St Paul's Cathedral

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St Paul's Cathedral from the South Bank

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London Eye lit pink

... for the inaugural Day of the Girl Child
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Glistening St Paul's Cathedral

It just rained - what my English grandfather would have called a "clearing shower" - the sun came out immediately afterwards.

This is Southwark Bridge, approaching from the east -- it was taken before the one of St Paul's and it's still raining. The water is really choppy. The bridge was a brilliant green, but it doesn't show in this picture.

There is a rainbow in the picture above. It's just difficult to see, but it arcs over Southwark Bridge. Maybe it is easier to see if you click on the image. The sun appeared while it was pouring with rain.

Ferryman's Seat on the South Bank on the side of The Real Greek restaurant between the Millennium and Southwark Bridges. Until 1750, wherrymen ferried people across the Thames because London Bridge was the only other way to cross.

I must have walked by it hundreds of times, but didn't know about it until I read about it this week in "Secret London: An Unusual Guide", a book given to me by a friend.

The picture above and the ones below are in the Secret Garden. I love it there.

South Bank and Thames foreshore

I walked along the South Bank on my way home today after a visit to the Garden Museum in Lambeth. These are some of the things I witnessed. This woman was drawing in the sand with her umbrella. It was a very strange day weatherwise. Sometimes it was pouring with rain and cold, at others it was sunny and hot. So some of the pictures are a little dark.

 

Palace of Westminster

Mysterious Stay Puft goes missing

 

My day seems to be ending as it started, on a fairly low note.

The film Ghostbusters has always held a special place in my heart. I can't really explain why except that it is so dramatic, so funny, with a majestic mise en scene, to use an old film studies term -- which simply means everything in the film is majestic.

This might make me a little corny, I guess, but when I spotted a toy Stay Puft in a window as I walked along Shaftesbury Avenue almost exactly two months ago on Nov 20, I immediately took a picture of him for myself and to share with other fans of Stay Puft.

I didn't want to take him home, but remained somewhat haunted by him, and thought from time to time I must return.

So, today after seeing the old Howard Hawks film Ball of Fire starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck at the British Film Institute, a random walk into the West End led me to seek him out.

It was windy after I got out of the cinema, so I didn't want to spend time on the river. 

I walked from the south bank across Hungerford Foot Bridge, through Charing Cross station, behind St Martin-in-the-Fields and up Charing Cross Road to Shaftesbury Avenue.

Once there, I decided to check for Stay Puft again. I wanted to go into the shop this time, but I walked all the way up Shaftesbury to Piccaddilly Circus, took a look at Eros, and then back down beyond where I started at Charing Cross Road with no luck.

I tried again. Dug out the picture on my BlackBerry by trolling all the way back to November 20 through a gazillion pictures. The pictures there, of a night-time post-robbery scene on Shaftesbury and some pretty iced cakes in a window, gave no clue as to where exactly the shop was or what it was called.

I walked back up almost to Piccadilly circus again.

I don't even think the shop, which I think was a film shop, is there anymore. 

Somewhat dejected, I unusually retraced my steps back to the strand. 

Most often, I try to vary the route I take to and from a place for variety. 

When I noticed the Savoy Hotel, which reopened a few months ago after being under renovation for at least two years, since before I moved to London in September 2008, I decided to take a detour through it to the Embankment.

It is very grand and i looked in some of the dining rooms and what must be a ballroom. I didn't feel like going into the bar to see what it was like.

I walked up the steps and across Waterloo Bridge and into Lambeth and over to Southwark and home.

Now recovering from the trauma of missing Stay Puft with a glass of red wine.