London: Forever fresh, forever new

London is always changing, always evolving, always transforming. Some snapshots from and thoughts on a city where everything begins again.

Last weekend, my wife and I got to enjoy our first little getaway, our first small escape from the pressures of everyday life, since prior to the advent of the pandemic. Indeed, since a long time prior to the pandemic. Our last actual holiday was way back in 2018. One thing or another (including a large, world-disrupting pandemic-shaped thing) has consistently got in the way of our being able to get away from it all, for nearly half a decade.

London. My wife and I met in this city. We spent our first years together in this city, then a good few more at its most suburban outskirts. The capital was the perfect destination for this trip.

It was quite the loveliest treat to return to London this month for a few days with my beloved. We were able to visit so many of our old haunts, and discover plenty of new ones. This trip was a return to London, and also a renewal. As I wrote a few months back, in Re-entry:

“Life is forever fresh, forever new. It might take a change of perspective to appreciate this. But life offers so many moments of re-entry, so many chances to start afresh.”

You can substitute the word “life” for “London” in this sentence, and I believe it will still ring true.

The world in one place

I have always liked Clive James’s beautiful summation of what London is and why it will always be different, for everyone (from delightful 1991 documentary A Postcard from London):

“London is the city of cities. Only London collects everything from everywhere. London is the world in one place. And if it seems more serious now than when my lot were starting off, perhaps we’re more serious, and London hasn’t changed at all, but is just working its eternal trick of showing the next generation that the possibilities are infinite, and everything has begun again.”

Here are a few small snapshots of London as it was in that particular weekend in July 2023.

In which Oscar looks somewhat quizzically unimpressed. This picture is from the packaging of an Oscar Wilde tapestry kit that I spied for sale at Liberty London.

An MJCarty on London’s South Bank as the sun begins to start thinking about perhaps setting.

Broken poetry on the streets of London.

The (full and unbroken) words form the start of William Wordsworth’s Remembrance of Collins (which you can read in full in Wordsworth’s Collected poems):

“Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream! for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.”

The view from London’s South Bank, a tiny wee bit after 6.30am on the morning of Saturday 8 July 2023. If you look closely at the lower bit of the picture, there is a woman in bridal dress, having an #EarlyShift photo session on Westminster Bridge! At first I thought this a unique, never-to-be-repeated moment. But I have since been informed that this is a popular location for wedding photographs – often shot a long time prior to the big day itself – for happy couples from Korea and other nations.

The early morning sun reflected on the Thames beneath Hungerford Bridge.

Moody skies over the Thames as evening draws in.

Kimono avec reflected MJCarty (at the Victoria and Albert museum, in their Japanese room).

The eyes have it. Another V&A pic, this time from their Buddhist room.

Monday morning (10 July 2023) arrives, and with it the day of our departure from the capital. The sun shines in your (London) eye.

As Clive James said of the London he revisited in 1991: “Everything has begun again.”

London is always changing, always evolving, always transforming. The London we visited had changed so much since we first met in 2000. Indeed, it had changed so much since we were last there prior to the pandemic. It has no doubt changed again in the time since we were there in early July 2023.

Life happens in the moment. Life is forever fresh. Life is forever changing. Life is always capable of stopping you in your tracks.

But life also – and all too often – goes out of its way to distract us or keep us from those moments of wonder that enrich, refresh and renew us.

Any holiday, any break is a luxury. I know that we were privileged to have had that last little holiday almost five years ago. We are fortunate beyond words not only still to be on this earth in July 2023, but also to be able to have had this weekend away.

All the same, we both of us needed the break. We needed to stop and smell the roses (Indeed, I wrote about stopping to smell the roses in Stop and…).

I love serendipity, whenever and wherever it occurs in the wild. I was therefore delighted to see these exact words at the centrepiece of the current display in the scarf hall at Liberty London:

“Stop and smell the roses.”

Impeccable advice, now and always.

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

IMAGES

• All photography on this page by MJCarty.