Another Day, Same River

Autumn is only a week away. The days are markedly shorter, both morning and evening have shifted. Thankfully in the mornings away from the 4:30 a.m. wake-up shafts of light peeking through windows. The newspaper supplements are full of lists of the must-see events for the next few months as the autumn cultural season opens a new year. We have remembered to book seats for our favourite Christmas concert. And I have booked my tickets for six weeks in Massachusetts to welcome a new granddaughter to be born shortly before Halloween.

Locally, there are festivals everywhere. One of our local bakeries has a food festival in Hampstead every year, so we started the day there. Sipping fortified wine and nibbling chocolate samples before breakfast is always a good way to start a day. The predicted rain, once again, never arrived, and the day turned into beautiful blue skies with a brisk wind.

Then we moved on to the Thames Festival, an annual weekend event in September that has grown year by year.  Bob is a great boat lover so we headed out to St Katharine Docks for a display of vintage boats.

This cockle boat participated in the Dunkirk Rescue

Then we headed across Tower Bridge for the  information booths soliciting interest in environmental projects and organisations working to protect the river.

An impromptu Morris Dance at London's riverside City Hall.

Finally we crossed Southwark Bridge which was traffic free to allow a community harvest festival with long tables set up for sharing meals, and autumn harvest activities with pumpkins and straw.

We were pretty tired by this time, so we never made farther it to the other festival venues farther up the river at the Tate Modern and the Southbank Centre.  It felt good to get home, put my feet up, and find out the opening episode of the new season of Mad Men was on, perfect for getting a little knitting done.