London Calling

One of the strangest things about lockdown was not travelling much further than 5k from my flat for months on end, especially as we usually travel quite a lot and I always love a day out. Also, the joy of a tiny London flat so close to everything became more challenging when suddenly everywhere I love to go was closed and all that was left was the tiny London flat and the ever increasing purchases of craft items to keep me amused/sane during time on furlough.

So, this week my boyfriend and I decided to spend a day in the city. We jumped onto a Thames Clippper from Wandsworth to Blackfriars and headed up to the Museum of London.

Although the Southbank almost felt normal on the way home, the city itself (sometimes known as the Square Mile) felt very much like it would on a lazy Sunday morning. This isn’t surprising, with the endless news stories about how many companies are keeping their staff at home. There was also only a small trickle of tourists, but again not surprising! It was nice to wander around ahead of our ticket slot at the Museum and take some photos of the stunning architecture this part of London offers.

All my photos are black and white in this post, this seems to lend itself well to the subject matter and creates some striking photos, hopefully you agree!

St Pauls, always impressive no matter how many times you’ve seen it (although I’ve still never been inside!)

Always peer down alleyways in the city ….

I tried using a blur filter on the background layer of this image, and a few others in this post. It’s always fun to experiment with Photoshop – although the results aren’t always perfect for a relative newbie like me.

As we were early for our Museum of London ticket slot, we wandered around the maze of the Barbican for a while. The architecture of this area splits opinion, but you can’t deny how striking it is and it’s a great spot to try some architectural photography.

Might have got too carried away with the blur on this one, but don’t hate the effect!

We really enjoyed our visit to the Museum of London, although the experience of visiting a museum has changed dramatically. We learnt a lot about our city and really enjoyed the small exhibition about the Clash. It was also interesting to hear about their plans for a new museum on the site of the old Smithfield Market, an area we’d walked past earlier and hoped it wouldn’t just become another block of flats!

Experimenting with selection on this photograph of the Smithfield Market, really pleased with the effect.

Our perfect London day was topped off with a gorgeous lunch at the Paternoster Chop House – which you might recognise from the TV show First Dates and where we actually had one of our early dates many years ago (no, we weren’t on the show)…

Thanks for reading, and photography tips and comments are very welcome!

A Saturday Stroll in Manhattan

On the Saturday of our weekend in New York, I woke up regretting just how many cocktails I’d had the night before. We’d gone out with my friend from University and her husband who now live in the city and our plan of dinner and a couple of drinks turned into a brilliant evening spent nattering over too many cocktails into the wee small hours of the morning…

But as we only had a limited time in the city, we dragged ourselves out of bed and set off to explore more of the city including Central Park and the Highline. Here’s a selection of photos from that day.

 

“Come and meeeet, those dancing feeeeet” 

Grand Central puts London Waterloo to shame …

The Highline … probably a nicer experience in warmer weather!

Despite the cold and the hangovers, we had a great day and finished it off with a very unusual meal in a very trendy restaurant called Atoboy. It is a Korean restaurant that serves tapas-style dishes and every single dish was a completely new flavour to me! It was delicious and intriguing – certainly a food experience we won’t forget.

 

An Englishwoman in New York

I love New York City, it’s definitely one of my favourite places in the world. I first visited when I was just 15 and on a school choir tour, it was an incredible experience and left a real mark on me. I then visited for my 21st birthday with my Mum and we had such a fantastic time, accidentally walking onto the set of Inside Llewyn Davis was a highlight. After those two trips, I’ve been keen to return for a while, and my boyfriend hadn’t visited since he was a child so we set about booking a BA Holiday deal in January. Less than a month later we were sitting in a yellow cab speeding towards the skyline.

We only had a few days to explore, some might say it was crazy to go for such a short period of time. We landed on Thursday lunchtime and our flight back was on Sunday evening. But I think we managed to fit a lot into this trip, as you’ll see from my blog posts!

On our first afternoon, once we’d checked into our hotel, The Roger (with the comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in) we set off exploring. The plan was to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge via some of the neighbourhoods we wanted to walk through. It was a beautiful afternoon and I instantly fell back in love with the city.

I didn’t take many photos as we were walking through Manhattan but couldn’t resist once we got onto the Brooklyn Bridge, it was beautiful.

Sunset over the city, bathing the Statue of Liberty in light

Looking back to Midtown

Dumbo – the Manhattan Bridge perfectly framing the Empire State Building

 

New York is definitely a city that lends itself to black and white!

Once our sleepiness started to take hold we got on the subway to Williamsburg and the Brooklyn Brewery. As not much of a beer drinker, I was relieved to find that they also do a cider, which was delicious. We’d been awake for almost 24 hours when we finally got back to the hotel, but when in the city that never sleeps why waste time sleeping!