Puppets and Rhubarb

After an early dinner, we headed down toward Old Street on the bus and walked the remaining distance to our destination. As we rounded a corner, this building unexpectedly lit up the entire street:

We found out that the building houses the Richard Desmond Children's Eye Centre, the largest centre in the world dedicated to children's eye disease. The centre just opened a year ago as part of Moorfields Eye Hospital, and the changing light displays seem to fit with the centre's policy to "create surroundings that are vibrant, inspiring and inviting for children and their families."

Our reason for being in the area was just a few minutes away--LSO St Luke's is a Grade-1 listed 1852 Nicholas Hawksmoor church that has become the renovated home of the London Symphony Orchestra's community concerts, as well as hosting performances by other organizations and individuals.

I had been here once before, but tonight was Bob's first time in this remarkable venue, and we were excited to hear tonight's performance, being recorded for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now programme. Unfortunately, the extremely repetitive and atonal piano wasn't to our tastes, and after I found myself staring out the window during the second piece, trying to figure out what was on the television I could see lit up across the street (I realised it was Lost, and then found myself wondering how Jack and Kate got off the island anyway), we decided to leave at the intermission. After reading the programme notes about the second piece, I really, really wanted to like it, since it was inspired by the amazing light art of James Turrell, whom we both love, but reading the blurb turned out to be a far more entertaining experience than hearing the piece. If you'd like to judge for yourself, the show will be broadcast on 8 March at 10:30 P.M., and I think you can listen to the show on the Hear and Now website for a week after it airs--just don't say I didn't warn you! Anyway, all was not lost, because Bob got to see the venue, we chatted with a friendly usher who does this type of thing as a side-job from his usual work as an antique dealer, and we had a nice roundabout stroll back to a street where we could catch the bus home. I stopped in my tracks when I spotted this abandoned shop, which I hope you'll agree was well worth a photo:

This intriguing fence surrounded an enormous sports field that seemed to be enclosed by many large buildings. We had no idea what it was, but thought that the coat of arms was pretty great.

When we got home, I looked in our trusty A to Z and found out that the field is the HAC (Honourable Artillery Club) Ground, named after the livery company that owns it. Cricket was played on the ground back in 1725, and it became England's most popular cricket ground in the mid-1700s. After a period during which the ground fell out of favour, cricket games were again played here starting in 1846, and the six-acre garden (the largest in the City) can currently be hired for cricket, rugby, hockey, and football. Considering its size and location so close to the centre of the City, the land must be worth a fortune and, not surprisingly, the HAC rents out the garden and surrounding buildings for occasions other than sports. Just a minute's walk away, the amount of construction taking place reflects the profits to be made in this area:

As you can tell from the above photo, the fog was rolling in this evening, and it was definitely much colder than last night--hopefully not cold enough to damage this lovely, spot-lit rhubarb that we passed thriving in the local allotments on our way home: