Yellow Teddy

Today we went to Sydenham Hill Wood. It is interesting to see all the little fences and barriers made of existing branches and twigs, and I am sure it makes lots of homes for insects.

Over the boggy bits they have made wooden walkways. This pond in the middle is covered in duckweed, somewhere that looks as if you can walk but definitely not.

We went on to Dulwich Park. We went along the raised walkway through the reedy part at the end of the lake. Some little water fowl were quite happy walking at our feet looking for crumbs.

3 August

Today we went to Uxbridge. After looking in the shopping centre, we went out the back way, over the busy road and down this spiral walkway. We found a clear stream further along.

Further along is the Grand Union Canal. The weather was very hot indeed and under the bridges was the only place that was shady.

There was not much happening along the canal, except some damsel flies buzzing about, and some shoals of tiddlers. We threw in some tiny crumbs, which they went for, but it was hard to see what they were doing.

We did not walk very far along the canal as it was so hot. By the bus stop is another clear stream full of waving weed and some ducks and ducklings. We got the bus back to the town centre and railway station.

5 August

We went to Mudchute City Farm on the Isle of Dogs, just next to Canary Wharf. They had a mini agricultural show and were showing off their sheep handling skills, with prizes being handed out.

There were sheep from different city farms on show. All this cream, brown and black wool would make a very interesting jumper with patterns.

This sheep has lots of rosettes but he was only interested in whether the visitors had anything to eat. In the eating area, they have made armchairs out of the hay bales!

This should be the hen house but some pigeons were checking it out. This chute is so you can feed the goats without having to touch them. Mudchute is named after a different type of chute, when they dredged the mud to make some of the docklands and dumped it all here.

We walked back along the Thames path on the north side. Looking down on the "beach" there was nothing but washed up broken bricks at the base of the wall, and sand further out.

This is a Thames Clipper, a very fast river taxi. We came along to just opposite the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.

We went under the river through the Greenwich foot tunnel. The cruise ship Viking Sun was moored a little way upriver. The closer we got to it, the bigger it appeared. It is really like a small town on a ship.

9 August

We went to Gravesend. General Gordon lived here in the 19th century. We sat and had our snack just by his statue in General Gordon Park.

We went to the river front. It was still very hot indeed, and although there were plenty of seats, they were all in the sun. There was not much to see as the tide was low. We walked along to the iron pier and floating jetty. We all melted on the bus home. What a hot day!

13 August

We went to Cannon Hill Park. There is a long lake with viewing platforms. We found a seat to have our snack, and fed some of the crows behind us with a few crumbs.

Next to the park is Joseph Hood Recreation Ground. There are two paddling pools and we were pleased to see this old fashioned hobby horse and later on some children were riding on it.

The ground was so dry and cracked, it looked like a mini earthquake had hit. This picture tells a story, we decided it must be where a pipe has been laid, as there were other dry straight lines going across the grass.

We went on to Morden Hall Park which is quite nearby. There is plenty of water there, with little streams and an old mill.

14 August

We had a day out at the National Portrait Gallery in central London. We met a lot of famous faces. This is Sir Christopher Wren who designed and built St Paul's Cathedral. Then John Wesley, the well-known preacher.

This is the American president George Washington looking quite serious. Then a sketch for a painting of William Wilberforce, who campaigned for his Anti-Slavery Bill through parliament.

It was a good chance to see all the detail up close, it must have taken days and weeks to paint all this detail, and they had to have very good eyes for doing all the tiny strokes with a tiny brush.

Later on we walked along the river front to watch all the comings and goings, with working boats, cruises and river taxis.

What a good idea, a sand pit has been made along the river front by enclosing a big long area with wooden sides. The children were having a great time. Down on the bit of sand by the river, some young goslings were resting. A big wave came in and disturbed their dozing, and they had to move away.

Back home, all of our sparrows that are new this year were looking about in the grass for crumbs, and having baths.

15 August

Today we went to Greenwich Ecological Park by the riverside. This wooden notice board is cared with pictures of wildlife. As it has no map or picture on, someone had made an attempt to be helpful!

Lots of places have insect hotels nowadays.

The small wetland area has board walks going round it, and little artificial streams flowing under the walkways and through the trees.

The place is quiet but full of wildlife. These three ducks were poking about with their heads under the water lily leaves.

The notice said, don't swing on the noodles!

The riverside is very muddy and not wildly interesting. There was a lot of building work going on and this is "Ivor Goodsite" and his poster where you have to find out all the hazards that are going on in the picture. www.ivorgoodsite.org.uk educates children about building site safety.

17 August

Here we are at the river Thames with a Thames Clipper about to stop at the landing stage. This seagull spent ages trying to swallow a large dead eel. He didn't manage it and he couldn't tear it apart as it was so tough.

We went up The Shard which is over 309 metres or 1016 feet tall. The viewing place is about 800 feet up. We could see everything in London.

This is the Thames looking downriver towards Canary Wharf. This is the top view of the platforms at the new London Bridge station with a train about to arrive.

Everything is glass so there is plenty of space for everyone to see the sights.

On the top floor they have carpeted it with artificial grass and it is partly open to the sky. We had a really wonderful time up The Shard and spent two hours wandering around.

20 August

This is the British Museum, and the centre courtyard is covered over in a glass ceiling.

We saw lots of very very old statues from Egypt. This is the Rosetta Stone, which has three kinds of ancient writing, two old Egyptian and one old Greek, all saying the same thing. People could read the Greek and so they could then work out what the Egyptian symbols meant.

All these are carved on a very large stone burial box. I think the boat refers to the person going on to the afterlife on a barge.

Some of the stones still have their paint on. They are all very clear, and the red coloured man is sitting on front of lots of long loaves of bread on a table, and other food. The ladies are smelling lotus flowers. They have obviously just come back from the handbag shop!

This is an Assyrian winged lion with the head of a man. The writing is cuneiform which means wedge shapes.

There were lots of ancient Greek pots. This pot pattern would make a nice knitted jumper, in exactly the same colours.

I wonder who had this gold bowl, and who wore this golden laurel crown.

21 August

We made another visit to Hill Garden and Pergola.

At one end is this spiral staircase, which made a lot of noise as we walked down.

Further downhill there is a small garden with a long pond. Then we went around the shrubs and found these hidey holes.

Back up the flight of stairs to the Pergola part. Brown Teddy says he will always like to come back here regularly and look out over the gardens.

23 August

This is guess who, who landed on top of the greenhouse whilst we were sitting inside (yes, Woody).

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