Travel Biography - Week 24 - Pictorial.

This week, we spent two days and a night at East Grinstead, West Sussex. This was for my beloved wife, Alex, to attend a two-hour academic appointment at a hospital. Each journey consisted of two train rides, with a change of platform at Clapham in London. However, on the return journey, there were significant engineering works on the London Victoria to Brighton line, which meant that our train was diverted to London Bridge in Southwark, on the South Bank of the River Thames. With no other trains running due to an industrial dispute, the only way we could further our journey towards home was to walk along the riverside to London Waterloo, where another train took us to our hometown of Bracknell several hours later than originally scheduled.

Fortunately, at my wife's suggestion, I brought my camera with me. Although no photos were taken of East Grinstead, I was fortunate enough to arrive at the River Thames at the peak of its spring tide, where the water level was almost above street level. At one point, a breach in the safety barrier allowed the river water to trickle through the wall and flow along the sidewalk towards a nearby drain.

No doubt, this very unusual phenomenon would have fired up the imaginations of Hollywood! Surely, a disaster movie could be made beginning with such a trickle, to end with much of London underwater, with just the clock of Big Ben, the pyramid roof of Canary Wharf, the summit of the Shard, and the upper floors of the NatWest Bank tower being the only clues of man's achievements still remaining above the surface. Indeed, marine life would gaze with astonishment at the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater, and the Walkie-Talkie buildings, and wonder just how addle-headed these humans, these Masters of Creation, really were.

As this is a Travel Blog, the 24th week in all, nevertheless, it was my beloved Alex, and not I, who suggested taking the camera for the entire trip. So much about having travel experience! Hmm! As I sit here and type away, I now regret not taking any pics of the trickle. Maybe because it was so minute, so insignificant. Instead, I was more impressed by how close some swans were to the camera and the dazzling coloured lights of a few trees. Ah, photography. It's all about the beauty of beholding to the eye.

South Bank, London.

The unusually high tide of the Thames.

Evening Scene of the City.

Swans ply the Thames.

In comparison with Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Rome, and even Jerusalem, London will always have a place in my heart. As documented in Week 1, I was born in London and I grew up near the River Thames. Pimlico was and still is, a handsome district of Westminster, and an area I never regretted living in. As these photos show, I still visit my former home:

Around 2 years old.

And here am I, some 67 years later, at the same address.

Somewhere in between, as a late teenager.

I grew up. New York 1978, aged 25.

Here are some of my classic pics of different locations:

Paris, I visited several times.

By contrast, at Niagara Falls in 1977.

At the Star of Bethlehem, 1976.

Fishing boats in the Sea of Galilee, 1976.

Orthodox Jews welcoming the Sabbath, Western Wall, 1993.

Deep inside a 2,700-year-old tunnel under the Canaanite City.

Inside the Statue of Liberty's head, 1978.

I arrived in New York, in 1995. My hotel view.

At the Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1977.

San Francisco, 1977.

These are just a few of my photos taken throughout my travelling life, according to what I had written so far. But as I progress with the diary, photos of scenes I have so far not mentioned will appear in future blogs.

Due to our late arrival home from East Grinstead, I was not able to write a full blog as I normally do on a Saturday. But next week, I shall resume my journey across the USA in 1978.

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Next Week: The journey continues to New Orleans, Miami Beach, and back to New York.