I have been travelling on the ‘Tube’, the London Underground, all my life. Walking through the Tube’s many passageways you often pass doors and grilles that are locked shut. Have you ever wondered what is behind them? I recently had a glimpse into this hidden world on a tour that took us into areas of Charing Cross station normally closed to the public.
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While May has been green this year, we haven’t always had spring-like weather; quite the contrary! Some days have felt as chilly as a mild day in winter, while towards the end of the month we had a heatwave that would have felt fairly extreme even in August, with temperatures topping 34 degrees Celsius, breaking – no, smashing – all records.
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Hull has had something of a poor reputation in England in recent years, but that seems to be changing. A city voted the ‘worst place to live in the UK’ in 2005 became the country’s City of Culture in 2017 and last year its city centre was named one of the coolest places to live by the Sunday Times. From worst to coolest; that’s quite a turnaround!
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Sometimes it's easy to forget that 'small is beautiful'. Also, how much of that beauty can be found very close to home. There may be a whole wide world out there, but that world begins as soon as we step out of our own back (or front) door.
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While significant parts of Hull were bombed during WWII, and many lives tragically lost, its Old Town survived and has been well preserved. The historic buildings and cobbled streets make it an ideal stand-in for Victorian or Georgian London. These streets have been transformed many times by film and TV studios for productions including The Crown, Victoria and Blitz.
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On Crosby beach north of Liverpool 100 cast-iron, life-size figures stand looking out to sea. The figures each weigh 650 kilos and are made from casts of the artist Anthony Gormley’s own body.
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We have had plenty of sunny days this past April; however quite often the warm sun was tempered by a fresh wind. But we have also had some almost summer-like days; indeed, on one day quite early in the month the temperature reached 26 degrees in London and that IS summer weather.
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The Regents Canal links the Grand Union Canal in Paddington with the Thames in east London, via the Limehouse Basin. It is 8.6 miles (13.8 kilometres) long and like most canals has a towpath. These towpaths were originally used by horses to pull barges but today are popular places for walking, jogging and cycling (where wide enough).
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In England we have this saying about the weather in March and years ago most of us would have recognised it as pretty accurate. But these days the weather is much less predictable it seems. This year March came in like a lamb, turned lion-like, then back to lamb for a short spell before becoming very fiercely lion until the very last day when the lamb reappeared!
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The days in January may be short, and the sun in short supply. In England we’ve had more than our fair share of rain this month, or so it seemed. But there were also some brighter, if colder, days. And at the start of the month even some snow (relatively rare these days).
