Continuing Where We Left Off

Since Bob's been working in Bloomsbury for a while now, we decided to do something that we haven't yet done in all our self-guided walking tours: finish the second half of the Bloomsbury tour that we started a while ago! Even though we've done a fair bit of exploring around London, today made us realise that we've somehow walked all around the area of today's tour without actually venturing into this small space of interesting streets. For example, Bob and I met at a place that we had no idea existed until very recently: the Brunswick Centre. An enormous concrete mixed-use residential/ commercial space, the place should feel sad in those ways that outdoor malls tend to feel, but somehow it works. My favourite discovery here was a outlet of Waitrose--fancier than Sainsbury's or Tesco and always good for a browse.

As we walked through the square across from the Brunswick, I noticed an odd sight: a woman opened a small animal crate and let out a large black bunny for what looked like a little stroll in the park!

The Foundling Museum was closed today, so we just had a look at the simple, but attractive exterior.

St George's Gardens was the first London burial ground to be located away from its associated churches. Opened in 1713, St George's became extremely overcrowded and was closed to burials in 1855. In 1885, the space was reopened as a public garden as part of efforts to create "open air sitting rooms" for the poor.

This very old, extremely worn stone is located near one entrance to the gardens:

A terracotta statue of Euterpe, muse of instrumental music, stands near the centre of the gardens. Once one of nine muses that adorned the nearby Apollo Inn, Euterpe was relocated here after the building's demolition in 1961.

As we cut through Regent Square, Bob said, "Birds in the tree?" and I looked up expecting to see some unusual birds, but not this unusual!

The plaque which Bob spotted at the base of the tree mentions that the artwork with this name was created by neighbourhood youth, in association with an established artist and Camden council. If Bob hadn't spotted the plaque, we would have missed this unique bird sighting! We reached the end of the walking tour up on Euston Road, where we came to St Pancras Parish Church--a Greek Revival church that was the most expensive church of its time (completed in 1822). Coincidentally, I had the church on my list as hosting an event about which I was curious, so we descended into the crypt for a look:

As with some of our other art wanderings in London, the space in which the art was shown was itself a fascinating sight. St Pancras crypt was closed as a burial vault in 1854, and was later used as an air raid shelter in World Wars I and II.

Back at home, I unloaded some of our Waitrose purchases. I like to think that I'm not someone who's swayed by packaging, but Waitrose's own-brand goods are quite pleasingly designed:

And isn't this just the prettiest set of yogourt ever?

The only thing that would have made it absolutely perfect would have been if the red-topped pots were situated diagonally across from each other, but that's just plain picky (and no doubt some of you are shaking your heads right about now). Bob chimed in with the always helpful, "But what if they're really yucky?" to which I retorted, oh so cleverly, "They won't be yucky." So there.