The sun was warm but the wind was chill / You know how it is with an April day
Robert Frost
We have had such days this past April, with a warm sun 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.
Easter fell on the first weekend and we spent a day with family at my nephew’s house, enjoying the antics of my livewire great-niece and good food cooked by my sister. Rather less celebratory there was a funeral to go to on that very warm day, that of my aunt. But she’d lived to a good age and died quite peacefully so it wasn’t an altogether sombre affair, and it was lovely to catch up with my cousins.
Thanks to my husband’s ex BBC connections we were able to go to a live recording of a current affairs radio broadcast, the Today Debate, which was very interesting. We ate out several times, discovering a new and very good pizza restaurant in London, and went to the cinema twice: firstly to see Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, which we both liked, and Rebuilding, which I confess I liked rather more than Chris did! I kept up with my U3A activities including table tennis and art history, and with my aqua-aerobics classes when not busy with other things.
At the end of the month we had a long weekend in Budapest, a city we’d talked about visiting for many years but never previously go around to. We enjoyed lovely weather, very good food and some interesting sightseeing. You’ll no doubt hear more about that trip in future posts (when I finish with Sri Lanka!) but for now I’ve included just a few photos in the slideshow below.
Technical notes

For all the photos taken close to home I used my phone, while those in Budapest were mostly taken with my compact Panasonic Lumix. The exception is the shot of the Ferris wheel for which I used my phone as it has a great long exposure setting and copes well in low light.
Most have been edited in Photoshop Elements, many also with Nik Color Efex and one with Nik Silver Efex. I also used Topaz AI to sharpen and/or denoise a couple of them
As always, I am linking my selection to Ju-Lyn’s and Brian’s Changing Seasons challenge. And I’m also linking to Natalie’s new Monthly Wrap-up.
Please use the arrows to navigate the slideshow if you want to see all the images. My feature photo is of the Thames in Hammersmith where we enjoyed a sunny walk on Easter Monday.
6 Comments
margaret21
Great photos as ever. If I’m forced to vote, I’ll go for the spiral staircase. What exactly was the message in the Hungarian toilet symbol? Very odd!
Anne Sandler
Beautiful images Sarah! I loved the staircase!
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you very much Anne 😊
EgÃdio
Wonderful! Twenty-six degrees is summer weather?!? Don’t come to Texas in the summer. 🙂
Sarah Wilkie
Don’t worry, I won’t! Anything over thirty and I melt 🥵 Although perhaps you’re thinking in Fahrenheit? Remember we use Celsius, and 26 C = 79 F
EgÃdio
I knew you were in Celsius. Our spring temps have been around 28-30 ºC.