Last October, himself arranged to go to London to work with and meet for the first time in person, not online, his work colleagues.
When he first mentioned the trip I invited myself. I haven’t visited London very often and I thought that this trip would cover a few things. We would get to spend some ‘us’ time together (or so I thought), it would do him the world of good to be out in the real world, in the office, meeting colleagues and living life and it would push me and my independence to do things alone.
Before the pandemic, you may already know, I was a full time carer for years for my parents who both passed in 2019. Then 2020 brought us the pandemic and in way we are all still coming to terms with life, a new way of living post Covid. For me, I’m learning to build a new life now that we are out of the various lockdowns and I need to push myself to try new things and explore and not stay within the comfort zone. Himself works from home as he is a full time carer for his Mother who has Vascular Dementia so this trip was a huge departure to normal life for him. We are ever thankful to his sister who took a week off work to come and look after her Mom and release himself for this trip.
Not your typical tourist photo’s of London, I do have a thing about buildings, views of buildings and buildings with trees around. I walked around forty miles during my free afternoons. Himself was gone to work first thing and I then worked from the hotel room until lunchtime and then I went out exploring. This was a massive step for me to do this, to leave the comfort of the hotel room and head out alone in our capital city. Isn’t it strange how we can scare ourselves about these things, get anxious about doing things alone, striding out into the busy London streets. I packed up my rucksack and off I went. We were positioned on the edge of the financial district as this was close to his office and therefore I was only ten minutes walk from London Bridge. That was my starting point. I walked around Tower Bridge, Hays Galleria, and St Katherine’s Dock. I walked through cobblestoned alleyways that led out to beautiful little courtyards and coffee shops.
The photo above is within Hays Galleria. I visited the Tate Modern and although some of it went right over my head, I found some exhibits really interesting. I had totally forgotten how into ‘Surrealism’ I was before I left school. I felt very cultured after my trip to the Tate. I also visited St Paul’s Cathedral. I didn’t get inside on this trip as the queues were long but I did have a walk around the grounds which were beautiful. Lots of photographers and their models within the grounds doing wedding photo shoots. Don’t you just love people watching?
Considering it was early October it was very warm in London. Apparently that’s down to the large buildings and skyscrapers. I absolutely loved my trip to the capital. I took the hop on/hop off bus around the city and have earmarked a number of places I want to visit in the future. Hopefully himself will be making another work trip there this year.
With love and sparkles xxx
Dawn. The Sparkle Diaries. 