Sunday, April 11, 2021

Brighton to Buckingham Palace


The restrictions have eased somewhat, so we've been taking a few more liberties to head out and stray a little farther from home, at least for a day trip. So for the Easter long weekend, we decided we'd go to Brighton. It was a cold day, and as most facilities are still closed, we knew there wouldn't be much to do, but Brighton is only about an hour away by train and is on the English channel, so we thought at least we'd be able to walk along the pebble beach and just enjoy a chance of scenery. We dressed quite warm since we would have nowhere to go and warm up if we needed, and we did enjoy a nice day there. I had been to Brighton once before, 20 years ago, when I visited a friend who was studying here, and the beach area largely looks the same. That trip was my first real overseas trip travelling and having to get around mostly alone, so at that time, I couldn't have compared it to anywhere else I've been, but since then, I've been to so many other places in the world, and I can say that it now reminds me of Atlantic City on a morning after the nightlife has come to its bitter end. Rather than explain it all here, I've included this link to my blog archive from 2008 when I was there for work. You'll just have to scroll down a little to find that entry as when I lost access to my blog, I copied and pasted and then just grouped them by month or by trip. The main difference is that Brighton doesn't really have the casino scene, but there were some fairly sad looking characters, and parts of the shore area look quite run down. It would have been shiny and sparkly in its heyday, just like Atlantic City, and I'm sure that just like Atlantic City, it will look alive and happy when it's filled with people. I've only been to all these locations in the fall or spring when there isn't much happening, so I can't wait to go back to Brighton in the summer when I'm sure it will look more hopeful.

Little did we know that by the end of the week, we would hear the news about Prince Philip. It's a small wonder, given he was in hospital for a month and had only maybe been home for a month longer, and was almost 100 years old. He looked rather ghastly in the photos that the news agencies were able to take of him in the vehicle when he was returning from hospital, so we figured he might not have a lot of time left on this earth. 


We'd had a couple of errands to do on the day after HRH's death, so we decided to head out on our bikes to take care of those. We're still not expert cyclists for London, still getting used to traffic here, but we love being able to do errands on our bikes as we can go to several locations much more efficiently than on public transport and much more quickly than by walking. One of the errands was to check out Pimlico Market, which someone had recommended to me. We discovered that we were fairly out of place there in our cycling gear. People were quite dressed up, and there was even a booth selling oysters there! One of the people quite dressed up was the classic English countryman; he looked out of place at the market, but had he been on a footpath in the countryside, he would have looked much more natural. But his outfit was most excellent, his tweed trousers, sport coat, and newsboy cap all matching, and he even had an ascot. I had to take a selfie just to get him in the shot, but I ensured that his face was obscured for my post because I don't often feel comfortable posting people's faces or even taking their photos without their permission. But I needed to demonstrate how traditionally some people still dress here. 

After we had completed our errands, we decided to head off to Buckingham Palace. We thought it would be good to pay respects, but as this is a historic time in Britain's history, we also wanted to just be there to see what was going on and be part of the atmosphere that the death of such a royal entails. It was subdued, and people were respectful. One could lay flowers, and the police had set up a way to let people through a barrier a few at a time to ensure everyone's safety. We also saw a series of tents set up at the edge of Green Park that faces the palace, all set up for the media. There were probably at least 10 tents or so. We looked for the CBC and CTV, as they do have correspondents based in London, but were unable to locate them. Below is a panorama of the scene to give you an idea what it looked like near the palace, anyway. There weren't nearly as many people as there would be but for the pandemic, but most of the people were locals and foreigners like us who are temporarily living here, so it was interesting to witness that aspect of the aftermath of the death.