"Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs!" (c) Rosmead Gardens

Open Garden Squares Weekend is a magical two-day event, where community gardens and private squares throughout London took place on 8-9 June, 2013.
Rosmead Garden is one of the most beautiful of the garden squares in Notting Hill, part of the Ladbroke Estate which also includes Arundel Gardens, St John’s Gardens and the largest – Ladbroke Square.
 Thomas Allom’s plan of 1823 provided for generous communal gardens, organised in a concentric layout of crescents. The outer crescents date from the 1860s.
Apparently this is the garden used in the film Notting Hill,  into which Anna and William break at night (“Whoops a daisy!”)

"I'm a Jolly-'er Majesty's Jolly-an' sailor too" (c) HMS Belfast

HMS Belfast was launched on St Patrick's Day, 17 March, 1938 by the Prime Minister's wife, Mrs Anne Chamberlain, and was finally commissioned into the Royal Navy on 5 August 1939.
One of the most powerful large light cruisers ever built, HMS Belfast is now the only surviving vessel of her type to have seen active service during World War II. Serving Britain for 32 years, she played an important role in both World War II and the Korean War, as well as performing peacekeeping duties throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Saved from destruction in 1971, HMS Belfast is now part of the Imperial War Museum and is the first ship to be preserved for the nation since Nelson’s Victory. The vessel has been moored on the River Thames since 1971.
Last HMS Belfast celebrates the 75th anniversary of its launch last weekend.

"In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan..."(c)

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), A Christmas Carol

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest."(c)

"If you're going underground, why bother about geography? It's not so important. Connections are the thing." (c)

On 9 January 2013, London Underground celebrates 150 years since the first underground journey took place between Paddington and Farringdon on the Metropolitan Railway.
"One of the classics of 20th century design is the London Underground map designed in 1931 by unemployed electrical draftsman Harry Beck. Instead of a geographically accurate map, he produced a purely representational diagram with no surface detail except the stations and a stylised River Thames. With its out-of-scale distances it was initially rejected by the Underground's publicity department as "too revolutionary", but a year later they changed their minds and a free pocket edition was published in 1933.
Harry Beck's design – originally sketched out in a school exercise book before being converted into final artwork – has undergone constant adjustment to accomodate new lines and stations and to add clarity improvements.
 Its success was assured to a great degree by the fact that the tube-travelling public took to it straightaway, appreciating its clarity and the way it gave an illusion of order to the otherwise chaotic city of London.
As the London Underground developed, so Harry Beck continued to develop the map.
Beck  produced his last design for the London Undergound map in 1964. That his original design has been handed down so faithfully is due both to public recognition and to continuous and skillful nurturing by Tim Demuth of London Transport's publicity department (their corporate morons of political correctness have introduced the stupid name of 'Transport for London'). There are now fourteen tube lines instead of the original eight, and the map is managed on an Apple Mac. Its digitisation makes it easier for Demuth to make revisions in a manner consistent with the diagram's iconic purity.
The Underground map is an important marketing asset for London Transport. It's a nice earner, not only as a map but also in souvenir form on a large range of goods from aprons to keyrings to soap. The map is so celebrated that there are many excellent websites devoted to it. The obvious thing to do is therefore to round off with reference to a few of the best."(c)
(www.patricktaylor.com)