The Eaton Diary of London 2001
Sunday, June
24, 2001 - A Day of silly Walks.
The day began as usual with Margie taking the greyhound for a walk. But that was only the beginning, because then Margie and I walked to Church for the 10 am service. We arrived to discover that it was a special combined 11 am service this week so we walked home again for a cup of coffee. We walked back again for 11 am but were only able to stay for 45 minutes because Margie had to go to work, so back home we walked. In the afternoon I did a little preparation for school and then headed off for a stroll around Regent's Park to smell some roses and to attempt a visit to St Paul’s Cathedral. Our evening with Dr and Mrs King (my conducting professor from Texas) on Thursday had inspired me to go to Evensong to hear the choir that Dr King had visited during their rehearsals.
Well
the Tube did it to me again. Four stops before St Paul’s the Central line
trains were stopping for some repair work, so after enduring the hot and
crowded trains for some time, a hundred or so of us were ushered up to street
level to await buses to take us to the remaining stations along the line
including St Paul’s. I waited and waited with the crowd but no buses came. I
thought that even when they did come it would be ages before I’d get on
because I was 8 or 10 rows back, so I set off on foot. 30 mins later I arrived
at St Paul’s just as the first of the Transit buses caught up to me. But
anyway, because of the delay, I walked into the Cathedral as the congregation
was walking out!
So
there you go, I was an hour early and hour late for Church on the same day! I
went inside St Paul’s anyway with the ever-present tourists just there to
experience the historic building. There was a hushed silence as people were
moved by an awesome structure and its remarkable history. I found it sad that
it appeared more a monument to man than to God, and that its congregation is
made up almost entirely of visitors. I may get to hear the choir another time.
Having had enough of the tube trains on a balmy evening, and since Margie was due to finish work at 9.30, I decided to fulfil another ambition, namely to walk as far as possible along the Thames. So from 7- 9.30 I walked, and walked...from:
passed the Old Bailey
and down to the River near Blackfriars....etc...etc (Follow the links below)
In the twilight of this the longest Sunday of the year, I enjoyed strolling upstream along the Thames walk, past Blackfriars, Embankment, Westminster, Houses of Parliament, Vauxhall bridge, Grosvenor Rd, Chelsea bridge, the Chelsea Royal Hospital grounds (where we’d enjoyed the Chelsea Garden Show), Albert Bridge and then to the Nursing Home where I surprised Margie with my presence and with my tale of long walks. We met up with 2 other Australian nurses coming off duty and stopped off for supper al fresco on the way home.
