July Photo a Day and tantalising vacation tidbits

Here is July's photo a day challenge.



I usually present these without comment, but I would like to talk about a few of them, because when I was in London I would often forget to check the prompts before I went out for the day but then I would get back and discover that I had a great photo for a particular prompt. "Animal/Insect/Pet" is a statue of Hodge, Samuel Johnson's favourite cat. "Eyes" is me trying to get a gruesome shot of one of the Olympic mascot statues that popped up everywhere in London overnight and which are, frankly, very weird^*. "9 o'clock" was taken shortly before I finally got to hear Big Ben chime. None of those photos were instigated by the prompts -- they just happened to work.

In Paris, I was much better about planning to take the prompt pictures, but the last day I forgot all about it and only managed to get a related shot for "Cup" by sheer luck. Mostly because I was giddy about buying the dress in "Last thing you bought." I wasn't planning on buying any dresses in Paris, but a) it was on sale for 30 euros and b) check out that detail!

Speaking of London and Paris, I hope to get the over 1000 photos renamed, sorted, and annotated in much less time than it took me to do the 2010 trip. I'm planning on blogging the trip, timey-wimily, as I put the pix up this time. And I really will go back and finish blogging the old trip. Really.

August prompts are here. It's been a whole two months since Lucy has been featured... I think she's due for a closeup.

^*Overheard in Regent Park by some Londoners walking past the first of two of these statues at the beginning and end of a very short path: "What are they meant to be? I mean, I know they're supposed to be the mascots, but what are they?^**"

^**They have been formed from drops of steel, obviously.

In which PhysicsGirl, though jet-lagged, tries to find a cream tea

So here I am in London, again. I was very happy, this time, to not be lugging around a huge 26-kg suitcase. I managed to fit everything I need for the next two weeks into a small suitcase. In fact, if it weren't for Air Transat's bizarre carry-on limits to the UK^*, I would have been out of Gatwick in about 10 minutes. As it was, I had to wait about half an hour to claim my oddly-blue bag^** . As soon as I did, I was off to navigate the tube to my hotel.

Call that a henge?

I promised myself a cream tea (that's tea with scones and clotted cream) when I finally finished my England pictures. The tea with Aged P at the Royal York doesn't count because a) it was for her birthday and b) it was afternoon tea. Totally different beast.

Tea awaits, my friends! Here are my Salisbury pictures. Warning: lots of pictures of megalithic stone ahead.

Salisbury 2010

When I was going through the pictures, I kept hearing the Michael Flanders monologue Built-Up Area.

So I've only got the Queen Mary and New York pictures left to go. I thought I hadn't taken that many pictures on the boat, but it turns out I somehow did. Onward!

(Why, yes, I do have several tests and labs to mark. Why do you ask?)

In which PhysicsGirl is always talking of Bath when she is home

Well, not always. But my Bath pictures are up. And by Bath pictures, I mean pictures of Bath, England, where Jane Austen set two of her novels, one of which is quoted in the title of this post.

If you were thinking of another kind of bath, I apologize for the disappointment.

Bath 2010

By the way, on one of the many walking tours I took in Bath, the guide said she didn't know of anyone who had drunk an entire glass of Bath water. Challenge accepted and met. It's disgusting. I drank it so you don't have to.

Oh, and that is water from Bath, not from the bath. Again, I apologize for the disappointment.

Perhaps I should wear a carnation while I'm doing this

I really want to get these Europe pictures done so I can move on to finishing the blog posts and catching up on my Toronto pictures. Oh god, it's never-ending. Anyway, I pushed to finish my Oxford photos as soon as I'd finished with London. No doubt there are any number of typos.

I loved Oxford. I want to go back and try punting again. I also would like to take a guided tour of the Bodleian Library, one or two of the themed walking tours -- can you believe I didn't make it to Eagle and the Child Pub where Tolkien and Lewis met with the Inklings? And Blenheim Palace isn't far away. I'll be back.

Oxford 2010

On to Bath. Which means I have to re-listen to all the downloaded audio tours so I know what I'm looking at.

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In other news, I finished French Revolutions by Tim Moore, which as you recall I started reading too late for the LGRAB Summer Games. I bring this up because while I didn't win anything in the Games, I guess I was so awesome they featured me again! Hee. They also featured Hyedie of Cupcake Ride fame.


By the way, should you decide to do your own Tour de France bike tour, may I suggest that a) you are nuts and b) you look at Duvine Tours? They're the company I biked through Provence with last year and they are amazing.

School starts in just over a week. I went to a great workshop in Sudbury a few weeks ago that I hope will make this coming year truly amazing. Of course, that means I have to pack a tonne of prepping into next week.

Who needs sleep?

Another mystery solved

I figured out why I seemed to have taken as many pictures in my 2 1/2 days in Athens as I did in my 5 days in London. It's not that I took so many pictures in Athens (although I kinda did); it's more that I took so few in London. I couldn't take photos at four of the places I visited: Westminster Abbey, Tate Britain, St. Paul's, and the National Gallery. And naturally, not during the shows. So that explains the dearth of photos.

This is leading up to my saying that, finally, my London photos are up. I did a hell of a lot during those 5 days. No wonder I was tired Sunday after having done "only three things."

London 2010

Oxford next. Fortunately, I've already finished the punting video.

It was bound to happen at some point...

I'm spending my last evening in Oxford in bed, feeling miserable because I've come down with a nasty cold. My head feels like it's full of cotton and my nose is running away from home. There is a lot of tea, but not enough milk and sugar. I'm off to Bath tomorrow, providentially. Perhaps the waters there will fix me right up.

I'm working on my Venice pictures and they will be ready for prime time Real Soon Now. However, I learned to punt yesterday and I have some video to capture the event. Not that you can really tell I'm in a punt unless I tell you.

From Oxford 2010

And now, it's...

Once again, I'm taking a "break" from repacking the damn suitcase to post something. I've just had a whirlwind five days in London, where I've been drinking lots of tea, getting kind of frustrated with the Underground (but mostly with the Aboveground), and seeing not nearly enough of the sites. I've been to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tate Britain and National Galleries, the British and Sherlock Holmes Museums, St. Paul's, Notting Hill, Soho, the theatre district, the Tower of London, and the Westminster, London, Millenium, and Tower Bridges. I saw the Lion King at the Lyceum, Macbeth at the Globe, creepy Jack the Ripper photos and locations in Whitechapel, and fancy tea and scones at the Goring. I'm bushed and a little footsore, and already planning to come back -- and stay in a slightly