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Hi all, I realised the other day that I’d accidentally left a couple of things out of my earlier email plus I’ve been to see and do a few things recently so I thought I’d write another diary episode whilst I remember. It’s just on 5 in the afternoon and it’s really, really dark outside. It’s not that cold, probably ‘cause all the clouds trap in the little available heat. Nick and I went to see a movie the other night called “All or Nothing”. It was about 3 families living in public housing in Greenwich, London. It addressed the issues of low-income earning families, parents working one or two low-skilled jobs, unemployed teenagers that idled their time away being nuisances around the suburbs. The list of issues it raised goes on. Anyway, the reason I mention it, is because the area we live in, which is across the river from Greenwich, has a lot of what looks like, public housing. We live in a private road, with a private courtyard in a fairly newly built apartment block. It’s quiet and generally peaceful. However, when we walk through the public housing blocks on the way to the train station, there are always kids riding their bikes, yelling and laughing, fighting and swearing. November 5th, is Guy Fawkes night, which commemorates the day in 1605 where Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The failure of the plot is celebrated each year with bonfires and fireworks, so for the last few weeks, fireworks have been sold everywhere. Last night there was a bunch of kids lobbing fireworks up at the balconies, windows and doors of the higher apartments of the block neighbouring ours. Sometimes they just loiter around, yelling and laughing, and sometimes they sneak about looking into our building’s car park underneath our apartment. One time I was in our living room doing the ironing and watching TV when I noticed a couple of heads peering in at the bottom of our living room glass doors. Thankfully they were shut, but the kids had climbed up on the hollow bricks that make the top half of the wall of the garage, and because, for some reason the apartments on the bottom floor don’t have balconies, even though they’re not at ground level, the kids can just climb the bricks and look into our place. I called the police last night, but the problem with the police and the law and the judicial system and all that is that something bad has to happen before they take any notice. It’s bound to happen that one night, someone will come out their door onto the balcony to see what all the noise down below is, and a firecracker will blow up in their face and burn them. But the kids would be long gone by then. Anyway, the first thing I left out of my diary was ages ago. Nick, Ruairidh and I went to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was rather a pompous ceremony, and it’s all for the tourists anyway, there’s no real purpose otherwise. But it was so crowded, even though we arrived at 11am, half an hour before it begins, we were still at the back of a three deep crowd on a massive fountain/statue thing about 50 meters back from the gates. And at the actual gates the crowd was maybe about 10 deep, so there was no point standing there, as we would’ve seen less than we could from the statue. I think I might go back on a weekday to watch, ‘cause I want to get a photo of the men in the red suits with the tall fury hats. The ceremony was quite long actually, and we were wondering if something had actually gone wrong ‘cause, among other things, the band started playing the theme song to James Bond, whilst the two main uniformed people, I don’t think they’re guards, they’re just they’re for the ceremony, paced back and forth along the width of the palace. Very odd. Whilst we were there we went on a tour inside the rooms of the palace that are open to the public a few months each year. The palace wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, it was built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, but was bought by King George III for the royal family in 1762. It has only been used as the Royal family’s primary residence since 1837, Queen Victoria’s reign. So, it’s had 300 years worth of stylising incorporated into it. It’s amazing how so much wealth can purchase so much distasteful interior decoration. Patterned carpets of deep red colours covered the floors, the ceilings were usually white with gold trimming. And each room had its own separate colour and styled wallpaper and upholstery. For example, there’s the Green Drawing Room which is green, and which incidentally I learned should really be called a Withdrawing room, because it has nothing at all to do with drawing, but is rather a place for someone to withdraw. I digress. The Thrown Room is all red, the Picture Gallery is pale pink, the Blue Drawing Room is blue, and the Music Room is beige and black and has several potted orange trees growing by the numerous windows. Most rooms have enormously high ceilings and hugely ornate chandeliers and all have various bits of furniture from different places that really don’t go together. And the number of portraits and paintings in each room is rather a lot to take in at one time. And there are probably many more somewhere in storage too. The other thing I left out was a visit to the Battersea Dogs Home. I didn’t realise it was anything historical or special, I just found it on the internet when I was looking for some volunteer to do whilst I was here, and wanted to go and check it out before I applied. The information I’m writing in here I’ve just pinched off the web site, but it’s interesting. The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, as it was originally known, was established in 1860, the same year that President Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the US. It didn’t move to its current location in Battersea until 1871, and 1882 it started homing cats as well. It homed 100 sled dogs in preparation for Ernest Shakleton’s Antarctic expedition in 1914, and in 1917 it temporarily cared for nearly 30,000 pets of British soldiers that were sent away on active service. Among several dogs that Battersea Home had looked after and that were sent to the War Dog School, one, named Jack, died in France on the front line after delivering a vital plea for reinforcements. Jack’s battalion was saved, and Jack received posthumous VC (Victoria’s Cross – medal of honour, presented by the Queen in Buckingham Palace I think). In 1989, the micro-chipping of dogs was first piloted at Battersea. The home continues to do what it was originally established to do, that is, the four Rs. Rescue, Reunite, Rehabilitate and Rehome dogs and cats. The kennels and catteries  were amazing. Each cat has a small box, maybe a metre cubed in size. Each box has a glass front so potential owners can look in at the animals, and each box has a window at the back which lets in natural light. There are also a couple of shelves set at different heights built in for the cat to sleep on. Then the back of each box has a cat door where the cats can go outside into there own little courtyard which has a ladder leading down from their box to the ground. Each court yard has it’s own barrier, but depending on the cats temperament, some of the barriers are left open so the cats can socialize with their neighbours, and share their toys. The dogs kennels are similar, but a lot bigger. Each dog gets walked every day. And the cages are cleaned every day. They are very strict with hygiene and the minimising the spread of kennel cough. Some of the dogs get anxiety when they are moved into the home, so there are people there to help them settle in, and play with them and do behavioural training with them if and when necessary. It was a sad experience seeing all these beautiful dogs and cats locked up as they are, but I know they have the best possible stay there, and the staff do there best to minimise the time they have to stay and make them as comfortable as possible during their stay. All potential owners are interviewed and given some time in the “meeting rooms” where they spend supervised time with their potential new pet. This attempts to ensure that the animals go to the best people for them, not just the other way around. Well, now onto more recent things. The weather is now turning cold and drizzly and it’s getting dark earlier, and it also happens to be now that I’m ready to start being a tourist again. Unfortunately, it was when the weather was beautiful and sunny, I felt obliged to stay indoors and look for employment on the internet, or I just didn’t feel like being a tourist, after having spent the last 8 months on the road. But my impeccably timed touring/travelling clock (and my Mum’s constant nagging… even though she is over the other side of the world) has told me it’s time to get out and about now before I come home. Oh yeah, I’m coming home, as was originally planned, in early December, but I’ve decided that even though I’ll still have a little over a year left on my working holiday visa, I’m going to let it lapse, and will not be returning to London early next year to live and work as I had originally thought I might. So I’ve been very busy recently being a tourist around London and nearby areas. The first excursion I took myself on was to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It’s about an hour walk from our home, along the Thames and then under it through the foot tunnel to Greenwich. As one should know, Greenwich is where the Prime Meridian passes through. That is an imaginary line at 0 degrees longitude. Kind of like the equator except running North - South around the globe rather than East – West. Each night there is a very powerful, green laser beam emitted from the observatory in the line of the Prime Meridian, which stretches all the way to the horizon. We can see it on clear night from our lounge room. I learned a lot at the observatory about the history of maritime navigation but I’ll be buggered if I can remember much of it. The thing about visiting places in London is that it’s so old such that each faculty of knowledge has it’s own very long history, and trying to remember it all, names, dates, kings and queens, is a huge information overload. This especially so with a mind like mine which is very much sieve like. The observatory was designed by the famous architect Christopher Wren, who among other things, designed the latest St Pauls Cathedral in London after the fire which destroyed most of the city in 1665. The observatory was built in 1675 using 2nd hand materials because, despite being commissioned by the king of the time, Charles II, it was not of such importance to be deemed to be worth much funding. It was to be a place where the Royal Astronomers could study the stars in order to improve maritime navigation. Many ships that went to sea never returned because their captains got lost. But it wasn’t their fault, because how was one to know where they had to go if they had no idea where they were. They could work out their latitude using the angle of the sun at whatever time of day or using the polar stars at night, but they couldn’t work out their longitude with the instruments or information they had.  They needed to know what time it was at a fixed place in the world, and then they could work out the local time, wherever they were, and using the two pieces of data they could deduce where they were using the constant that for each hour of time is 15 degrees longitude from the fixed place. The problem was, they had no means of knowing what the time in the fixed place was. The job of the Royal Astronomer back then, John Flamsteed was to map all the stars, and the positions of the moon, and using the charts and tables and many calculations, the sailors, in theory could work out the time at the fixed point, being Greenwich. However in 1773, George Harrison made the world’s first accurate clock that could be used at sea. It used weighted bars and later versions used wheels rather than the existing pendulum which was of no use on a viciously rough sea. The series of the original 5 clocks that Harrison made were all on display at the Observatory, which is apparently quite rare to see them all in one exhibition, so I was lucky. So, officially, Harrison solved what was known as the Longitude Problem, and received a substantial reward at the time for doing so. I was nearly lucky enough to look through the massive telescope, the 8th biggest single lens ‘scope in the world. It’s huge, and the lens cap is about the size of the lid on Oscar the Grouch’s rubbish bin, if not a bit bigger. When I say single lens, that is opposed to the more modern ones which use mirrors. I just happened to be there when an astronomer was opening up the roof of the huge dome on the top of the observatory and was getting the telescope ready. But, unlike the olden days, when the massive contraption was moved and adjusted by hand and water power, it now uses software run on a powerful computer… which crashed, and so couldn’t be used. Ahhh, the beauty of technology. The observatory also houses all the original measurements like the foot, and the yard etc. and a clock which displays the time down to a fraction of a second. The clock receives radio signals sent from the most accurate clock in the world, an atomic clock housed in some lab in West London, and it’s accurate to the second within one million years. This sounds amazing, but there are 3 countries at the moment in collaboration, France being the most advanced, developing an even more accurate atomic clock. There was a model of it in the Observatory, but I didn’t understand it. It’s called a Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock and is so accurate that it won’t gain or lose a single second in 15 million years. And yet, despite all this spectacular technology available to us, some of us will still always arrive late. The next day I went to visit the Science Museum, which I won’t go into detail about. Except for this rather interesting installation they had made out of 213 layers of different materials, like felt, wood, metal, glass, rubber, cork etc. That was quite interesting, and then there was a couch made out of corrugated cardboard, but  you weren’t allowed to sit on it. One day I went to Stone Henge which I enjoyed, despite it taking about 2 hours travelling each way and only about ½ hour to see the installation. It was a lot smaller than I’d expected. Each stone is buried 1/3 in the ground, and you can see 6 metres above ground, so it’s an amazing structural accomplishment. But just from pictures it looks bigger, and spread out more. The audio tour was very good, explaining how much they don’t know about the mysterious stones. There are no other stones or quarries or anything in the area, it’s just near a main road in the middle of a field. There are two types of stone, the inner circle is made of Blue Stone, which retains heat, and the outer circle is of a different type of stone, I can’t remember what it is called, but it feels very cold compared to the inner circle stones. They have reason to believe that the stones had been brought from Ireland, some suggest that the entire structure existed there and was moved and reconstructed in its current location. Not much of it remains, it was probably a complete circle originally, but now it’s just bits and pieces. There are a couple of stones outside the circle that represent where the sun rises on the Equinox and the Solstice (longest and shortest days of the year). Another day I went to Kew Gardens, which are the Botanical Gardens of London. Again it took a long time to get there, but I had a pleasant afternoon there, even though it was really cold and threatening to rain. The rose gardens were on there last legs, struggling to withstand the cold temperatures and bitter winds, but the gardens on a large scale looked lovely with all the autumn coloured trees and leaves on the ground. I took pleasure in watching a little boy and his Dad playing in the fallen leaves under a huge tree. The father would gather up a large handful of crunchy golden leaves and throw them up above their heads, and then running around in circles, the little boy would squeal in delight and try and catch the falling leaves. Coming up to Halloween, there was a big pumpkin and squash exhibition in the small greenhouse where usually the lilies reside. Old barrows and hanging baskets had been arranged on the concrete extensions that jut into the lily pond, overflowing with different shaped and coloured and sized pumpkins so that not a single inch of concrete could be seen. It was very beautifully done. The other thing worth mentioning that I saw at the gardens was an exhibition of hundreds of different types of apples. But that wasn’t the good bit. On the walls behind the tables displaying the apples were these wonderful photographs that looked like they’d been transposed onto canvas. They were quite large, maybe a bit bigger than a pillow, and were all taken with a macro lens, so they were real close ups, and all of different types of flowers and greenery. There was one of some prickles on a cactus, and one of the middle of a Sun-flower, and of an open rose, and the stem of a fern frond, and frost on a red cabbage, and many others. They were all amazing. The aim of the photographer was to capture images that were almost abstract, but drew the observer in by patterns and colour. And the colours were so bright and intense. They were a beautiful collection of what I call art. I’m not really into the art that is called art because it can’t be classified as anything else. But this type of display I can really appreciate. I’ve got lots more things to write, but I’m going to put them in separate diary entries. I’ll just finish up with my list of personal bits and pieces. Firstly, Happy birthday to Tuckster, which I forgot to say in my last diary, but who cares about that when there’s something even bigger to announce now… Congratulations to Tucki and Ilan on their engagement!!! Really happy for you both, as you already know. And for the token Jewish statement… Mazal Tov. Also, happy b’day to Gabs. And also, sympathy to me, and my Dad and Papa and all our family, ‘cause of the passing away of Uncle Ray, my Dad’s Uncle who we loved very much, and always made us laugh with his funny stories and great writing ability. And also, I forgot to mention in my last diary, commiserations to me and my family ‘cause my last two mice died. Semi, and Skelter. Skelter was one of the four mice I originally bought a couple of years ago, so she had a happy and long life, for a mouse. And Semi could have well been one of her grand-daughters, and if not, was the grand-daughter of Skelter’s sister, Helter, who ran away for the last time, a couple of months before I left on this trip. So until next time folks… Nique