Saturday, September 08, 2007

London City

London is an exciting, fast paced city, cultured and storied, and speaks volumes in the fog threaded low-lit streets of Chelsea or Knightsbridge, where you’re certain to find a street you’ll want to live on, a pub you’d like to get to know, and a view you’d like to call your own. Old diners where you can just have a nice cup of tea and a simple bun; medieval apartment buildings where pools of warm light give tantalizing glimpses of walls lined with books, sills of sprawling pot plants, and decorative antiques; the market squares, slumbering parks and little temples of great shopping.

There’s something to be said about the spirit of a nation who prefers their pleasures small; like the old couple I spotted in St James’ Park, huddled in artic clothing in deck chairs, wrapped in lap blankets and being pounded by winds. The man was trying to read The Daily Mail, but the wind kept wrapping it around his face. Yet they both looked content, as if they were sitting in Kirstenbosch Gardens, sitting under a warm African sun, rather than half-perishing in a severe gale. They seemed content because they could pour a cup of tea and watch the swans - and if they were feeling particularly rakish, have a chocolate digestive biscuit. Afterwards they would spend a happy half-hour packing their things into a basket then hobble off to catch a bus. They wouldn’t dare think to grumble; it’s all so romantic and inevitably a part of being British.

posted by Cindy-Lou Dale @ Saturday, September 08, 2007  

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home