The Vitality Show - London

I know I said that I had a lot of things to do. I do, but I have been getting up way too early since the clocks have gone forward and being a writer I felt the need to write and post something. It is my addiction.

I took these photos at The Vitality Show partly because it was the most colourful display in the whole venue and partly as it seemed to me too incongruent with what the show was supposed to be about.

Trade shows are not what they used to be. I remember one could come home from such a show with so much free merchandise. These are lean times and the only thing free my daughter and I came home with was an emery board from the laser eye surgery people. We sampled all the free food and wine on offer and were thus able to avoid the long queues for lunch. The flavoured cheese was a firm favourite. It was my daughter’s goal to come home with as much free stuff as possible, but it didn’t happen. We passed on the goody bag on the way home as the queue was too long.

As far as The Vitality Show was concerned, it didn’t live up to it’s name. We were more exhausted when we left than when we arrived. The highlight for me was trying out the Shiatsu Massage Cushion. I loved that. They were going for £150. I am unemployed and not willing to spend that amount of money, but for me, and for cash, they would give it to me for £100. I had £60 on me which I would have happily parted with. No deal. Nevermind. When I got home, I researched these cushions on the internet. I can buy one at Amazon for about £40.

I think I know what the kids are buying me for my birthday this year.

A Very Short Walk Around Leadenhall Market

On the day The Universe toyed with me, I went to register with the recruitment agency for the temp job I was offered and that never happened. The agency is in Leadenhall Market near Monument Underground Station. I have never been there before.

In spite of my disappointment of the job being cancelled, I decided that I would wander around for a few minutes and take some photos as the market was so pretty and there weren’t many people around.

In the 14^th century, a meat and fish market occupied the area on Leadenhall Street. The market has undergone many changes over the centuries and has recently been updated in the last 10 years. The area around Monument is very quaint and mixed architecturally. You will find very old buildings interspersed with high-tech modern design. New buildings are still being constructed.

Here is an interesting anecdote taken from the City of London website: ‘A celebrated character in Leadenhall during the 18th century was 'Old Tom', a gander which managed to escape execution even though it is recorded that 34,000 geese were slaughtered there in two days. He became a great favourite in the market and was fed at the local inns. After his death in 1835 at the age of 38, he lay in state in the market and was buried there.’

If you want to know more about the market, you can click on here, and here.

You can see the rest of my photos here or click on the slideshow on the sidebar.

Tango y Salsa

With all the hoo-ha about ‘forced crosses’ recently, I decided to find out all about it. So I took myself off to Cesar and Carolina’s classes on Saturday at Wild Court. Now I know what a forced cross is. It was a little strange at first, but nothing sinister. I enjoyed the class and learned something new. If anyone else wants to know what a forced cross is, I suggest that you do the next course on offer as I don’t really feel qualified to explain it. Whether anyone will remember to ever use it will be another story altogether.

While the Tango lessons were taking place downstairs, a group of young people were practicing some dance moves upstairs. After the Tango lesson, I was able to watch them in action for a few minutes and was very impressed by how the young men picked up the girls and flipped them around like baton twirlers. I am constantly amazed by the fearlessness of young people.

It had been awhile since I had taken some classes and found that I was on a roll, so I decided to stick around and try the Salsa classes too. Cesar and Carolina were teaching Salsa – Cali Style. I had never done this before and was really looking forward to learning something different. I was lucky enough to partner with one of the young men I had seen dancing earlier and knew I was in good hands. It took me a little while to get the hang of it as the footwork is pretty fancy and it can get quite fast, but I really enjoyed it. Compared with the Tango classes taken earlier, my body was getting a real workout, and this was only the beginner’s class! I really loved this style of Salsa and made a mental note to come back and try it again, and to bring my dance trainers with me.

The next class on offer was L.A. Style or cross body Salsa and was being taught by Larisa Balogh. Even though I had tried a couple of Salsa classes many years ago, Larisa really was my very first Salsa teacher. I was pleased to note that her teaching style was still friendly, professional and consistent after all these years and I was happy to see her again.

While the Salsa classes were taking place upstairs, there was also a Lambada class being taught downstairs. Imagine that! From 6 – 10pm there is a profusion of Latin dance experiences to choose from. It sort of reminded me of The Loughborough Hotel all those many years ago where I first discovered Tango. It got me reminiscing and feeling nostalgic. We need another venue like that in London, a place where one can dance to any style of Latin music as the mood takes you. When Corrientes had their Christmas party, there was a double booking for Salsa on the same night. I almost couldn’t decide where I wanted to go. I decided on Tango, of course, but I did pop into the Salsa room a few times for a Salsa fix. The people looked so happy there. Did I say that?!!

I met some really nice people and stayed for a few more dances before heading off to The Crypt for the last hour and a half. I hadn’t been dancing all week and I really needed a Tango fix. I had always wanted to try Cesar and Carolina’s Salsa club La Rumba, but Tango was always holding me back - until last Saturday when I took the plunge. I’m glad I did.

Now, what am I going to do next Saturday?

Snow today, gone tomorrow.

It is Thursday and I have been watching the rain wash away all of the snow we were blessed with on Monday. I say blessed because the snow usually doesn’t last for more than a few hours in London, which is usually a good thing because the UK doesn’t really know how to cope with the snow. Trust me, I know what I am talking about. I have lived here for over 20 years. They have issues when leaves fall on the train tracks. I am not kidding.

This blessed snow made everything beautiful for three days and caused a huge amount of havoc. People do not shovel the pavement outside the front of their houses as they do in the States. They are not obliged to. I don’t even know if town people own shovels. It was better to walk on the road and risk getting run over than walking on the icy sidewalk. The snow was so wonderful that when you walked on it, it got packed down and then turned to ice. Perfect for skiing, but rubbish for walking.

As you can see from the photos in my previous post, we had a huge amount of snow that turned everything into a winter wonderland. Schools were closed, the buses weren’t running, and a lot of people didn’t go to work. I think my whole town was in Richmond Park on Monday. My son went to work. He works in the local supermarket and was asked to come in as there were people unable to come to work because of the weather. We live a couple of blocks from the supermarket so it wasn’t a problem. When he came home it was dark and we took a walk up into the park before dinner. Because everything was white and it was a clear night, it was quite easy to see in the dark. It was surreal. When we went through the pedestrian gate, I could already see the devastation created by people having trampled through the snow. Looking out into the field, I could see massive snowballs dotted around along with other various snow sculptures. The igloo that was being built earlier in the day was complete. Although my son is 19, he regressed into a little kid and ran around in the snow and we even threw snowballs at each other. I am not talking about little snowballs that fall apart in the air when you throw them, but softball sized ones packed hard. Decent snowballs. It was fun.

It was sunny on Tuesday and I could see that some of the snow had already started to melt. I thought I would go into the park and take some pictures before the snow disappeared and while the sun was shining.

When I got up to the park gates they were still closed to cars. I later discovered that it was possible to drive through the park between Richmond and Kingston gates. It made sense as Pembroke Lodge is that way and they were able to serve lunch and hot and cold drinks as a lot of people brought their children to go sledding down the big hill.

I was a bit dismayed to see all of the snow trampled down. There was barely a patch of pristine snow left. I was grateful that I had gone out the day before when it was still fresh. Almost all of the trees were bare of snow too. Although the park still looked beautiful, I was a little bit sad to see the snow melting away.

I sort of retraced my steps from the day before and when I had my walk in the week before the snowfall. I came across a gentleman with his cross country skis coming down the hill. He looked like he was having a great time.

I ended up at Pembroke Lodge to have some lunch. It was reminiscent of being at a ski resort with everyone sitting outside with their ski gear on, sunglasses and the kid’s sleds. They were doing a roaring business since the road was open to cars on that side of the park.

From Pembroke Lodge, I crossed the road and carried on towards the right of Sidmouth Wood where I met a gentleman carrying a tripod with the largest camera and lens I had ever seen. It put my little Fuji Finepix slimline camera to shame. I asked him if he was a professional photographer, but he told me ‘no’. Turned out that he was just a photography geek and he had been taking photos of the deer.

I carried on walking through a part of Queen Elizabeth’s Plantation where I came across a bunch of oak trees that looked as if they were dead, but still alive. They had holes in them that I could fit inside. I found it incredible that these trees were still living in spite of having had their insides devoured by animals and insects.

I walked along to Leg of Mutton Pond (really) which had been frozen over. You can usually find tadpoles here in the summer. There were some Red deer relaxing and chewing their cud on the other side of the pond, but I left them alone to walk over to the Pen Ponds to take some photos of the birds.

As I walked over to the smaller pond I could see that there were some ducks and swans on the ice. The light was changing and made everything look really sharp and fresh. There was another gentleman there with the same idea and also with a very serious camera. He smiled when I showed him mine, camera that is. It turned out that he was a professional photographer and was just taking photos for fun. We had a lovely conversation about blogs and photography. I just wished he was a little bit younger and single. We waited for the light to brighten up but that never happened, and as it was getting cold we decided to go our separate ways.

While I was walking home, the light changed. Nature never does what you want it too. I smiled.

If you want to see my photos, you can see them here. They are best viewed as a slideshow. I hope you like them.