More Exploring

This has been a week about books. One day we headed out on foot to find the Artisan branch of the City of London Libraries. It is about a mile from St. Katharine’s Dock. We managed to convince the kind employee that we were residents of London using our contract with the marina. This allows us to use all of the city libraries and their online collections.They take requests and will do inter library transfers if they do not have the volume you are looking for. They also have an online service to borrow Ebooks and audiobooks.

The next day brought us out to King’s Cross Station.

The first stop was to fill up the Oyster cards so we could get home again.

For those who are Harry Potter fans, this place is famous, as noted by the line-up to have your picture taken. We were here in April with our granddaughters.

We stopped and browsed at the WH Smith store but only found magazines, newspapers and pre-packaged meals. I noticed that the North American junk food was getting another toe-hold here. This was right in the “bookstore”

Everywhere you turn, there is interesting architecture to look at. This was on the way to our next destination. It is actually a high end hotel.

So what do Handel, Jane Austin, Picasso, Gutenberg, Audubon and the Beatles have in common?

Among many others, their original works are on display at the British Library. While you need a special researcher’s pass to use the collection, many works are on display to the general public. Being a lover of books, it was an amazing trip through 2000 years of history.

I was politely asked to not take pictures so I will show you just one of the few I took.

This is the original manuscript for Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus.

The following day,I puttered around the boat and caught up with grocery shopping. Alan headed off to the London Metropolitan Archives. A wonderful resources for exploring the history of London or doing research on family that once lived in the city. Again he managed to convince them that he was a resident of London and was issued, what they call, a History Card. Here you must fill in a request for a resource for them to find and bring to you. Alan was given lessons on using a microfilm machine so he could research addresses and owners in the city.

Today we are cleaning up the boat to welcome friends for a couple of days. Housekeeping never stops, no matter what type of home you live in.