My Darling Coco

It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I have to type out these words.  Over the last couple of years I have mentioned my darling little King Charles Cavalier Coco, who recently was diagnosed with Syringomyelia which brings on convulsions and pain.  She has been a permanent fixture on my side bar and that photo has made me smile so much.  She has been a faithful companion, a comedian, a confidant and incredible friend.  This morning she was a usual self, happy to see me come down the stairs and get her medication but she then started convulsing and within minutes was taken from me.  I can't describe the words I am feeling right now so will just leave you with the last photo I took of her two days ago when she was playing hide and seek.

Understandably I will be taking a blogging break for a little while, but in the meantime, give your furry friends a meaningful hug, you never know when they will be taken from you.

      

Capturing a Moment in Time - Holborn Viaduct

A camera card is such a wonderful thing.  No longer worrying about whether there is enough film.  No longer checking that the subject is just perfect before clicking for that one and only shot.  However, the down side... why take 10 photos when 303 will do!!  Yes, the last trip to London shocked me when I got back and the amount of photos that were taken.  303 useable photos (there was double that before I started deleting!).

For our trip to the Museum of London, we got off at Holborn Station and decided to walk to St Pauls.  This was mainly so I could be quietly selfish and enjoy walking through the streets without being pulled and pushed around on the tube.  

There are certain places in London that are an absolute joy to walk around at the weekend as they are practically deserted.  Holborn is one of them.  The old and new are happily married here and I just love to see how the modern buildings have quietly shuffled up close to the old buildings and enhanced them, along with helping with their preservation.  We were just passing through, but when I looked through the camera card, I felt that this moment in time warranted its own blog post.  The reason?  Well just this shot!  

Isn't it amazing that with a click of the camera you capture something that just inspires you.  When I captured this building, I was really excited with the old building, Sixty London (Amazon Headquarters) and old chimney pots in the distance.  

Sixty London is an amazing modern building (which was described as a building of razors by Miss Teen) on Holborn Viaduct .  However, the old looking building was where my curiosity lay though with its restored stonework and the beautiful red lamps outside and iron work.  On the four corners of the viaduct are these particular memorials (which after researching them I understand to be step-buildings as their stairs link Farringdon Street to the Holborn Viaduct).  This one has Sir Hugh Myddleton above the North East door - Sir Hugh was a goldsmith and entrepreneur from Wales in the 1500's.  The original building was demolished after World War II due to the Blitz damage, however here it is back to its former glory made with Portland stone and the intricate carvings in place once again.

Amazon's Headquarters, even though dark on the outside, is a beautiful modern building of glass complete with some quirky curves to keep with the rule of being able to view St Pauls.  The step-building should look out of place, but it contrasts perfectly and shows that the old and new can look beautiful side by side.

On the North West corner is the Sir William Walworth step-building and behind this another modern building containing offices and shops cuddling up to its corners.  Sir William was Lord Mayor twice in the 14th Century and a distinguished member of the Fishmongers Guild, where his sword is displayed at the Fishmonger's Company.

To me this is the reason I love London.  The eccentricities of the buildings and the pockets of time all captured and living next to each other.

Behind the South West corner where Fitz Eylwin is immortalised (the first Mayor of London), lies a busy worksite which no doubt will join the other corners of modern architecture enhancing this particular step-building.

The Viaduct also has four ornate bronze statues depicting the fine arts, agriculture, commerce and science.  Behind the statue of Agriculture stood the last step-building on the South East corner - a memorial to Sir Thomas Gresham, who worked for King Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

This walk of just a few metres above Farringdon Street made me feel uplifted and truly inspired.  The brightly painted ironwork against the white Portland stone was striking and I was lucky enough to come across a website by Patrick Baty here which shows the layers of paint through the decades and some historical facts which I found really interesting.

Even though our visit to this tiny little corner of London was just a walk through on our way to St Pauls and London Wall, the visual splendour will remain with me always.  

The camera card captures moments that make us smile, but sometimes just clicking away and then coming home you realise that that moment can teach you so much.  Next time I am here I will take more detailed shots for the memory books!

After another short walk we were playing Peek a Boo with St Pauls... but that's for the next blog post.

I hope you enjoyed this moment in time and that your holidays were full of capturing moments.

      

A Very Happy and Blessed Easter to you all ♥

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Easter ♥

      

Sherlock Holmes - Shhh, He's Not Real

There are some things in life that are so quintessentially British, the bull dog, red pillar boxes, queues and ...Sherlock Holmes!  We are big fans of this detective in all his different guises and decades of films in my house, so I thought it would be good to take a planned trip to The Museum of London and visit their Sherlock Holmes Exhibition -The Man who Never Lived and Will Never Die before it finished.

With Miss Teen and Miss B with me and huge Sherlock fans, the exhibition was waiting for us and what a way to start a tour by finding the secret panel in amongst the book lined wall.

Of course our Sherlock wouldn't have etched himself on our minds and imagination in books without a certain Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his incredible mind for writing.  I am a self confessed collector of exercise books with a fear of soiling the books with my writing, so I was in absolute awe of Sir Arthur's neat hand and skill of writing his detective stories.  To see the exercise books for myself was the highlight of this exhibition.  

The exhibits showed all the stereotypical Holmes paraphernalia with boxes of potions that were good enough for Snape in Harry Potter (also not real!).  Quinine was on the table ready to be used along with a jar of poison.  A box of dangerous substances ready to cause trouble and to try and outdo the famous detective.

Smoking implements such as an array of pipes, matches and lighters along with some rather dandy carpet slippers were shown in this cabinet.

Then of course the suggestion of Holmes' ability to disguise himself.  I love the nose at the top of the picture!

We all have our favourite Sherlock don't we, mine being Basil Rathbone followed closely by Jeremy Brett.  However Miss Teen loves the modern version played by Benedict Cumberbatch, so this exhibit was lovingly gazed upon - the coat that he wore on Sherlock (and hopefully will be again soon!)

Of course the famous deerstalker cap had to be shown somewhere, after all, Sherlock is not Sherlock without this trademark piece of apparel.

This outfit has me thinking of my favourite Sherlock adventure - The Hound of the Baskervilles.  I can just imagine this outline walking through the mist of the moor.

Another trademark - the violin that was played while he thought through the clues.

This exhibit was great to see, especially as I tap out my post on the gentle keyboard of my laptop.  Can you remember using typewriters similar to these with the faint 'p' and 'q' every time you plunged your little finger down on them (I'm talking to touch typers here).  The soreness of your fingers when you missed the keys and got caught between two, and then if you typed too fast untangling the letter arms - how I miss those days!

However, I have never heard or seen one of these - The Home Blick with its keys on the cylinder.  I would have trouble typing on this as the keys are all wrong - I much prefer the QWERTY style!

Other items of times gone by such as the candlestick phone and the telegraph, yes I know technology is amazing but the tactile qualities of these antiques makes me so happy.

So there we have it, the Sherlock Holmes Exhibition which is about to finish and I'm so happy I got to see this and share it with you before it gets boxed up on the 12 April to make way for the next exhibition at the Museum.

The Museum of London is full of curiosities and we spent the whole day here this time around taking in all the centuries of this great city, but that would be a HUGE post, so I will put together some other bite sized pieces on future posts (or you can visit the Museum online too in my sidebar).

I hope you have all had a good week, mine has been incredibly busy but I am now looking forward to quite a few days off to catch up with myself and with you all.

Take care