London Photos: London life in images by Kim Gilmour

A bit of an overcast day – but aren’t they all these days? Little Venice, Warwick Avenue.

Indonesian yellow rice (turmeric), chick peas and curry, mock abalone (fried gluten), tomatoes and raisins.

Just before we did the Parkland Walk, I decided to take a photo of this home in Finsbury Park, London. A rare glimpse of sunlight and blue skies on an April afternoon, indeed!

The walk goes along a disused railway which has been overtaken by nature. It is rather wild. You can see some more photos at NYCLondon.com.

Housekeeping stuff: All my previous blog entries allow you to click on the image and open it in a new window. This was rather pointless because the images on the blog are exactly the same size as the pop-ups, so from now on I’ll just be embedding the pictures within the blog entries themselves.

Camden’s always full of activity. These girls took pleasure in yelling at everyone who walked past, and tried to bum a few cigarettes off people.

A photo tour along London Canals
Kensal Green to Camden Lock

Itis brilliant and invigorating to take a walk along Londonis quiet canals. We started out where the Grand Union Canal meets Kensal Green, just past the Sainsburyis supermarket.

Further along, you can see flats overlooking the canal n they begin to vary in quality, from council estates to private apartments. This particular shot (above)looks just like a quiet Venetian canal, particularly with the boat in view!

What you might not realise is how much wildlife thrives along the canals. You get all sorts of ducks, plus heron and mallards.

Further on, you see bits of community: the Meanwhile Gardens and more flats, as well as glimpses of streets that run along the canal. Eventually, you will get to Little Venice. Many people live on the narrowboats and you can see mini kitchens and bedrooms if you peek through the windows, and some have a table and chairs outside so you can enjoy the sunshine and have some friends over for a drink. More later. In the meantime, some sites to check out are the London Canal Museum and Jasonis boat tours.

Don’t worry. This is not going to be one of those weblogs crammed with gratuitous cat photographs. But you’ve got to admit, she was a cute cat. Saw another cute one later that evening while watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Unlike the nameless cat in that movie, this cat had a name: Tosca. There is another similar looking cat on the Web called Tosca too.

On the Piccadilly Line, en route to an Easter lunch at Southgate (zone 4). For once, the entire carriage was empty (except for us!).

Went to see the Bill Brandt photography exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum this afternoon. Six pounds. Highly recommended. I’d seen an enormous retrospective of his at New York’s International Center of Photography back in 1999, where I was first introduced to his work. This exhibition didn’t seem as enormous, but it’s certainly thorough enough and you’ll probably spend a good 40 minutes in there. When I first saw his work, I wasn’t aware that he used his family connections to gain access to posh British houses, and that he often asked family and friends to pose for pictures.

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Kilburn High Road laundromat. The first laundromat in an occasional series of laundromat photos, which will be sporadically updated but available to access in a unique category entitled “Laundromat”.

And the weather is getting warmer and sunnier! I found myself in Richmond for much of the afternoon, and it’s so peaceful by the river.