Becauase I was going on holiday I started this blog on a May day when the weather was so miserable, wet and cold that I started browsing through my image library for some cheery pics. This also meant I didn’t have to go out!
This blog is the result – it’s a bit random but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
My balcony is perfectly situated to watch flypasts on their way to Buckingham Palace. This is the Coronation one …
What do you do with an abandoned car park …
Obviously you turn it into an artwork …
More cheerful street art …
Hot Mexican street food ..
More Pimlico Plumbers licence plate wit …
Posh spare loo roll storage at Mosimann’s …
Nice table adornments too …
Crazy crocheting on a post box in Great Ormond Street …
This is my animal selection.
Faithful doggy in Highgate Cemetery …
Whitecross Street toucan …
Friendly Mudchute Farm goats …
The last animal, the Tower Bridge cat …
My pal Mat …
And, for the first time in my blog history, a food section.
My Hotel Chocolat Easter Egg …
Patisserie perfection at Bob Bob Gerard …
Bombe at the Ivy ..
Add hot chocolate …
And finally, even more calories at Bouchon Racine …
Paradise …
Yep, I quite like chocolate.
Normal blog service will be resumed next week.
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To mark the occasion there’s a free outdoor exhibition in the City to showcase historic collections and tell new stories about the hospital’s history. It features art, photographs and historical documents from the Barts Health NHS Trust Archives and I visited the exhibition at Guildhall Yard where it will remain until 6 June.
Here are some of the images I took last Saturday.
Artists played a part in recording visual evidence of disease …
Not an exotic flower but a twisted intestine painted in the 1830s …
The famous Hogarth staircase …
The notorious Bartholomew Fair …
Nearby slums in the 1920s. Women were looked after by the Barts External Midwifery Service …
Multi-purpose head!
From the extensive archive …
Some examples …
A happy patient getting some fresh air …
The terrible plague of 1664/5 …
What people were dying from …
‘The Rules’ …
If you want to know even more about Barts and its history I highly recommend a visit to the hospital museum where, as well as fascinating exhibits, you can see Henry VIII’s signature and the Hogarth staircase. You can read more about it in my Little Museum blog.
After viewing the Guildhall Yard display, you can stroll along to the Guildhall Art Gallery …
Here you will find Pomp and Circumstance Adversus, a painting by Dan Llywelyn Hall (b.1980) depicting the recent Coronation …
In more detail …
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Last week I set off without any particular purpose, seeking shapes, patterns and views that might look interesting as images.
It’s often just as fascinating to keep looking down as well as up and here are some of the curiosities I came across in Spitalfields.
Some intricately designed coal hole covers that have survived road works and redevelopment …
The above is a typical Hayward Brothers plate. One of their greatest services to Victorian society was saving pedestrians from nasty and embarassing injuries or even death-by-coalhole. Falling down coalholes through an unfastened plate was a regular occurrence in those times and the Hayward Brothers ‘safety plate’ using a ‘twist and lock’ mechanism was supposed to cure the problem.
As well as the coal hole covers, the pavements of Spitalfields are also the home of a number of circular metal plates set into the pavement and known as roundels. They are the result of a commission by the 1995 Bethnal Green Challenge and are intended to be emblems reflecting the diverse culture and history of Spitalfields. They were designed by Keith Bowler and you can read more about them in two blogs, one by The Gentle Author and one by Katie Wignall. Here are images of the three I came across.
One of the prettiest is the one on Fournier Street, taken from floral fabric designs by Anna Maria Garthwaite (1688-1763), the textile designer whose official blue plaque is on 4 Princelet Street …
At the corner of Brushfield Street and Commercial street are some apples and pears. A nod to the original fruit and vegetable Spitalfields market with a flourish of cockney rhyming slang thrown in …
And finally this very cute one outside the local primary school on Brick Lane. A boy and girl in a book surrounded by pencils …
There were 25 originally but it’s believed there are only a dozen left.
I wandered around the Barbican looking for angles, shadows and reflections …
Here are some colours and shapes from ‘Them’s the breaks’by the RESOLVE Collective at The Curve Gallery …
I’d also like to include a few favourites from a previous blog where I experimented with black and white images.
Tower 42 …
Plus Leadenhall Market …
Here are some of the more unusual things I came across during my walk.
I have entered the Barbican Highwalk from the Barbican Station footbridge on dozens of occasions and never paid any attention to this doorway which is obviously no longer in use …
Last week I peered through the grubby glass and was astonished to see this lively jungle scene …
I’m trying to find out more about it.
In the Smithfield Rotunda Garden there is a reflection with a poetic message …
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall … Litter left here reflects badly on us all’.
On display in the Barbican Centre is this stunnng architectural model of the Estate …
The City is still full of new developments despite changes in working patterns and in many cases this means the demolition of existing buildings. A new view has now temporarily opened up looking south from the St Alphage Highwalk showing the north side of the Guildhall with the Shard in the distance …
Finally, I laughed out loud when I popped in to St Giles church and noticed two acknowledgements of the Coronation. Milton was surrounded by flags as he clutched a volume of his works …
But by far the most witty gesture was kitting out the famous parliamentarian and regicide Oliver Cromwell with a golden crown and a ‘Long Live King Charles’ postcard …
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Hooray! Gilbert & George (‘Two people, one artist’) have opened the Gilbert & George Centre just off Brick Lane and I visited last Friday. ‘The vision was for people to see our work [and] have access to our pictures,’ they say. ‘So if someone arrives in London and loves our art, they’ll be somewhere they can see our pictures and won’t have to wait for our next gallery or museum show’ …
The space, a former brewery complex, has been designed by SIRS Architects in collaboration with the artists. Visitors enter via regal gates sinuously outlining the artists’ initials into a secluded cobbled courtyard evocative of Gilbert & George’s restored Georgian home and studio …
The gate is adorned by King Charles III’s gold-encrusted royal cypher, a testament to their affection for the monarchy …
Inside the courtyard, past the reception area, a beautiful Himalayan magnolia tree leads the way to the exhibition space’s entrance …
The centre is spread over galleries providing 280 sq m of exhibition space, alongside an outdoor video space.
This first show in the venue is called ‘The Paradisical Pictures’ displays Gilbert and George’s interpretations of Heaven …
It features vast photographic screens of leaves and organic products, including figs, roses, dates and leafy greens through which the artists peer or can be seen lolling on benches, either resting or in a swoon.
Here are the images I took on my visit. Trigger warning, be aware that, in typical G&G fashion, some of the titles are provocative!
There is, of course, merchandise you can purchase to commemorate your visit …
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
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