Walk beside Fairlop Waters

Failop Waters, in the London Borough of Redbridge, is a former gravel pit which is now operated as a Country Park and Leisure facility, with a 40 acres sailing lake, with two islands, surrounded by 300 acres of open countryside.


Accessible by the Central Line at Fairlop or Barkingside station, the park offers a number of outdoor pursuits, with the sailing lake, with a neighbouring angling lake and another smaller lake for nature, and also ‘wilderness’ walks, two golf courses and plenty of bird watching opportunities.

For more information, see http://cms.redbridge.gov.uk/leisure__culture/parks_and_open_spaces/fairlop_waters.aspx

_{^Picture by John Davies under a Creative Commons Licence^}

Become a reader at the National Art Library

Open to the public five days a week, the National Art Library, in South Kensington, is a public reference library, specialising in information on the fine and decorative arts. It is situated on the third floor of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is also home to the Victoria and Albert Museum's curatorial department for the art, craft and design of the book. The Reading Room itself is Grade II Listed.


If you wish to use material from the Library, you must first register as a reader, which is free of charge, and can be done on your first visit as long as you have personal identification and proof of address, and agree to abide by the terms of library. If you're not up for all this, you might be able to get a glimpse of the room by just wandering in, but remember this is a research space, rather than a tourist attraction.

Once this step has been taken, you can use the library, but only if you sit in your regulated seat, and use only material you have specifically requested from the desk on the appropriate forms. This is, after all, a serious library which is here for a serious purpose - to allow people to access the National Art Library Collections.

The library is open Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 5.30pm (except Fridays until 6.30pm). For more, see http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/about/index.html

_{^Picture by The Wolf^}

Filter out the noise of Soho

Not often your author reproduces a press release directly, but one popped in last week which is vaguely interesting, and worth sharing. It appears the people from a mineral water company are offering Londoners a chance to escape the hustle and bustle of London streets with an installation in West London.


It's on tomorrow and the day after, and gives people an opportunity to try to pretend they're somewhere else, with trickling water sounds and noise cancelling headphones, to recreate the tranquillity of the Peak District. Last time your author went to the Peak District it rained incessantly, and it was unclear at the time of writing if this will be recreated.

It's a publicity stunt alright, and one which - like they all seem to - takes place about five streets from the PR agency who thought it up. Still, it might sell a few bottles of water.

For more, see http://thefoodielist.co.uk/wp/buxton-filters-out-the-chaos-of-london/

Party at Notting Hill Carnival

Today, in West London, we have reached the main day of Carnival. Held each August Bank Holiday since 1966, it is the largest carnival in Europe and the second largest in the World.. There are, apparently, twenty miles of parades, 40 static sound systems, 40,000 volunteers and up to a million Notting Hill carnival revellers.


Your author is particularly excited to be returning this year as a punter, rather than a performer as in the last two years. As noted here last year, one good way to enjoy the carnival is to come from the North on foot or via Westbourne Grove Tube and to stick near the sound-systems, for example on All Saints Road, or by Norman Jay's Good Times Bus up around Southern Row.

For more, the official website is http://www.nottinghill-carnival.co.uk/, and for transport advice see http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

_{^Picture by Cristiano Betta^}

Visit the Brunel Museum

The Brunel Museum is located in an old Engine House in Rotherhithe, which was once part of the famous tunnel of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, and still carries the East London Line under the Thames.


It is a relatively small museum, charting the work of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and it is fitting that it is on the site of a project they worked on together, the tunnel itself. The exhibits do, however, cover their lives and works beyond that project.

The museum is open from 10am to 5pm almost every day and entry £2 (£1 concessions). It is a great place to pop into for a while if you're in the area, and you will almost certainly learn something.

For more, see http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/

Attend the Notting Hill National Panorama

It's carnival weekend, and the first major event of the weekend is the National Panorama Competition, an annual competition of the UK’s top steel bands, which this year takes place in Horniman’s Pleasance Park, Kensal Road, London W10.


It is free and runs from 6pm this evening through to 10pm, involving around a thousand performers and some of the best steel bands in Britain, or anywhere.

For the past five years, it has been won by Ebony, the carnival legends who have been playing in and around Notting Hill since 1969, so it will be interesting to see if they can take the prize for another year, to set them up for their performance in the carnival parade on Monday.

For more, try http://www.itzcaribbean.com/steelbandpanorama.php

_{^Picture by David Hawgood^}

Drink tea at Teapod

Established in 2008 by a former BBC bod, Teapod is a contemporary tea house on Shad Thames, near Tower Bridge in South London. Your author is immediately endeared to it as their aim was to create a place where people can enjoy the sort of great quality loose leaf tea, which isn't available in your generic local generic coffee chain.


Their range includes loads of classic teas, including Darjeeling, Green tea and fruit and herbal blends. The teas are apparently picked by their own master tea blender, a chap called Alex.

It all sounds pretty good, and it's open weekdays 8am to 6pm and weekends 10am to 7pm. For more, see http://www.teapodtea.co.uk/

Pop into the Towpath Cafe

Cycling along the Regents Canal this summer, your author has been pleased to note that at one of the trendier points, someone has opened a small cafe opening directly onto the towpath, with a few bench seats. More recently it has even gained a small pontoon with seats on it.


According to Time Out, it's the idea of Italian-American food writer Lori De Mori and her food photographer husband Jason Low, and as ideas go it's not a bad one. They tell us that the cafe is open 8am - dusk Tue until Fri, 9am until dusk Sat and 10am until dusk on Sundays, and that main courses cost about a fiver.

For the full review, see http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/venue/2:26732/towpath

Drink at the Coal Hole

Your author doesn't usually recommend Nicholson's Pubs, as they are often of dubious quality, but the Coal Hole, on the Strand, is certainly nice enough.


The website tells us that the Coal Hole occupies what was once the coal cellar for the Savoy Hotel, and that in the Victorian era, the pub was a 'song and supper' club where regulars were encouraged to sing comical songs and sentimental ballads.

We are told that Gilbert and Sullivan regularly performed here in Edwardian times, the Shakespearean actor Edmund Keane started a club in the pub for for oppressed husbands forbidden to sing in the bath here, called The Wolves' Club.

If you want to know more, see http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/thecoalholestrandlondon/

Visit the Japanese Garden at Peckham Rye Park

Opened in 1908, the Japanese Garden in Peckham Rye Park. It was built around an old pond and now features a series of stream fed ponds, with Japanese plants and shrubs.


The garden features a Japanese bridge, and a Japanese shelter, installed in 2005 at the Southern end of the garden.

For more, see http://www.foprp.org.uk/

Dine in the Gallery at Fortnum and Mason

For National Afternoon Tea Week last week, your author had a very pleasant Afternoon Tea at the Gallery Restaurant, at Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly.


The Gallery is on the mezzanine floor, overlooking the Fortnum's famous Food Hall on one side and has windows on two sides overlooking Jermyn Street and Duke Street on the other.

Many of the dishes feature items from the famous Food Hall, and the staff are excellent. The restaurant is open Monday to Saturday, 10am until 6pm, and Sundays from noon until 6pm.

For more, see http://www.fortnumandmason.com/the-gallery.aspx

Visit the Crystal Palace Museum

A small museum beside the Terraces on which the Crystal Palace once stood in Sydenham tells the story of the Crystal Palace in both Hyde Park and Sydenham through photographs and displays of original documents and ceramics.


The museum is housed in the only surviving building constructed by the Crystal Palace Company, and constructed around 1880 as a classroom for the Crystal Palace Company’s School of Practical Engineering.

The Crystal Palace was created by Joseph Paxton for the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations in 1851. In the summer of 1852 it moved to a news site was on Sydenham Hill, in South East London and reconstruction commenced.

When your author made the trip last weekend, it was sadly closed, however notices such as the one above insisted it was usually open on weekends. For more, see http://www.crystalpalacemuseum.org.uk/

See the Animals in War Memorial

We all know about the various memorials to humans who took part in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century, but there is also a memorial in Hyde Park to commemorate the horses, mules, dogs, pigeons, elephants, camels, oxen, bullocks, cats, canaries, and even glow worms who gave their effort, and often their lives, in support of British, Commonwealth and Allied forces.


The sculpture was designed by Somerset-based artist David Backhouse and constructed in Portland stone and cast bronze. It was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in November 2004 at Brook Gate, Park Lane on the edge of Hyde Park. It cost £2 million, which was raised through a national appeal and donations from individuals, charities and companies.

For more, see http://www.animalsinwar.org.uk/

_{^Picture by Metro Centric^}

Watch the 70th anniversary Battle of Britain fly-past

Today, Friday 20 August, marks the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in Whitehall, with a special Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire and Hurricane fly-past overhead at 4.05pm.


At the Cabinet War Rooms, there will also be a special reading from Winston Churchill’s famous, ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’ speech at exactly 15:52pm, the time it was originally delivered by Churchill on the same day 70 years ago.

Outside the War Rooms, there is also a full size replica of a Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1, which will remain in place to mark the occasion until the end of the month.

For more, see http://1940.iwm.org.uk/

Learn about St Giles-in-the-Fields

St Giles-in-the-Fields is another often-missed parish church in the heart of the West End. Built in 1734, the current church replaced a number of previous structures, the earliest-recorded of which was built in 1101, as a chapel attached to the nearby monastery and leper hospital founded by Matilda of Scotland, wife of Henry I.


Whilst the parish population was around 30,000 in 1831, it has now fallen back to less that 5,000, with the church now acting as an important focal point for the surrounding commercial district, and as a quiet space to escape the busy local area.

For more on the history of the church, see http://www.stgilesonline.org/heritage-resources/history.php