Village life in Hampstead

On Saturday we ventured to the village of Hampstead in North West London, somewhere we'd never been before.  It was such a beautiful day, the calm before the storm that hit on Sunday.

We got the tube to Swiss Cottage and then walked, up hill, to Hampstead. Along the way we passed some beautiful buildings that still showed the signs of how stunning they must have been when they were first built - most of them are now split up into flats, but they still have a sense of grandeur.  If you take the time to look closely at the buildings as you walk past you will notice beautiful ironwork, carved tiles, and touches of coloured glass in windows and doors.

On our walk up the hill we also came across the following statue - the father of Psychology, Sigmund Freud.  Freud died in London and lived not far from where the statue sits and apparently there is also a museum to visit (another day).

Hampstead village is lovely, and even though there are some chain stores there are even more independent stores and great little cafes and restaurants.  Again, older buildings have been made use of which gives the high street a really lovely look.



Gorgeous pink building

I took a picture of this property  for rent advert to give you an idea of how prestigious people consider the area of Hampstead to live in - if someone rented this flat out for one year it would cost them £273,000.

What you can't quite see in the picture below is that underneath the building that used to be the Express Dairy Company is a Tesco Express - a little ironic I think.

We came across an artist on the street, he was painting the street scene and from what we could see he was very good.

We had lunch in a funky little restaurant and to my delight they had Bundaberg root beer on the menu - for those that don't know, that is an Australian brand. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can take the girl out of Australia but you can't take Australia out of the girl.

To make lunch even more perfect I had a fish finger (home made fish fingers) burger and sweet potato fries all served on an enamel tray.

 

 

 This church looked really interesting but unfortunately was not open to the public to view.

 

 

This statue was outside an art gallery which had some fantastic paintings and sculptures inside - I think they were a little out of our price range. The statue reminded me of Sally Field in the Flying Nun (I think that's showing my age).

 

 

 

Our next place of interest was Hampstead Heath, which is an area of over 700 acres of grass and woodland, including bathing ponds.  It's a beautifully peaceful area in amongst the urban sprawl that is London.

 

Mixed bathing ponds

 

Whilst we were walking up the hill to see the amazing view of London we had a sit down on a seat and a man who looked like he'd stepped out of history walked past us - full Scottish regalia and a fantastic walking staff.

 

Sunny selfie on the heath

View over London including the Shard

On our way back to the station to head home we wandered round more of the streets to look at some of the lovely houses - here's a selection of my favourites.

 

Lovely purple house

George Orwell lived in this house

As always I managed to find a furry friend to have a bit of a chat to, this time a very regal looking cat.

 

 

 

We also visited Keats's House, which as the name suggests is where John Keats, the poet, lived in London.  The gardens are lovely and while we sat there it was amazing how little of the traffic noise that we could here, so a very peaceful spot.

 

 

We would really recommend you visit Hampstead if you're in the area as it's a special part of London with lots of different things to interest all people. 

 

Until next time, be good, keep smiling, and do something that makes you smile.

 

Pamela & Ken

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P.S:  Final pictures are of a short poem by an Iranian writer on one of the Hampstead Heath benches which I found quite haunting.  In case you can't read it, it says:  I was born tomorrow, today I live, yesterday killed me.

 



Steam engines, tractors, and automobiles

In one of our previous posts, Secrets to a happy marriage, I talked about sharing each others interests, so recently I was sharing one of my beloved's favourite things - steam engines and classic cars. It was a beautiful day for the Potten End Steam Fair.

Before we had even left the car park we came across this fabulous trike - we loved the decorations and wished we could have seen the owners as I bet they were really cool dudes.

The second thing to highlight from the car park was a family having a picnic in amongst the cars - why oh why oh why!!! (enough said on that subject).

My beloved was in his element with all sorts of vehicles on display. There were vintage military vehicles...

Steam engines of all shapes and sizes....

Even engines with canine drivers - this was Spike who apparently is always up in the driver's area.

There were people dressed up in medieval costume - don't ask me why as it seemed slightly out of context for the rest of the event and I bet they were roasting.

There were tractors both old and new.....

I grew up on a farm and have a soft spot for grey Massey Ferguson's as that's what sort of tractor we had.

This lovely couple were using traditional music boxes to create a beautiful sound and raise money for Macmillan - so good all around.

Another feature of the fair was having heavy horses to show how farm work used to be done - they did a display showing how the horses pulled logs out of the forests and had examples of equipment that the horses may have pulled before mechanised farm machinery came along.

There were several vintage campervans that the owners keep in such a pristine condition that it's quite amazing - they must scour the internet to find the bits and pieces that they need to keep them in working order.

Apart from the steam engines my beloveds favourite bit of the show is the car display.  There were cars from all eras and again they are kept in pristine condition.  There were several big American cars that have the most outrageous fins on them.

I really like some of the details on and in the cars - this one had three little frogs sitting over the number plate.

American themed fluffy dice and flag......

We've seen this car before at another show we went to - the owner is a little obsessed with the American theme, even dressing like an American mechanic.  He has loads of things around and in the car that he has collected to add to the feel of the USA theme.

There were cars of all shapes and sizes - this one was very small.

This car was so tiny only Ken and Bertie Boo would be able to fit into it -  I also liked the fact that it had the crazy frog attached to the back (I think I'm one of the few people that never grew tired of that little beasty).

Now we couldn't go to a car show without showing a picture of Ken's favourite car of all time, the E-type Jaguar.  If we ever won the lottery I think that would be first on his list of things to buy.

I loved this emblem on the front of one of the old cars - Ken assures me it was a Daimler Conquest, but I wouldn't have a clue, I just liked the little winged man.

There were just a few motorbikes on display, and the best thing happened when people were leaving - the two bikes nearest the camera were driven away by an elderly couple who looked like they were much older than the bikes.

There may not have been any Australian flags to take a picture of but I did find a map of Australia on one of the cars - I'm assuming that Tasmania is hidden under the boomerang.

 

Another great thing on display at the fair was a childrens farm - a space with smallish farm animals and birds for children to say hello to.  Ken and I had to hold ourselves back from going in and pushing all the children out of the way, especially with the pigs.

There were two ginger pigs who were so mischievous, every time that one of the farm hands went to milk a goat the two pigs would be in under the goat trying to drink the milk faster than it made into the bowl - as you can see they even had it all over their heads.

Look at those cute little bottoms - you can tell by the difference in size which piggy was getting the most of the food and milk.

My very gorgeous man - I think my sun umbrella really suits him.

Cute kidlets who typically thought that the grass just outside the fence was going to be so much better than that inside, and of course the bit just past their sibling was even better.

So that was our lovely day out sharing in one of my beloved's passions (and yes I enjoyed myself as well).

Until next time, be good, keep smiling, and say hello to the next animal that you see.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S:  Final two shots are a couple of signs on vehicles that tickled me......