The Ham Nomads

5 Dec 2015. <GB-ENG> London —

Today was interesting to say the least.

The Horses of Helios

The Diana Fountain,
as we came out of Green Park Station

Buck House Gates

First up, we went over to Buckingham Palace in time for the Changing of the Guard. The melee of people out the front had to be seen to be believed! We're glad we came here about 20 months ago, when the crowds were a lot more reasonable. But we had a bit of a look, before we decided to walk up to Apsley House, sometimes known as No.1, London! This was the first house you encountered as you came into the City of London, at the western end of Piccadilly. It is now best known as the London residence of the Duke of Wellington.

There are no photographs allowed inside — which is just as well, as the Nikon finally failed completely as we were walking up Constitution Hill towards Wellington Arch and Apsley House! I suppose it can be forgiven, as since we bought it about 8 years ago, a quick check shows that it has taken at least 106,000 photos — 83,453 from the current trip alone — not counting the ones deleted straight after taking!

We enjoyed walking around Apsley House again. There's a painting in there, The Danaë by Titian — there are three versions, one of which we saw in the Madrid's Prado (in our opinion, the poorest of the three), another is held in Naples Capodimonte Museum (Suzie's favourite), but the one in Apsley House right up with it! If you want to go through the Apsley House art collection, you can have a look at a pdf file of the illustrated art catalogue of Apsley House.

The Danaë (Prado)

The Danaë (Naples)

The Danaë (Apsley House)

We went back to the apartment, and Warren phoned the London Camera Exchange (98 The Strand) to see if they might have a replacement Nikon D70 body. They didn't, but they did have a D200, about the same era, but more up-market. He asked them to put it aside, jumped on the tube, and had returned back to the apartment within an hour, replacement camera in hand, already having taken a few test shots on the way back. The old camera body was relegated to the store's recycle bin! So tomorrow looks like a good day for photography.

And then the evening. The Brahms German Requiem, with the Collegium Musicum of London, st St James's in Piccadilly This was a 'chamber version'. with a choir of about 30, and an orchestra of violin, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet and piano. Amazingly, it worked brilliantly. Perhaps, with a smaller choir and orchestra, there is less chance to become 'muddy'. The clarity of the performance was refreshing. Warren had to control himself not to sing along! It's amazing — the whole work came back to him, and he was totally entranced!