Baby It's Cold Outside

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Minus 5°C. Coldest morning this winter.

Sunday Special - Kew Gardens

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Despite head cold and strong desire to sit in front of the rugby, it was off to very cold Kew Gardens to see the Orchid Festival.

A couple of close-ups.

Apparently, this is Dale Chihully's first UK installation.


Kew's Orangery - built in 1761. Now one of Kew's cafe's - soup, bread and a piece of cake.





The famous Palm House.


From the other side.

Sniffles

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Feeling a bit rough with a head cold.

Photo Friday - Ghostly

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...well, it scared me...

Chomp

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Swiss chocolate. Mmmmmmmm!

Spesh

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My KRR 45 glass of Carlsberg Special at Copenhagen Airport. (That's about £4 in real money; about $6.50 or just over €6.)

Leaving on a Jet Plane

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SK1508 Heathrow to Copenhagen.

Snow

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Snow on the palm tree out front.

The snow turned slushy, but there was still a bit around in the evening. More snow on the way.

Snow Extra

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Last night's snow scene.

A few inches of snow fell on South London. Big deal? We probably get one or two snow events per year. Usually snow doesn't hang around London that much. Central London was snow free, but here about 6 miles away we got 2 inches.

Paddington

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Brunel's marvellous train shed at Paddington, from where I caught a train this afternoon.

Lavender

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Lavender in the burner to soothe.

Snow

A wee bit of snow in West Norwood this afternoon, though not quite enough for snowboarding.

Photo Friday - Rural

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Living in London, working in London: there's little chance that I'll get an opportunity to snap a "rural" picture today. An excuse then, to dig into the Donut archives and pluck out this shot of Rural Mongolia. I took it back in November 2001 on the Trans-Mongolian Express from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing. This village is somewhere in the vast Gobi Desert. Probably the trip of a lifetime.

Low

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Firday night at the Festival Hall to see the magnificent Low.

Le Metro

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On the platform at Arts-Loi, le metro de Bruxelles.

Euro Special

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Your blogger has spent a couple of days in Brussels, home of the European Commission and other horrors. Here's a few shots of the infamous Berlaymont building, housing several thousand Eurocrats. This rather horrid, impersonal steel and glass structure recently reopened after several years of asbetos stripping. Too bad they couldn't introduce some personality. Nice.

























Opposite Berlaymont sits Charlemagne...







Robert Schuman, promoter of the European Union, with bird shit.




Contrast: Belgium's imperial glory...

Golden Jubilee Bridge

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Support tower for the pedestrian bridges linking Embankment with the South Bank. The old, less elegant, structure used to be known as Hungerford Bridge.

Cool Dude

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Somehow, I don't think our great Mayor - he of the rather inflammatory comments (though the Daily Hate are Nazi supporting scum) - would approve of skateboarding on the new pedestrian plaza in front of the National Gallery.

Spot the anti-Ronald McDonald t-shirt.

Sunday Special - A Walk in the Park

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Went for a brisk walk in the wind at Brockwell Park, SE24.

A good view of the City, including Norman Foster's "Gherkin".

Great kite flying weather.

The main entrance to the park where, unfortunately, drinkers congregate. After I took this picture, one of the drinking club climbed the toilet block and started throwing bottles (not at me thankfully).

Herne Hill's Tex-Mex restaurant, Bandidos: it's lasted a year or so longer than expected.



Bus stop for the infamous No.68.