Happy (belated) birthday to the blog!

I feel bad, I forgot – I’m so terrible at remembering birthdays and anniversaries.

This probably should have been my Wednesday post but I lost track of the date. Anyway, it turns out that apart from a short break in January I have been blogging for a whole year now.  This also suggests that it’s now been a year since I had heaps of fun in Vietnam. But now I’m in London which is also an excellent destination and I intend to keep updating if only to keep a personal reminder of just what I’ve done and where I’ve been. My memory isn’t crash hot at the best of times, so I’m sure this will come in handy sometime Anyway, here’s some random pictures of stuff from here.

Big nosed ship at Hays Galleria

faces under our feet in Bloomsbury

scary balloons in Canterbury

Giraffe-snake, a rare creature only found in Camden (unsurprisingly)

motion sickness at the National Theatre

It's a busy city and river

Definite signs of Autumn in Southwark Park

Actual pictures of Camden

Despite spending about a month in Camden I haven’t really posted many pictures of the area and although I’ve got some that I’ll put up now, I think I need to go back and take some more another time. Some of these pics are of the markets and others are from the Camden section of the Regents Canal towpath.

EDIT: Hurray!!!!! It no longer takes me ten minutes to upload one photo – so here’s a post I started trying to load days ago.

Camden Market

Camden Lock Markets

Camden Lock - hence the market name

 And here are a few photos of the Camden/Regents Park section of the Regents Canal. Sadly these photos cannot accurately convey the glorious smells present underneath some of the bridges close to the Camden Markets.

Smile

Work that pointy tail

twin skulls

And to see what some of the canal towpath looks like…

How's the serenity?

There’s always another option in Camden

possibly? maybe?

The tally so far…

• Squirrels: 6 (although I may have seen the one across the road twice, Regents Park, Hyde Park)
• Rats: 1 (Regents Park)
• Men in straw boater hats: 3 (Borough Market, Central line tube, Camden)
• Men in velvet top hats: 1 (Camden)
• Famous people: 1 (but I’ve seen them twice – Camden)
• Hyenas: 3 (Regents canal towpath by the Zoo)
• Invitations to take a ‘personality test’ while outside a Scientology Centre: 1 (Tottenham Court Road)

Camden Town

Today I had a wander around various parts of Camden as this is my base for the time being.  I don’t know this part of London particularly well but I am here to explore I used to catch buses out of London to do trips last visit. I remember passing through lots of different boroughs with their lovely old houses or quirky dirty shopfronts and wanting to know what it was like to live there. Well, Camden seems to be one of those places. Camden has quirky old shops, flash new shops, markets, bars, pubs, lovely old buildings and green leafy squares.  Although parts of it are touristy (mostly the markets) I think it gives a better idea of London than living in the rarefied surrounds of Chelsea like I had the fortune to do last time (eg. If I wanted to buy something mundane like a towel, I wouldn’t have to go out of my way to find one on the High Street).

I haven’t taken any photos yet really. I’m still kind of tired so am saving the mass photographs for when I can be sure I won’t accidentally walk in front of a taxi or stand in too many peoples way on the footpath. But I like it here and usually it’s the mundane stuff that sells it for me.  I’ve already found fruit at the supermarket that’s hard to get in Australia, you can tell the clientele of a pub based on the amount shirtless workmen (or not) drinking pints out front, and most importantly – it’s somewhere different. It’s not hugely exotic but there are so many more options here, for everything, and it’s kind of nice to have the choice.