"No Stopping 'til Greenwich"

I was meeting Claire on Tuesday, a great friend who I know from Cairo and is in London this week, outside of Charings Cross rail station. The adventure for the day, as suggested by Alex, was for Claire and I to take a nice leisurely boatride down the Thames, with vodka and tonic in hand, to Greenwich from Westminster.

Hmmmphf.

The one cruise company we enquired with didn't actually go straight to Greenwich, so we decided instead to walk to Tower Bridge, approximately 3 miles or so, and then hop on a boat from there. I was feeling rather camera-happy and taking some advice from my Dad, and randomly shooting the people and places along the Southbank.







Just before the London Bridge my camera battery died.

Claire and I ventured on with the intention of catching an alcohol-abled boat at Tower Bridge. We couldn't find the dock. But we did find a not-so-quaint pub overlooking the Thames and sat down to have a shandy in really dirty glasses. Its all part of the London experience eh. We happened to notice a memorial beside an decrepit boat to a certain St. Mary Overie, herewith a poem in her honour:

St Mary Overie*
To Mary over the ferry
a single ticket taken,
to press
the features into the pale
beyond the body of this water.
To Slut Lane let
him be carried
a pilgrim by the boatman,
led by the spill of the vapour
trail
and the milky way’s stigmata.
To Mary over the ferry a single ticket
taken :
to Veronica her sky print veil,
to the water woman a
daughter.
*The parish church of St Saviour and St
Mary Overie (later Southwark Cathedral), located in an area traditionally best
known for its brothels (www.tworiverspress.com/tideway/stmaryoverie.html)

As it happened, our search for the dock took approximately five hours and an estimate of at least 14 km. It was fun though. I have very little sense of direction, but Claire is suppose to be the smart one. She is a Londoner and while she was born and bred in this fine country, tends to carry her A to Z. Of course on this day it was forgotten that the essential London item was floating in the bottom of her knapsack. No problem. We ended up just following the Thames path trail through the rather large borough of Southwark; through renovated housing complexes, city farms with goats, sheep, pigs and donkeys, old warehouses, and about 20 pubs to one convenience store. While sitting down having a wee break, we noticed a small monument to the self-proclaimed 8th wonder of the world: an underwater tunnel through the Thames, built by a certain Marc Brunel of Rotherhithe, which is now being used by the tube line. A intriguing story involving prostitutes, bankruptcy, espionage and sabotage. Probably.

The adventure was starting to wane by about 5:30pm. I wanted a glass of wine, but Claire wouldn't let me until we got to Greenwich. Somehow, somewhere, we noticed a small dock with a few commuter boats. Lo and behold one was making its way to Greenwich. Five minutes later we were there. The burned Cutty Sark, an old (the oldest?) sailing ship which had curiously been engrossed in flames just a month or so ago, and of course, the impressive sight of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich Mean Time, the 24hour clock and the East/West longitudanal divide.

Blog Suggestions Fulfilled:
Food & Drink: Glass of sherry and 99 Flake ice cream.
Celebrity Sighting: Future Chancellor of the Exchequer currently enrolled in upper 6 at Eton College.
Lesson Learned: Always carry the spare camera battery.
Current Thought: Long live the Queen.
Red Bag Acquisitions: One tube of Boots name brand once-daily application factor 15 suncream.