Hare did their body snatching. Can't wait to see more of the city; but as far as offices go this one is quite scenic!

I decided to take the train which was the right thing to do. It takes about 4 hours but its comfortable, has a table and wireless internet. You can get a lot done in the quiet car of a train! Plus then after three hours the scenery starts to become amazing. It was green green green. and then as you get closer to Edinburgh you start seeing glimpses of water, I assume the Firth. There are some great views of really large estates (too big to be houses - I guess you could call them country houses in the British sense) not castles but BIG brick piles...

Pilates number 3

In my continuing effort to get outta the house, I signed up for 10 Pilates lessons. The first was two weeks ago and I could barely sit up for at least three days after that session. Last night, I had my third lesson; this time I didn't feel like I worked hard enough. Hmmm, does that make me a masochist or am I just getting a little bit better every time?

The funny thing about Pilates is that the movements are so small, my theory is you really have to pay attention or you can just fake the whole thing. Of course my "core" can be as strong as I like it but I need to start swimming again to really get the physical fitness level up. Its just that swimming isn't really social; and right now I need social.

On an unrelated note, I have become obsessed with Nina Simone - isn't (wasn't) she the most interesting, amazing vocalist? A couple of years ago I went to see Shirley Horn at the Masonic Hall in SF; amazing free tickets given to me by a friend. It was all about Shirley Horn after that. Nina and Shirley have completely unrelated style but yet somehow remind me of each other.

Bookclub - back in session

Much to my relief, Jenifer and Shannon have hooked me up with their old London book club. So on a blustery St. Pat's Saturday, I headed over to Muswell Hill to go to my second session of my latest book club. I was invited and attended in January - I'm just so stoked they invited me back! We read On Beauty by Zadie Smith, I really enjoyed it but thought that the whole north-east US collegiate setting was difficult to translate to non-US-ers. Not that they didn't understand it and I'm sure that the North London setting also had things in it that I didn't get. But most of all, I'm just happy to have folks to see on on evening who aren't work related.

We are going to be picture free for a while, same old technical difficulties. I'm hoping to get the photo-thing sorted before next weeks trip to Edinburgh. talk later.

My new favoraite place

This is a seat in the Reading Room of the British Library. Actually its at the British Museum, which used to surround the British Museum. It is a circular temple of knowledge inscribed within the square of the Museum. Of course the Library holdings completely outgrew the circular space so the Library itself moved up the road to the Kings Cross-St. Pancras neighborhood.

But the Reading Room remains at the center of the British Museum. It now has a beautiful glass dome connecting what I presume used to be a courtyard to the Museum itself. The dome is beautiful--lacy, airy and inviting. Plus the whole thing is FREE! Crikey, it is FREE to walk into that museum and stroll around through the amazing collection. OK, it is plundered from all around the world but, whatever, its astounding to just see all that stuff in one place. And then in the middle there is this library. I love libraries. Particularly old ones, with books. I could and do spend hours just wandering around looking at the books, thinking, "Maybe I really should read this volume on Textiles of Abyssinia?"

The point is this is my new favorite place in London; Seat E5, just near the little bit of a history section that the British Library has thoughtfully left there.

Who knew rhubarb was red?

More pictures from the market day. Proving once again that I don't eat enough vegetables, I took this picture because I didn't know rhubarb was red - or, frankly, that it looked so much like celery.

My only experience of rhubarb is reading about its poisonous leaves and as an ingredient in pies. Its the pie thing that makes it so confusing. A) Isn't it a vegetable? so B) why is it in fruit pies? and C) since its usually with a red fruit I always though it was being dyed in the pie. Not that it was actually red itself.

the things you learn by moving to another country. My mother reads this blog and she's going to be upset that I told the world I didn't know rhubarbs are red. It is really fine, Mum, I know a lot of other really important stuff!

Street signs

Gotta love the signs that spring up; this graffiti was sprayed on the wall of a picturesque house (in a run down and surely expensive) in an alley near Borough Market. I can imagine that the folks who lived there got sick of tourists taking pictures of the front so they gave us something to take a picture of.

P.S. I figured out how to get photos off my camera so now I don't have to worry about the silly camera and batteries issue, so look forward to more posts.

Cheese!

This weekend I went back to the neighborhood were I stayed when I was first in London and explored a bit deeper. This shot is from the interior of the Neal's Yard cheese shop at Burough Market. You walk in and the ceiling goes up 15 feet and its cheese stacked all the way up.

Its like walking into a Wallace and Grommit store; you can almost see Wallace twiddling his fingers saying "Wenselydale." They had two kinds of cheese for tasting. One of which I bopught a hunk of to go with the apples I bought at the market proper.

One small problem, my bag smelled like smelly cheese all day as I wandered around.

Coffee to go with the Cheese?

Next to the Neals Yard cheese shop is the Monmouth Coffee shop. Doesn't it look cosy? The line snaked out the door into the rainy street. It was still pretty early when I got there, and they told me that it really got a lot busier when its sunny and a bit later in the day.

I really think that this kind of food/veggie/coffee retail is not a flash in the pan. The Ferry Building in San Francisco, I just wrote off to the crazy food-culture of the Bay area. I am very interested to see how this kind of retail is doing in cities that are NOT London or San Francisco.

Another vending machine

This machine sells paperback books. I think its great, running through a train station - "oh damn, I need something to read. Look here's a machine selling books." Really cool.

Have I mentioned how much they read here in UK? Its very interesting to see everybody with their heads bent reading on trains; even if they are reading horrible crap newspapers.

My Tennessee Street neighbors hit the road...

day four sunset
Originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

and sent me pictures of their tour of northern California. The best part of this is that they now own my lovely red Cabrio. And they take pictures of it in wonderful locations. I don't miss the car but I enjoy seeing her out and about, doesn't she look lovely for eight years old?

cemetery near the office

Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Originally uploaded by Doctor Beef.