The Pros And Cons Of Living In A Tourist Hotspot

I love in a well known part of London. There are lots of great things about this area – there is a buzz – beautiful parks, artisan bakeries, fascinating history, friendly people here to relax and enjoy their time. If you live in an area frequented by tourists and visitors, you will know that excitement that lots of happy people bring to a locality.

However…you may also know the disadvantages that come along with a deluge of strangers – who may at times relax a bit too much and make a lot of noise, leave a lot of litter, make it difficult for the actual residents to relax in or near to their own homes.

Pros and cons. I saw something the other day that I could not just walk past and ignore. I spoke out and said something to the party in question – and explained that what they were doing was really “not ok”. At the time, I did not feel any fear or nerves, I just felt shocked at what I saw and felt compelled to say something. They obviously thought I was a bit of a nuisance, a killjoy, but I pointed out to them that it was daytime, and there were children around, and lots of people who would be as shocked and offended as I was.

I want people to come here and enjoy themselves – but not in a way that casts aside all common decency and consideration. That is not ok!

Photo by Vincent M.A. Janssen on Pexels.com

Life Is Not Always A Bed Of Roses

From the sweet but confused comment I have been receiving of late I can see that it may be wise of me to remind you that because work is very busy, I am republishing some of my older posts. Enjoy…

However, today that is all that life was.  Many beds of beautiful roses!

I have spent the day with some friends from abroad who are visiting London.  Those of us who live in London, often avoid the tourist traps, unless we have time to be idle and a lot of patience with visitors wandering around taking photographs of phone boxes, buses, and monuments to people who are from the minds of every day Londoners.  But I had booked the day off so that I could join my visitors and be a helpful tour-guide for them.  That meant I would be in the midst of throngs of tourists (accept I knew where I was going, and knew the short-cuts to avoid being slowed down too much).

My friends had a list of places they wanted to visit and take many photographs of.  You can imagine…the Her Majesty The Queen’s digs, Big Ben…which does not chime at the moment and has scaffolding all over it, the big Ferris Wheel that moves so slowly and yet charges a rate of over £1 per minute (cheaper to take an Uber I am sure), the tall pointy sky-scarper they put up a few years ago near London Bridge, and finally, Covent Garden (I was pleased about that because my favourite ice-cream parlour happens to be there).  I have also agreed to take them down to Wimbledon as they want to take lots of photos of the tennis club, and they want to go to Grenwich.  I am not sure if I will have the time to take them to Grenwich, but they can’t get themselves into too much of a pickle on their own in Grenwich…it is perfect for tourists and visitors to London.

My friends were also happy to take me up on a couple of my suggestions I offered to them.  How pleased they were when they saw this feast for the eyes.

Suggestion Number One:  If you are in London this glorious month of June – please make the time to visit Queen Mary’s Gardens in the middle of Regents Park.  Little pocket of paradise that it is – you need to see it! 

If you like roses…you cannot be disappointed.  Just don’t wait too long.  The rose season never lasts long enough for my liking.

I have told Goldfinch that next time he visits me, I want to take him.  I can hardly imagine a more perfect day than walking hand in hand around this little pocket of delight…and I will take a pic-nic for us too.

I don’t think I want to clutter this post with too many words that will distract you from these lovely photos.  But please allow me to recommend that you look for my favourite rose.  It is a big fat bold joyful yellow one named “Keep Smiling”.

I will confess to you something that you may have already picked up on if you have being paying close attention to my posts.  June… aaaaah… my favourite month of the year since childhood.  However, it was a very hot June night that I went to the park on my own…and woke up the next morning on my way to hospital in an ambulance.  It was not Regents Park…it was another famous London Park nearer to my accommodation.

I am already finding it hard…but I am keeping my chin up and keeping my head busy and my heart full of things that make me smile…like roses…and Goldfinch!

It will be alright… it will pass.  We shall bear it on our chin, with a grin…like any true Northerner.  We will get through this!

For the last two Junes I have found I had to work at not letting “flash-backs” from that night cause me distress.  Usually I go away…but this time I will be delaying my vacation by a day or two.  So the anniversary of the day I went to the park…I will be at work.  We will find out if that is a good idea.  Then the next day, the anniversary of my first day in hospital – I will be travelling across the country in a train.  I hope it will be a journey unlike the one in my post “One Epic Day On The British Rail Network.”

Then I have two weeks of touring the country, seeing family and friends…I shall take photos and share with you wonderful tales of my adventure with you.

I have more photos from the day out with my visitors.  Rather than one huge post…I will break up our sight-seeing trip around the “big smoke”.

You might not really like scrolling through other people’s “holiday spam”…so I will be kind to you!

One Of My Favourite Places In London

Have you been nominated for a blogging award and wondered which questions to ask your nominees? I have asked some of my questions more than once – sometimes my brain struggles for ideas I have to admit! One of the questions I may have asked three or four times is: “If you were a tourist in London for a day – where would you like to visit?”

I am always eager to see where others would like to visit. For me…both for years before I ever moved to London and definitely since I moved to London one of my favourite places to visit is The British Museum.

I highly recommend it to you if you are passing through London at any stage. It does tend to get crowded, so go early if you can. It becomes a fascinating melting pot – people from every corner of the world come to visit and you will hear many languages spoken by your fellow visitors. I know there might be some listless types who don’t find a museum interesting, but to the rest of us The British Museum is one of the most incredible treasure troves in London.

My suggestion is to allow yourself plenty of time – because there is so much to see. Have a think about what you want to see…Ancient Eqypt? Rome? Greece? Assyria? Africa? China?…there is so much to choose from. I have the luxury of being able to go whenever I want so I tend just to look at one part of the museum each time.

I have been watching a video this morning – a history documentary – and one of my very good friends is the presenter. It’s funny watching him, but he is brilliant at it. I hopes he does more of this kind of thing in the future. There he was at the British Museum and I realized I needed to get my post finished off for Esther Chilton’s writing challenge this week on favorite places to visit!

If you chose ancient Egypt – great! I can give you directions. On entering the museum by the main entrance and encountering the very grand Great Court…you need to wander over to your left in order to find the Egyptian rooms.

One of the first exhibits you will come across is the world famous Rosetta Stone. It is fitting that it greets you because in many ways it is one of the keys to understanding ancient Egypt. I would be extremely impressed if you could read what it says! It has a passage written in three languages – Eqyptian hieroglyphics, ancient Greek and a script known as Demotic. If you have a look online you can find out all about what is written on the Rosetta Stone – which as far as I understand is about treating the Pharoah like one of the gods and celebrating his coronation day and birthday accordingly. But perhaps more significant is that the Rosetta Stone became the key that helped scholars to unlock ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Carry on through the Egyptian rooms, and you will see a plethora of gods and goddesses, trinities of gods, mother and son gods, animal gods – including the old dung beetle. I have done lots of tours at the museum with official tour guides, and one tour guide showed how many similarities there are with modern forms of religion to the traditions found in ancient Egypt. You will also come across all manner of exhibits that tell us all about the daily life of the Egyptians…and then there are the sarcophagi (I think that is the plural of sarcophagus?) and mummies. Look out for Old Ginger! Or not, if you find it a bit creepy.

I could easily spend an entire day just in the Egyptian rooms alone. But there are other parts of the museum which equally fascinate me.

At the moment my big interest lies in the Assyrian rooms. I have been looking closely at the reliefs showing the siege of Lachish. It is not normally as busy as the Egyptian rooms or the Roman rooms, so I have been able to linger when I have visited. Last time I was there I was absolutely gripped eavesdropping on a tour-guide who was enthralling his group by taking them through a verse by verse analysis of the account of King Sennacherib of Assyria and King Hezekiah of Judea. Those tour-guides are really incredible. It was one of the most exciting history lessons I have ever heard.

Is ancient history relevant to our day? Whatever you choose to go and see, remember you are often looking at the boasts of rulers of world empires. They may have done great things, they may have been revered, but they eventually crumbled. There are times when the world we live in seems scary. There may seem to be no end of political turbulence. But things will change. Rulers come and go, governments come and go, empires come and go. They may remain in the pages of history books, but soon they will be gone.

That might not sound very comforting. But in a way history is a vitally important resource for all of us to learn key lessons. The record of humans dominating each other,  oppression and slavery, acts of violence and abuse, warfare. The rise of a world power to wealth and luxury, the break down of morals and of family life, the crumbling of society…and then another military force rises up and becomes dominant. The pattern has repeated itself many times. Every form of government has been tried. There is a tremendous record preserved in stone, clay, bronze and other mediums that provide an invaluable source of lessons for all to learn from.

That testimony may serve in a judicial sense – for if a world ruler does not learn from the lessons of the history books – they are bound to face humiliation. Whether they last may be dependent on whether they have learnt lessons from history. They really ought to have known better! The question for a world leader – is how will the history books read on their stint?

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://esthernewtonblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/i-challenge-you-to-39/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/listless/

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/your-daily-word-prompt-dependant-november-13-2018/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/13/fowc-with-fandango-video/