Sunday 8 June - London
Woke up to a fabulously hot day and dashed over to Highgate Cemetery to be first in the queue to get tour tickets for the 11am West Cemetery tour - all sold out by about quarter to!
Not very funereal, but this sets the scene for the weather if you play it now:
Helen did a magnificent cycle up Swain's Lane at breakneck speed - no mean feat in that heat!
and the tour was fascinating - also at breakneck speed but brilliant to see the wild green jungle cluttered with weird and wonderful Victorian graves and sculptures.
particularly the Egyptian Avenue - it's really interesting to see how all this evolved in this short history.
And there are some amazing animules to be spotted
and this was the grave of the (in)famous bare knuckle fighter Thomas Sayers and his faithful hound Lion. His story and his grand burial with record crowds is quite amazing.
Michael Faraday, tucked away with the non-conformers
and in the East Cemetery, we spotted so many more, Douglas Adams, Karl Marx, George Elliot (you can read the list of burials) and then one of my guitar heros, Bert Jansch
and although it's a sad one this beautiful song always haunts me when I think of Bert Jansch - one of his best:
and to get onto a happier note - next we all headed to the pub just down the hill in Dartmouth Park- the lovely Star pub and it's secret back garden
pretty stuffed after fabulous Salt Marsh lamb roast dinners all round
we needed a walk - but only as far as Tufnell Park and the amazing Rose Violet ice cream parlour
the best EVER pomegranate sorbet for me, salted caramel for some and vanilla and choc sauce for the others
then the inevitable all-too-soon parting of the ways and a dash back to St Pancras for us and steaming up North to Sheffield and Docfest
but that's another story . . . . .
(This Sunday was part of a whole wonderful weekend in London, so if you want to start at the beginning - click here for Friday and Saturday)
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