"But it was always the case that London, as if in imitation of individual citizens belonging to it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness" - Charles Dickens, 'Night Walks'
The moon blazes bright over south London 
The film set from 28 Days Later that is an empty Brixton Road...
Talking of 28 Days Later...
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty...
A sight so touching in its majesty...
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Thames so still
Has London ever looked more like a painting?
What nobler sight, this Easter morning? @StPaulsLondon may be closed to worshippers, but still impossible not to take comfort from the sight of a cathedral that rose like a phoenix from the ashes of plague & fire, & survived all that Hitler could throw at it.
St Paul’s may be shut, but we SHALL celebrate Easter
The Fat Boy at Pye Corner, marking the furthest most spread of the Great Fire: a reminder of other, worse calamities faced by London, & overcome...
A tip of the hat to @StBartholomews, which not even the Black Death & the Great Plague of London could close, but today, this Easter morning, stands locked. History being made...
A tip of the hat too to Charles Dickens, whose short essay ‘Night Walks’, about the pleasure to be had from walking an empty London, & watching night turn to day, inspired us to take our daily exercise by following in his footsteps
We pass Great Ormond Street. Bless all who work & are in the hospital there, & may they be kept safe.
And so we come to Seven Dials, dedicated to St Giles – the patron saint of lepers, beggars, the wretched and the lonely – & where, in 1665, the Great Plague began. “That one parish of St Giles at London,” it was widely held, “hath done us all this mischief.”
Amazing to see the West End literally boarded up.
At least there’s no overturned double-decker...
My thoughts turn to @James1940 - I can’t think why! - with whom I was hoping to spend the next week walking along the South Downs & thence to Stonehenge. Missing him & everyone I haven’t seen these past weeks...
Politics: it’s a brutal business...
The Effra meets the Thames in front of the MI6 building. Here, in 2010, 7000 year old timber piles were found. They’d been erected on an island in the mouth of the Effra, presumably for cultic reasons: making them the oldest witness in London to a belief in the supernatural.
And so, crossing Vauxhall Bridge, we bid a fond farewell to north London. I do not think we will be back for a few weeks...
Easter greetings in Brixton
And so we return home, & conclude our daily exercise for Easter Sunday
