Nov 10 - 11, 2014 - London - Blood Swept Land and Seas of Red and Paddington Bear Trail

Greetings All,

We were up at 6:30 am and out early after our breakfast to get to The Tower of London for the poppy display before the crowds. We walked to the Tower of London from our hotel (about 1.25 miles) arriving at 8:15 am. Even at that time the crowds were starting to form, but nothing like masses on Sunday. We were able to easily access the walkway to walk around the Moat and the front of the Tower. The picture on the left is from the bastion window and is The Weeping Window. It is the artist representation of a pool of blood running into the moat. The next picture on the right represents the wave of blood spilling over from

the moat and is at the front gate. We then headed over to the Tower Hill Memorial which commemorates those from the Merchant Navy and the fishing fleets who died during both world wars and have "no grave but the sea". Here we saw the wreaths that had been laid and small wooden crosses attached to the bronze columns. We located the memorial to Thomas Dawson, Fred's first cousin 3 times removed who was lost on the torpedoing of the MV Sitala in October 1940. It was a very emotional morning for me as thoughts went to my Mom who was very involved with the Legion and very much involved in the planning of Remembrance Day Services.

We now headed off to the search out the Paddington Bears and cover some of the trail. Out first stop was Horse Guard's but we saw no Bear and our second stop was The Canada Gate in Green Park again no bear. Mystified, I looked at the map Fred had printed out and discovered that not all of the bears were in place. Some were to be installed after November 11th and some still later in the month. It just shows that one should carefully read all instructions. Like I ever do as Fred frequently tells me. We continued now through Green Park and stopped at the Canadian Memorial to take pictures. On our last visit here a couple of years ago the water in the memorial was not running. Funds for the maintenance of the memorial were provided by Conrad Black, but due to his jail term they were no longer forthcoming.

The memorial is now operational and a number of wreaths had been laid around it. The Canadian Veterans, The Chamber of Commerace  as well as some personal ones. There was signage about staying off the memorial but an idiot father was letting his kids play on it. Most disrespectful with dirty looks given and comments made by a few people he finally got the message.

We continued our walk in search of the bears and walked along Piccadilly to Leicester Square, China Town, Regent Street and then Oxford Street. We stopped for lunch at a pub off Wigmore Street called the Pontefract Castle before heading to Marks and Spencer in search of s stag's head cushion I had ordered but which, the store had cancelled as it was unavailable. My thoughts being if any store had it, it would be the large store in London. We were successful thanks to Fred's alert eyes. We now decided to head back to the hotel as we had been walking for just over six hours. We took the tube back and while waiting for the train to arrive we were approached by a lady who had noticed our Canadian poppies and thanked us for wearing them. She is an expat who has lived in London a number of years and is always delighted to see fellow Canadians. We had a very short chat before our train arrived. Once back at the hotel we decided to rest for a while before heading back out. We must be getting old as we both fell asleep. Fred laid down and immediately crashes while I took a bit longer. A short nap for me I am refreshed but Fred was still out like a light.  We headed out late in the afternoon in search of the bear that was at London Bridge Station, however, he was very elusive. We walked around for about a hour before giving up but now know the area quite well and made a few new discoveries of historical sites. We stopped to purchase some wine for the room and headed back to the hotel. We headed out for supper to a pizza pasta bar but end up returning to the hotel as the bar was a self serve place and we had no desire to do buffet style eating and we were still tired and sore from our earlier walking.

November 11, we were awake early. After breakfast we had some time to kill before getting our train back to Liverpool, so we headed to St Paul's Cathedral to find Paddington bear. The location of the hotel was perfect, near South Bank and Tate Modern to be able to walk over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's Cathedral and the Bear In The Wood. We continued our walk and decide to see if we could find the ever elusive bear at London Bridge Station. London Bridge had a long line of buses crossing it we guessed due to morning rush hour. People were getting off the buses as it was faster to walk than wait for the bus to get to the stop. We finally came across our elusive

Wonders of The World (Peru) bear. Fred said no Paddington Bear was going to defeat us. We had discovered a total of 12 bears out of the fifty around London making us an Apprentice Adventurer according to the Trail map. But it has been fun and we did revisit some old familiar places as well as seeing some new ones on this visit. We came specifically for the poppies and we have really enjoyed this mini break.

Check out my Facebook page for more pictures and Fred's Flickr site which he still has to post to.

Cheers,
Sandy & Fred

November 9, 2014 - London

Greetings All,

We took a mini break to London specifically to visit the Tower of London and the Poppies that were commemorating the British and Commonwealth Soldiers who sacrificed their lives in WWI. We were up and out early on Sunday to catch our 8:40 am train arriving in London around 11:40 am. Departing Euston it was a short ride on the tube to London Bridge station which, was then a ten minute walk to our hotel. We checked in, left our bags at reception as our room was not ready for us and then headed off to explore by 12:30 pm.

We headed off to explore a new area and to check out a market, The Ropewalk, that Fred's brother had told us about. As it was Sunday we were not sure if it would be open but it gave us an opportunity to see some new sites. The market was a variety of street foods and we enjoyed a grilled steak sandwich which was delicious. With full tummies we continued our exploring, walking over to the Tower of London and the masses of people were incredible. We managed to get some pictures as for the most part people were polite; taking their pictures and then making room for others.

The crowd was just too much so we decided that we would return early on Monday morning to beat the crowd and to hopefully get better pictures without the crowd. The display is the artistic design of Paul Cummins and is titled "Blood Swept Land and Seas of Red" and it is taken from the first line of a poem written by an unknown soldier in WWI. The first poppy was planted on July 14, 2014 and the last one on November 11, 2014. There are a total of 888,246 poppies each representing a life lost.

The Paddington Trail opened in London on November 4 and runs through to December 30. It is a trail of Paddington Bear statues around the city depicting places and events that are in the Paddington Bear books. We came across our first bear in the Borough Market "Taste of Peru" as pictured on the right. As it was now late in the afternoon we stopped for some refreshment at The George Inn, a pub that dates back to 1677. The weather had been amazing and we sat outside on the patio enjoying our drinks. Thanks to the time change it now gets dark around 5:00 pm so we headed back to the hotel. Along the way we came across yet another work of art, by the artist Alex Chinneck, A Pound of Flesh for 50P. It is a house made of 8,000 wax bricks that will melt over 30 days (picture below). It is part of The Merge Festival of contemporary artists in the Bankside area.

Once back at the hotel we decided to have our dinner there rather then venture out again. We enjoyed a pre-dinner glass of wine that was recommended by maitre d' come bartender called The Chocolate Block. It is a South African wine, a blend of several grapes and was a rich full bodied red. We had a lovely dinner enjoying the special that the hotel had on offer. Fred had a salmon fishcake with lemon vinaigrette and pan fried cajun haddock for his mains, while I had a stuffed chicken breast and a dessert. While we were eating a Chinese family came in, mom, dad, kid and grandma. The demands they made on the maitre d' were unbelievable. They ordered 2 mains and two side dishes, 2 glasses of wine for the three adults and a complete kids meal. They then asked for extra plates and wine glasses and proceeded to split the meals and wine up between the three adults. I really don't know why people continue to amaze or shock me given our work and travel experiences but they do. When we left I asked the maitre d' if he would write his name down on a piece of paper for me. He promptly asked if anything was wrong and I told him there was nothing wrong, that he was a saint and when we get our usual survey about our stay I wanted to recognise him.
We headed up to our room to sort pictures and then to bed at a decent time as we wanted to be at the Tower of London very early before the crowds arrived.

Cheers,

Sandy & Fred