The gardens at the Geffreye Museum

Yesterday I visited the Geffreye Museum with the Drawing London Group.  This is a museum of the home and garden between 1600 and the present day.  It's situated in Hoxton - inbetween Kingsland Road and the new Hoxton London Overground Station (opened July 2010).

The weather wasn't brilliant (constant showers) but the view of the period gardens at the rear of the museum from the cafe was - so I stayed inside during the morning and was able to sit comfortably, spead by pencils on a table and drink cups of tea!  Bliss!

After a very satisfactory lunch, I then visited the exhibition and then sketched in the garden in afternoon - with a few false starts due to the rain.

Both the sketches of gardens at the rear of the Geffreye Museum in this post are straight off the page - and, although drawn, they are not quite finished in terms of the colouration of the trees and vegetation which still needs to be completed.  Basically the edges are a lacking a bit of colour.

The Edwardian Garden

Geffreye Museum Gardens - April 2012
20th Century Period Garden (Edwardian 1900 -1914) in foreground
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils on Arches HP, 9" x 12"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

From the cafe I could see all the way down the gardens at the rear - but the one which was closest to me was the 20th century - Edwardian Garden.  I can see from the photos that I'll have to go back next month when the roses over the pergola should be in flower and the wisteria better developed.  I discovered that wisteria is very difficult to capture in coloured pencils - and the watercolourists were having the same problem

Click the next link (at the end of the quote) to see the list of plants in the garden.

This garden depicts a scheme featuring mixed borders full of herbaceous and traditional cottage garden plants, showing the influence of both Gertrude Jekyll and the garden designers and architects working with Arts and Crafts motifs. A pergola covered with wisteria and roses marks the entrance to this space.
Geffreye Museum: 20th century - Edwardian Garden

That funny dark pyramid structure in the middle is a Pelargonium Pyramid which is completely bare at the moment.  I spotted all the pelargoniums in the Victorian Greenhouse ready to plant into the structure.

The Herb Garden

Geffreye Museum Herb Garden - April 2012
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

The Herb Garden is a walled Garden with a beds devoted to different aspects of a Herb Garden.

There are beds for cosmetic, medicinal, culinary, household, aromatic and dye plants.Geffreye Museum - Herb Garden

Hoxton used to be an area of market gardens and nurseries at the time the almshouses were built.

Hoxton, just across Kingsland Road in the parish of Shoreditch, was home to a group of extremely influential nurseries in the 17th and 18th centuries.Geffreye Museum

About the Geffreye Museum

Geffreye Museum - April 2012

The Geffreye Museum is located in almshouses which were in built in 1714 by The Worshipful Company of Ironmongers with a bequest from Sir Robert Geffrye, twice Master of the Company and former Lord Mayor of London.  The almshouses provided a home for c.50 pensioners for almost two hundred years.

Over time Hoxton became one of the most overcrowded and deprived areas of London and the Company decided to move the almshouses to better location.  The premises and the open space were initially sold to the Peabody Trust and afterwards to the London County Council - with a view to both preserving the buildings but also access to one of the few open areas of green space in the area.

The almshouses became a furniture museum - the local area being a centre for furniture-making.

The buildings are now Grade 1 Listed and the furniture museum has become a museum of the domestic home and garden.

Visiting the Geffreye Museum

Although I've visited the Geffreye Museum before it's always been by car at times when the Hackney parking wardens aren't stalking the streets!

I'd not realised before how easy and quick it now is to reach the Museum via public transport from where I live.  The opening of the new Hoxton Station and the connection of the East London Line to the rest of the London Overground network now makes it much easier to visit from places across London.  This is a map (pdf file) of the London Overground Network and all the stations across London which can now be used to reach Hoxton.

I shall certainly now visit more often - because of the plants in the gardens at the rear and the scope for peaceful sketching of gardens!

Links

The Ironmongers Company and the Almshouses

• The History of the Ironmongers
• British History Online - The Geffreye Museum (formerly Geffreye Almshouses) 
• Spitalfields Life - At the Geffrye Almhouses
• Sir Robert Geffery's Almshouse Trust : Geffery's Fields - the present day "almshouses" which relocated to Hampshire

The Geffreye Museum

• Visiting the Geffreye Museum Kingsland Road, London, E2 8EA
• Geffreye Museum - Period Rooms and Gardens

Giant red nosed reindeer in Covent Garden!

Giant Red Nosed Reindeer outside Covent Garden Market
8" x 10", pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Yesterday was the last outing of 2010 with the Drawing London group.  We went to Covent Garden for the morning before having a lovely Christmas lunch.

The big surprise for me was finding that an extremely large red nosed reindeer had landed in the Covent Garden Piazza!  This one was really big and green!

It was too cold to stay still for long so this sketch only took me about 15 minutes.  However I think it gives the stong sense of just how big this reindeer actually is (see right for photograph of it).

I couldn't work out what it was made from but it seems to be some sort of articificial foliage wrapped around a skeletal structure which was most impressive.

Apparently real life reindeer petting for kids is taking place every Saturday in Covent Garden Piazza!

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is the site of the former fruit and vegetable market in central London which has featured in many paintings over the years (see Townscape: Covent Garden Market).

Here are some facts about Covent Garden:

• 600 AD:  the land was and settled and became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic.  Excavations show that the settlement covered about 600,000 square metres, stretching from the present-day National Gallery site in the west to Aldwych in the east, and was laid out on a grid pattern. 

Lundenwic in the early eighth century was described by the Venerable Bede as "a trading centre for many nations who visit it by land and sea". 

• 830 AD onwards:  The Vikings invaded and raided the settlement and apparently it was subsequently abandoned by the Saxons.
• 886: captured by the forces of King Alfred the Great of Wessex and reincorporated into Mercia.   This was the point at which the main focus of the City of London moved east.  The old settlement of Lundenwic became known as the ealdwic or "old settlement", a name which survives today as Aldwych.
• 1200: enclosed and used as arable land and orchards by Westminster Abbey for many years
• 1515: first use of the term "Covent Garden" in a lease
• 1540: following the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII took the land belonging to Westminster Abbey, including the garden and seven acres to the north called Long Acre;
• Inigo Jones (1573 – 1652) was commissioned to design fine houses on the north and east side as well as St Paul's, Covent Garden on the west (1631-1637) (only the church is left)
• 1654:  a small open air fruit and vegetable market starts on the south side of the fashionable square
• 18th century:  Covent Garden now known as a red-light district
• 1830:  the market building was erected to cover and help organise the market
• 1974:  Covent Garden Market relocated to New Covent Garden Market at Nine Elms.
• 1980:  the old market building was reopened as a shopping centre

Links:

• Covent Garden - wikipedia
• Lundenwic - wikipedia
• Covent Garden - current information site

Burlington House Courtyard - and sketching locations

The Royal Academy - Courtyard of Burlington House - in the rain
11" x 17", pen and ink and coloured pencils in large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This is a sketch of the courtyard of Burlington House, off Piccadilly, drawn from the covered terrace in front of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Our Drawing London Group in late September was supposed to be visiting my local park in East London but I spotted that the forecast was for heavy rain so we needed to relocate to somewhere which offered a variety of drawing locations which were dry.

We were sheltering from the rain under the covered verandah at the front of the RA but even so I had to keep moving back as the drizzle drifted onto my sketchbook as the wind changed!  However the rain did make for some interesting challanges such as trying (as with the Tate ketch) to find colours in the grey day and neutral stone of the building and courtyard.  It was there to find but you had to look hard and find the nuances.

Burlington House

Did you know Burlington House is not just home to the Royal Academy of Arts

Since 1874, Burlington House has been home to:

• Society of Antiquaries
• Royal Academy of Arts
• Linnean Society
• Geological Society
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Royal Society of Chemistry (formerly The Chemical Society)

Together, the societies contribute to the cultural, historic, natural and scientific cultural environments.

Places to sketch in and around Burlington House

We chose Burlington House and round about as there's lots of interesting stuff to draw in the vicinity - even when it's raining!  Here's my list divided into wet weather and dry weather options

Wet Weather Sketching Locations

• the architecture of Burlington House (which can be drawn from the covered verandah)
  
• sculpture in the courtyard of Burlington House
• interior of the Royal Academy of Arts generally
• exhibitions at the RA
• interior of the Restaurant at the RA
• interior of The Friends Room at the RA (a frequent occupation of mine)
• interiors of Fortnum & Mason opposite - I have a whole series devoted to eating and drinking tea there!  See Interior Landscapes - drawings by Katherine Tyrrell (all done 'on the spot')
• interior of The Burlington Arcade (on the nother side of Piccadilly) and the The Princes Arcade
• (on the south side) 

Dry Weather Sketching Locations

• the traditional (preserved) shop fronts in Jermyn Street eg Floris at 89 Jermyn Street and Paxton & Whitfield opposite St. James's Church at 93 Jermyn Street - see Google Streetview to see what I mean
  
• La Maison du Chocolat (Londres), 45-46 Piccadilly - a chocolate shop on the north side of Piccadilly
• St James Church on Piccadilly
• the Piccadilly Market in the courtyard of St James Church

Embankment Pier and Thames at Charing Cross

Charing Cross Bridge & Parliament from Cleopatra's Needle, on the Embankment

11.5" x 17", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Large Moleskine Sketchbook

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

My Drawing Group's latest expedition to draw London found us at the Victoria Embankment next to Charing Cross Station at the end of May.  It's an area I know extremely well and I've paced up and down it a few times trying to work out where Monet painted Parliament from.  

What you can see in the sketch are:

• Part of one of the two faux-Egyptian Sphinxes cast from bronze that bears hieroglyphic inscriptions and which flank the base of Cleopatra's Needle 
• Embankment Pier -  across the road from Embankment Tube Station which is where you can find a boat which will take you up or down the River Thames
• Hungerford Bridge - which is the one the train use which come in and out of Charing Cross Station which is off to the right
• the Golden Jubilee Bridge - there are two cable-stayed pedestrian bridges (the white triangular bits) that share the railway bridge's foundation piers and sit either side of the Hungerford Bridge (the crisscrossed bit)
• the trees which line the Victoria Embankment
• the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the distance

Where I was sat to draw this sketch

To draw this I was sat at the base of Cleopatra's Needle - which has a ledge which is just big enough to park a posterior.  The "A" marks the spot on this Google Map of the location of Cleopatra's Needle.

There's a terrace just below Cleopatra's Needle - but don't sit there if the tide is coming in as it comes all the way up the steps and floods the terrace.  A fellow sketcher had to move up the steps which come up from that terrace to the Embankment due to splashing from the wash of passing boats!

Cleopatra's Needle is a granite obelisk and was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt and the Sudan in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nil.  There are two other needles in New York and Paris. It is 68½ feet high, and weighs 180 tons.

Below is a description of the pair of Cleopatra's Needles in London and New York.

The pair are made of red granite, stand about 21 metres (68 ft) high, weigh about 224 tons and are inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, around 1450 BC. The material of which they were cut is granite, brought from the quarries of Aswan, near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramesses II to commemorate his military victories. The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesareum — a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony — by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.
Wikipedia - Cleopatra's Needle

You can see more of my sketches of London on the Travels with my Sketchbook in London page on my website.  London Sketchbook is a summary of all the blog posts about sketching in London.

Sketching at the Brokers Wine Bar

My cufflinks were killing me
11.5" x 8.5"; pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Winsow & newton sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell UKCPS

Later this month, my drawing group is having an exhibition at the Brokers Wine Bar in Leadenhall Market. I decided that I'd like to display sketches and drawings of either the market or the wine bar or maybe both. I need to get on with these so yesterday took myself off to the Brokers Wine Bar on my way home from other activities in the City of London.

I've already completed one sketch (see Leadenhall Market on a very dull and rainy day) but I find drawings come more easily if I've had a qood walk around a place and familiarised myself with it. Yesterday it was dry and a lot brighter than my last visit so I had a long walk around Leadenhall Market and photographed it from every angle so I can work out which views are going to work best in what format before I go back and draw.

I discovered that early evening is also a really good time to draw as the rather marvellous market lights were on making for a very attractive scene. Plus I like the contrast between the size of the structure and the size of the people having a drink outside the various hostelries in the market. I think maybe the smoking ban inside bars and pubs has made this a more popular place given you can be outside and under cover at the same time!

Early evening in Leadenhall market
Brokers Wine Bar is on the first floor above the Pen Shop

I'm guessing that a number of the people who were around and about probably work at Lloyds of London as this is immediately adjacent to the market. It's interesting that both Leadenhall Market and the world's leading insurance market stand in a place which used to be the forum and basilica some 1,900 years ago in Roman Londonium.

The people at the Brokers Wine Bar were very helpful and friendly when I said I wanted to sketch - many thanks to Kevin and Veronica.

This is my first attempt at a sketch of this very long narrow bar which has windows looking down on the market on its long wall and pictures all over its walls.

I'm planning to go back to have lunch and sketch some more.

Thanks to all the people in the bar who I met yesterday and who made me feel very welcome.

Hampstead - Flask Walk, Burgh House and John Constable

40 Well Walk, Hampstead (former home of John Constable)
pencil and coloured pencils in Daler Rowney sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

On Friday, I was out sketching with the Drawing London Group. This month we were in Hampstead as one of the members of the group, Bill Aldridge, has an exhibition on at Burgh House - closing today. Burgh House is also the home of the Hampstead Museum.

We started off at Simply Scrumptious in Flask Walk which is a one minute stroll from Hampstead Tube. Having sat down to have a cappuccino I decided I rather liked the idea of sketching the delightful plants which were being laid on the pavement in front of the shop next door. (I went back later and bought three of them!)

The front of Judy Green's Garden Store
pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

We had an absolutely delightful lunch in the garden of Burgh House. The Buttery Cafe, based in the basement of Burgh House does amazing food and also has great seating arrangements both inside and out in the garden. I had a wonderful crayfish salad which was scrummy! I'll be very happy to return to try out the rest of the menu.

In the afternoon, having armed myself with some details about local history from the shop on the ground floor, I walked east to Well Walk and located the house at 40 Well Walk (streetview) which John Constable (1776 - 1837) used to live in. There's a raised pavement on the other side of the road and I perched on my stool up there just above the steps up from the road to the raised pavement.

I hadn't realised John Constable lived in Hampstead at all until I went to the the Constable Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery back in March of this year (see my exhibition review of Constable Portraits: The Painter and his Circle.) However one of the things I loved about the exhibition were the family portraits he painted in Hampstead and some of the landscape paintings he did of and from Hampstead Heath. There's a very good overview exhibition about John Constable in Hampstead at Burgh House at the moment. Constable rented various summer lodgings around Hampstead village from 1819. He leased 40 Well Walk in 1827 and this is the only address in Hampstead with an official English Heritage Blue Plaque.

Included in the exhibition are paintings of where he used to live (eg at 2 Lower Terrace, Hampstead.) It's clear to see that he faced a problem many artists have when looking for somewhere to paint when they have a number of small children and also love cats!

I have sundry small works going on - for which purpose I have cleared a small shed in the garden which held coals, mops and brooms that is literally a coal-hole and have made it into a workshop and place of refuge.

Subsequently I came across The Museum of London's virtual website "Creative Quarters - the art world 1700 - 2000" which was developed to support an exhibition of the same name which ran at the Museum of London from March to June in 2001. It explores eight areas in London which have been associated with different artists over the years. Hampstead 1800-1830 - or the "northern heights" used to be where artists such as John Constable, George Romney and William Blake lived. You can read more about artists living in London by following the link at the end.

Sketchercise: Rather fewer steps on Friday - 5,916 steps and 2.9 miles - but lots of scope for more when I visit Hampstead again

Links:

• Making A Mark (24 March 2009) - Where artists lived and worked in London
• Drawing London
• Wikipedia - Hampstead
  

Sketching the Olympic Park

Sketching the construction of the Olympic 2012 Stadium
8.5" x 12.5", pencil and coloured pencils in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Yesterday, the Drawing London Group had a lovely sunny day out sketching the Olympic 2012 construction site just west of Stratford in East London. It had an extra benefit for me as I got to walk home!

The Olympic Stadium has just celebrated its first birthday. You can see the progress being made within the Olympic Park through a series of Olympic webcams

2012 Olympic Games 27 July-12 Aug 2012 1153 days to go

I'm going to show you the four sketches I did in this post and the next couple of posts. The first one is of two fellow members of the Drawing London group sketching the Olympic stadium and the site of the Olympic Park.

However I like sketching people sketching so you only have a bit of the stadium from me - which is also helpful because it means I can cut down on complicated counting of struts! The people also help to give it scale. Plus it's a nice record of members of the group.

I do think I might have a bit of a lean on my stadium. I'm OK at knowing my verticals tend to lean but I've not had previous experience of ellipses leaning!

You can sketch the stadium site from The Greenway walk

the Greenway in east London, a 3km embankment and public way running from Victoria Park to West Ham down the full length of the Olympic Park. The Greenway will provide pedestrian and cycle access for visitors to the 2012 games
Building Design website - Greenway upgrade proposals

Getting to it is a bit complicated at the moment because of diversions due to building on the Olympic site. Here's what we did:

• met at Stratford station - which will be the major hub undergound and railway station for the Olympics. This is your last loo stop (if you can find them!). The station is currently going through a £100 million upgrade which means things keep moving......! (Stratford International Station is also being built - and that's due to open late this year!)

Stratford station is a railway station in Stratford, Newham, East London on National Rail, London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines. It is served by the Underground Central and Jubilee lines, and by London Overground, National Express East Anglia and c2c. It is in Travelcard Zone 3.
Wikipedia - Stratford Station

• took the Docklands Light Railway to Pudding Mill Lane station (one stop)
• exited the station and followed the signs to join the Greenway
• walked north for about 300m

The Greenway runs right through the middle of the Olympic site. The main Olympic Stadium is being built on the right hand side. You also have a distant view of other stadia being built within the Olympic Park.

If you continue walking up the path beyond the Stadium you get to Old Ford Lock on the River Lea and Fish Island. Of which more in the next post!

One of the nice things about the Olympic site is the number of different ways you can walk and cycle to the Olympic Park area from other parts of London. I hope the plans to develop this network is seen to fruition.

Sketchercise count: 10,061 steps yesterday - which includes walking home from here!

Note: The Greenway is constructed on top of the embrankment which contains the Northern Outfall Sewer which was constructed by Bazelgette after a cholera outbreak in London in 1853 and The Big Stink of 1858.
Links: to websites relating to the area:

• Olympics 2012
• Olympic Park webcams
• London 2012 Blog
• Walk London - Section 14 (Hackney Wick to Beckton District Park) - includes The Greenway
• Transport for London - Route details - Capital Ring Section 14: Hackney Wick to Beckton District Park
• Wikipedia - Stratford International Station

The Temple and Temple Church

Panorama of Cloisters, Church Court and the Temple Church
24th April 2009 - 1.00pm
11" x 16" in Daler Rowney Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Last Friday I went to the The Temple with the Drawing London Group. This is a sketch of the Temple Church and Church Court which was made famous around the world after it featured in both the book and the film of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

This particular panorama is from the the edge of the steps up to the Library and has Bill Aldridge, organiser of the Drawing London group, sat on his sketching stool in the bottom left hand corner. The round part of Temple Church can be seen on the right hand side of the sketch. The building with arches on the left behind the tree is Cloisters which is actually part of the Middle Temple.

The Inner Temple is the home of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. The Middle Temple is the home of The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. These two Societies are two of the four historic Inns of Court situated around the Royal Courts of Justice in London which hold the exclusive rights to call candidates to practise law at the Bar of England and Wales. This then entitles them to practise as barristers. The Inner Temple provides training and continued professional development for student and established barristers respectively.

The Temple was originally the home, in the twelfth century, of the Knights Templar. They built the round part of the Temple Church and named it after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - which is supposedly the site of Jesus' burial. All round churches built by the Knights templar relate back to this church. It's now the parish church of the Inner Temple and Middle Temple.

The Round Church was consecrated on 10 February 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. You can find out more about the Round Church here.

The oldest part of the church is the Round which was consecrated in 1185. The quire was consecrated in 1240. The church was seriously damaged during the Second World War but when the damage was made good the reredos by Wren which had been removed by the 19th century 'restorers', was replaced.
Inner Temple website - The Buildings

You can:

• read about the history of the Temple Church
• view a timeline of the Temple Church
• take a virtual tour of the Temple Church
  

Interestingly the Temple and the Temple Church enjoy very unusual legal status. The Temple is an independent extra-parochial area, which historically is not governed by the City of London Corporation (although geographically within the boundaries and liberties of the City of London). In effect the Honourable Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple also act as if they are local authorities.

The Temple Church is jointly administered and maintained by the Inner Temple and Middle Temple and enjoys the status of a "Royal Peculiar" (a place of worship that falls directly under the jurisdiction of the British monarch, rather than a diocese). It is independent from the Diocese of London and the Master of the Temple is appointed directly by the Queen.
The Inner Temple website - The Inner Temple today

The buildings always remind me very much of the buildings and courtyards of the older colleges and Oxford and Cambridge - right down to the hand painted list of occupants at the entrance to each set of chambers.

The layout of the Temple is very confusing for anybody unfamiliar with it. Fortunately the Temple Church provides a very handy page of how to find the Church and the layout of the different buildings which make up the Middle and Inner Temple, which can be printed out.

Links:

• How to get to the Inner Temple
• Wikipedia - The Temple, Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Temple Church
  
• Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
  
• Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
• The Temple Church
  

A 'trip' to Borough Market, Southwark

A view of Borough Market from behind the KäseSwiss stand
11.5" x 8.5", coloured pencils in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I'm way behind with posting my sketches so I'm starting near the end and working backwards!

These are a couple of sketches which I did on Friday when I visited Borough Market, next to Southwark Cathedral, with the Drawing London Group. I should have remembered to take my sketching chair with me but the failure of my laptop that morning made me late setting off and I forgot.

Southwark Cathedral and stallholders in Borough Market

8.5" x 11.5" coloured pencils in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Standing sketches are limited to either 10 minutes max or can only be done when resting against a suitable bollard - such as the one on the right! Fortunately I found a friendly stall holder with a trolley for the sketch at the top!

I've got more sketches - for later in the week.

It's worth noting that Southwark Cathedral has a very nice refectory which is a bit difficult to find but is a great place to have sit down and a bowl of soup after a hard morning's sketching!

One nice additional twist to sketching at Borough Market on a Friday is that you can do the weekend food shopping before you go home.

Last night we had cod fillet landed at Whitby in North Yorkshire (from the mega fish stall) from Furness Fish and Poultry. Tonight I'm doing a pot roast with some very nice looking brisket from The Ginger Pig who are free range farmers and butchers of rare breeds. These are the details and opening hours of the Ginger Pig Market Stand. Apparently they now also have a Hog Blog! Plus fruit and veggies from assorted stall holders. I could only stand and look at all the wonderful cheese as the "soon to be slimline me" likes her cheese a bit too much and isn't allowed any right now!

There is yet another twist to this tale - which generated the title for this blog post.

People who know me also know I have very dodgy feet (I've got a tissue disability which has led to a spontaneous ruptured instep among other things!) so I have to be very careful as my balance is now very poor. Stairs are a nightmare and you can normally find me hugging the handrail. This time I ignored all my normal risk management techniques and took a purler down the last four steps of the steps inbetween Southwark Cathedral and Borough Market. Luckily I was OK as it could have been a lot worse. Except last night in the bath I found that the bruises have now come out and certain areas of my anatomy are now an interesting shade of blue and very sensitive!

Links:

• Southwark Cathedral and refectory
• Borough Market - and how to get there (they have a great map). They're not marked on the map but it's not far from London Bridge and the Tate Modern.