10.11pm

Just so you know, I am drowning out the bad guitar playing from the kitchen upstairs with John Farnham.

St. Pancras Station.

So in St. Pancras there is a statue which is rather massive and twee of couple saying goodbye (nay, farewell!) he looks has a displaced backpack and she has not very nice shoes - anyways much, much more interesting is the base on which they are standing - it is this gorgeously itricate bronze of all sorts of people that have used and still continue to use the railway. Michelle and I both liked the bored looking men.

You must excuse the flash/non-flash thing as we were in a hurry to catch head down to the river. Anyways it is called 'The Meeting Place and is by Paul Day. [The view of the couple here is totally unrealistic as you can't GET that high to see that unless you are on a cherry picker!]

There are also some Olympic rings, in case you forget.

And for some reason we didn't see the cute little Betjeman statue so next time.

Pages of England

Dear Melbourne,

Sometimes I do wonder if I would love England as much as I do if I had lived here right through and not spent more of my life living on the opposite side of the world. And I am not meaning socio-economic and politics and all that stuff but that imaginative sense that you develop about places as you grow older.

Me, most of that came from reading. I went to a lecture (read: gate-crashed) last night by Gillian Leathy about Children's Literature Translation and she made a terribly interesting point that while we consider Children's Fiction to be "international" precious few contemporary stories are being translated into English from different countries and the flow goes all the way back the other way - mostly English books from England. This is both good and bad - and I feel this happens sans translation in Australia. Famous Five? Any Enid Blyton is terrifically English as is the majority of our classic fiction for younger readers. It's true that writers like Melina Marchetta, John Marsden and Jackie French produce fabulous localised fiction but for some reason Australia does not have that same accessibility on the page. Of course the world view of England through these pages is idealistic and far from reality in many cases.

Side note: I said "rotter" to someone the other day as in "the rotters!" and he looked at me like I was mad. I am positive that this is from the Famous Five books or perhaps The Scarlett Pimpernel; The Young Ones or Vicar of Dibley or Stephen Fry and completely "English!" It was quite hilarious.

So anyways, the point being (eventually) that perhaps I love England because it was not a reality, or it was a distanced reality filtered through dappled sunlight, regency bonnets and Victorian Christmases. Then again it might be that whole colonial thing, Melbourne, my dearest they have a Poetry Library here in Royal Festival Hall. We seem to reverse migrate back here to the seemingly cultural hub of the world don't we? When in reality we have so much of it at home. Hmmmm. Interesting thought perhaps.

But then you know, you see this scene and there you go.

You couldn't be anywhere else.

Love

Tils x

But I Couldn't find a Banksy Not Anywhere There.

So there is this little spot near Waterloo Station that is an ever-chaning canvas for the city. I love the idea of a gallery space such as this as it is contastantly shifting and reinventing itself and at the same time there is this gorgeous layering of what has been before.

I think it will also be interesting to visit it when it is shivery and wet and the colours are shiny with the cold. There is a warmth to the concrete when there is the sun glancing into the tunnel from each end.

The Background?

Well if you had the option to set a sunny view that included this lovely lampost from Embankment Bridge that included St. Paul's and not one but two buses wouldn't you?

--

You mightn't if you knew how annoying getting a palette together for this blog has become.

GREY, BLUE AND POTENTIALLY GREEN. WHY ENGLAND WHY!?

London Calling.

Views from Embankment bridge! Walking across from Embankment/Charing Cross side towards Waterloo. First trip into London this time round.

So. Here. We. Go!

Lift off! Launch!


Just about a month has passed since we left Melbourne and it is only now I find I have any inclination at all to blog about anything. There is something so disruptive about moving that it takes the energy out of you to do anything else but live.

You might however be pleasantly surprised that I have been taking photos AND have uploaded these to the computer and the one post I have written was written in the fall out of arriving. So bear with a little more and things will start popping up. There will be enough tags/labels for a cloud and soon enough this baby will start to take shape. It will be very pretty, mine always are.

One of the first things I did when I arrived at UEA was to buy aerograms. I haven't written any. To anyone. So please don't feel neglected. Apologies and love and know dearest Melbourne that I think about you every day, especially since my homepage is still the BOM!!