Hey Friend!
How are you? What have you been up to this week?
It’s the start of my final week of the holidays (boooo!) so I’m cramming in as much as I can.
Last week, we went to see the Schiaparelli exhibition at the V&A with my dear friend, S.
We’d arranged to meet her there at 4.30pm. Everyone knew the time we were leaving and yet, somehow, we still didn’t get the train on time…
Older Miss (OM) had woken, stretching like a cat from her nap. I noticed her glasses which were next to her on the bed, looked a bit odd. I pointed it out and she grabbed them, desperately trying to see if she could fix them.
She couldn’t.
Any glasses wearers know that the arms sit 90 degrees from the top edge. OM’s were now sitting at 180 degrees… She had no choice but to leave without them.
OM is a speed walker so, it was very odd to have her walking behind following my lead rather than speeding ahead and forcing us all to keep up!
After the train, we got on a bus that crawled along at a palatial speed. There was a fair amount of traffic on the road, which I just didn’t expect at that time of the day. If it hadn’t been thirty-odd degrees, we would have gotten off and walked. But no one was speed walking in that heat.
We finally arrived sometime after 5pm (I hate being late!) and were so glad to feel the refreshing coolness of air-con on our glistening skin.
S and I wandered around the exhibition, talking and catching up. The lights were kept low and it was fairly busy. We left my three to walk through together. OM had to get Littler Miss (LM) to read the information plaques for her and was practically pushing her nose against the glass to view the pieces.
There were some beautiful things on display and also some very odd things. Beautiful dresses that I could imagine wearing although I don’t have any fancy balls to attend. Which reminds me of a video a friend sent me. It was a woman ranting about not waiting to wear your best stuff because “You don’t go anywhere!” So, perhaps it would be acceptable to wear these dresses to the supermarket?
The oddities included a jacket with cone-boobs (think Madonna) with eyes on one sleeve and noses and lips on the other.
I guess that’s the beauty of the fashion word. Much like art, there are some things people will absolutely love and others they can’t stand. I don’t agree that it all has a place. A lot of the time it just seems like attention-seeking. But, even though it was fun to take a peek back into the fashion world again, I’m so glad I left!
This week, OM, Little Dude (LD) and I went for a walk in Sydenham Hill Wood. LD and I have done a fair amount of walking during the holidays but we fell off a bit last week. OM (having become a seasoned hiker in the past year), led the way (new glasses firmly in place). We walked all the way there so, even though it was a lot cooler than it has been of late, I still worked up a sweat.
We reached a gate off a quiet street and descended down the steps into the undergrowth.
It all felt a bit eerie. It was so quiet which heightened the sound of the birds singing. The path wasn’t very wide and the trees towered over us on each side. Sunlight peeked through the gaps and we wandered along, chatting, LD pointing out bat boxes and abandoned dens some anonymous person had made. We froze at some rustling in the bush – some animal that we couldn’t see. OM said it was a squirrel but none of us stopped for any future rustling noises.
Move first, look later is a good motto for walking in the woods, I think…
There were information posters along the way, one of which explained that Sydenham Hill Wood is part of the ancient Great North Wood that, ironically, covered a large chunk of South London.
We eventually came to a footbridge originally built in the 1860’s. It was built over a railway that took passengers to the Crystal Palace before it was destroyed by fire.
It is so fascinating to me that there is so much history right on my doorstep, so to speak, and I had no idea.
I’m currently looking up all the other parts of the wood to see which one we will explore next and have even been looking up walking boots…
I mean, I’ve got to do something to work off the ridiculous amount of ice cream I’ve eaten over the past month (I guess that’s one complaint about the heat then).
Can any of my fellow Londoners out there recommend more walks? Did I mention there’s only one week left of my holidays? And then only a couple of months before the cold sets in so I’m unlikely to have this motivation past October. Time is of the essence!
I’m off to grab a snack, which most definitely will not be one of the packs of cookies bought for LD’s birthday party…
Speak soon xx
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