Small - or far away

The run up to the start of any semester is always a busy time, so I have a personal tradition to make plans for the evening before the semester starts, to make sure I take at least that much of a break. (This time I went to see Tron:Legacy in eyeball-saturating 3D - IMAX, which was significantly more impressive than regular 3D, and absolutely perfect for the film.)

Crossing the river - excuse the not-great photo - I discovered that the Shard's construction has now reached the stage where it's messing with my depth perspective in the dark! I know, in my head, that it's a very tall building quite far away, but it really looked for a moment as though someone had wrapped the spire of St John's, Waterloo in fairy-lights - the fairy lights being the lit windows all the way over in London Bridge. Blame the long day, but it did take me a moment to work out what I was seeing.

this London life in the summer

I walked the longer way home tonight, and I didn't get properly rained on. I did get slightly rained on, but only that specific combination of heat, humidity, and rain that makes you wonder if you're wet because it rained or if, maybe, the humidity just condensed on you.

On this slightly longer wander I passed

- a truly impressive giant dog, panting in the shade. Huge and solid and jowly with a bit of a smooched face, and a lovely rich rust-fox plush coat.
- three people engaged in Shakespeare, in costume, apparently for their own amusement. At least, they were doing it in a sort of 'dead end' bit of space, facing away from the passing foot traffic. They hit the 'what? your tail in my mouth' part of Taming of the Shrew as I wandered past.
- an entire costumed cast preparing to perform the Pirates of Penzance aboard the Golden Hind. Which sort of hurt my head, but in conclusion it's clearly a cool thing.
- human beings being - human. (imagine that said in a Dr Who sort of voice) People watching is fun.

And I got to walk across two bridges and confirmed that the nifty-looking building between the Tower of London and the Gherkin is the old London Port Authority building.

Thanks to the fantasticness and generosity of my friends, I've broken the £200 mark on my sponsorship page for the Walk for Life on Sunday - I'm sending proper thank you notes out slowly, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! (and keep it coming! It's an excellent cause!)

On days like these when skies are blue

Today has been a good day, sitting in Embankment Gardens with friends and sushi for a leisurely picnic, and then wandering up-river to wander around the Tate Modern (cubism and futurism gallery this time) before heading down to Tower Bridge and home.

all because you made me laugh

It's right on that cusp between glorious and actually too hot and sunny today. Hopefully it will have cooled off a little by the time I'm walking up to Saddler's Wells. I walked down from Embankment to Tower Bridge last night, just around sunset, and that was perfect - warm with cool breezes and the sounds of the water. I do love living in London sometimes, I really do.

Like, for example, Tuesday, when I got to sit in a room with my best and oldest friend, S, and listen to Stephen Fry and Phil Jupitus be mad and erudite for an hour or two - and Alan 'puppy' Davies won which made us feel very special indeed. The other two guests were a comedian I've never noticed before, and one I generally find faintly annoying, so it was nice to watch him being put down by Mr Fry occasionally. Ahh QI filming - all hail Applause Store and the wonderful Miss S - not least because she's scored another set of tickets, so we'll be doing that again in a couple of weeks.