London was looking lovely this week.

"It's booo-Kaaaaaay!"

Pic # 2

*Starts countdown to a Londonistan comment...

At least you appreciate being lucky enough to live there. Enjoy every second of it. And, yes, I'm jealous.

Lovely, OP. Thanks for sharing.

Yes. Quite. Enjoy the beauty....

Heh. First time I looked at the first pic, I thought that was the Tardis in the backyard.....

They were taking photos of a house to put it on the market - so asked if I could look it over and it took this from the balcony.

Holland Park? I think you mean Shepard's Bush!

[quote]I think you mean Shepard's Bush!

No, dear! >>

are those camellias on the right in 1st photo?

I don't know, R11.

Another pic from last week.

There really are miles and miles of beauty.

London is great. Good for you!

Thank you, R13.

I'm going to take my camera around with me more in future.

They are lovely photographs, OP. I was just expecting the usual anti-London comments.

This building might look a bit fugly - but it's very 60s cool.

There are partitions you can pull out from the walls to create rooms within rooms and it overlooks gardens on all sides.

More pics, OP! I love London.

Lovely. OP, I went to the London School of Economics and miss it so if you're ever down that way will you kindly snap a few? I like your photos.

Is that Eddie there in the bushes?

I lived in Gloucester Walk, off Kensington Church Street, for 30 years. A maisonette, the top two floors of the building. Views south across the town from my bedroom. Beautiful communal gardens at the back. I sold it ten years ago and have since moved out of the city but these photographs bring back good memories of long summer afternoons in West London.

Funnily enough, I’m going up tomorrow and staying overnight. I’ll have some time to kill so will make the time to walk to where I need to get to.

Thanks OP.

I took this in the loo of the place I ended up having breakfast.

I thought it looked rather nice.

[quote]I lived in Gloucester Walk, off Kensington Church Street

That's just near where I was. The views @ R8 are probably familiar to you.

[quote]Is that Eddie there in the bushes?—Holland PRK!

Yes, the first two pics are very near where she was supposed to live.

The rich heartland of Holland Park, not the outskirts!

The park itself is rather nice.

I DIDN'T take this though.

They have peacocks walking round Holland Park.

I'm always surprised the dogs don't go for them.

Thanks for the pictures; I'll be in London this week so your pictures makes me look forward to it.

Oh, good R27 - I hope you have a lovely time.

Take some pics and post them here >

I live in Brooklyn and I love it, but wonder why we can’t have more trees and flowers like in OP’s London pics. There are some very green blocks near me, but too many homes have their former front “yards” (the quotes because they’re way too tiny to legitimately be called yards) cemented over. It baffles me that people do that. It should be illegal.

[quote]London is so lovely.

The weather was especially nice on the morning I took these...plus, first days of spring.

Let's keep it real.

Jealous? Not particularly.

[quote]I live in Brooklyn and I love it, but wonder why we can’t have more trees and flowers like in OP’s London pics.

The climate is more severe in Brooklyn. Very cold winters and very hot summers. They'd be much harder to maintain. In London, the mixture of sun and rain helps these gardens flourish without too much effort.

I've seen droughts in London and they aint pretty.

London has gone to shit

Jealous ?

Very !

Where I live, it will take more than 6 more weeks before we get roses like that or other flowers. We had snow on Friday. This looks lovely.

[quote]London has gone to shit

not really, some of it has.

OP, I’m going at end of May. Want to have lunch?

I'd love to - R36.

I took this a few years ago. This stuff isn't out yet.

looks nice, OP!

Little Venice.

Regent's Park Canal.

Kensington Gardens - yes, this is bang in the centre of London.

You need a real Londoner to show you around.

The Albert Memorial.

You know who has ruined this great city. We dare not insult them though as so many including queens love them. Germany and France are done. Parts of the US in great danger. Cone on trolley the defending and Christian and Jewish bashing begin.

Be careful out there, OP. Sharia Law is no joke.

R51: Hey gurl and all that to you. I know, the smelly Americans are ruining the US and Europe, right gurl? Do you use the Instagram gurl? All sorts of naked butts on there, Jewish, Arab, English, Polish. So wonderful. But It's hard to find that Muslim peen, right gurl? Anyway, you defend Europe from that menace, you great thang you! Later and all that to you!

R46/R47: That looks like the perfect place for displaying my luxury travel China which goes so well with the Royal Doulton with the Hand-painted Periwinkles.

That old provincial cunt never goes near London, darling.

Hello! magazine reporter: Where is this? Shepherd's Bush?

Eddie: Holland Park! Holland Park! It's not on the outskirts, either. It's not the edge of Holland Park. This is the rich heartland of Holland Park here. All right, is the photographer here yet?

R53, isn't there a simpler way of making your point, without all that fodder?

London is so fucking huge. It's the size of a small country. People generally find their corner and stick to it.

R57: I've taken to mocking these horseball trolls in the manner that they often type in, with broke English, spelling and grammatical errors, and generally nonsensical ramblings. I mean, the last sentence R51 wrote was incomprehensible. These trolls are not gay and know nothing about it so I mock them on their level with some humor thrown in.

It's very lovely looking and yes I'm very jealous OP.

Yes London is lovely. For those ignoring the ugly reality (hi R53!)

UK has one of highest rates of acid attacks in the world, police reveal An average of two attacks a day are recorded by forces across the country

The UK now has one of the highest number of recorded acid attacks per person of any country in the world, and the figure is expected to rise further, police have warned. Senior officers believe the horrific crimes are not always being reported, meaning the unprecedented number of known assaults using corrosive substances may be a fraction of the true total.

Where homegrown terrorism is concerned, there's something to be said for letting British jihadis go to Syria Hundreds of Muslims now find themselves trapped in the UK, frustrated that they can't travel to Islamist and rebel strongholds and perform what they regard as their religious duty. Britain's zero-tolerance policy on Syria has filled our prisons with young jihadists already marginalised and isolated inside mainstream society

Antisemitic incidents in UK at all-time high Charity logs 1,382 hate incidents and 34% rise in violent assaults against Jewish people in 2017

The "rich heartland of Holland Park"?

("It's a seventy-foot drawing room with west-facing garden.")

r61 let's not pretend that the gang element is all Muslim, or even all brown for that matter.

And from the linked article, that's exactly what it reads like; how many of these are "after a fight"? That's a polite way of saying rival gang members hit and got into it.

It's convenient for the 1% on both sides of the law to have these arguments about crime so people don't start looking higher up the food chain at what (and who) are actually causing it. And I'm not denying there is an issue with jihadis in London, either.

One point five million!

Pictures like OP's do look lovely.

It's a shame that we normal people will never be able to do anything more than look at those houses, though, because renting even a broom closet in London costs more these days than my entire annual salary.

But maybe after Brexit the Pound will continue to collapse. Then it's get a bit more affordable for us non-global-one-percenters.

Here's a picture I took in Paris yesterday.

That's lovely, R66.

I took some more pics this morning (see below).

In fact, although I say it myself, I think my pics are nicer than the generic internet pics I posted latterly last night.

All this "gritty headlines" talk is not really what this thread is about. It's mostly me showing DLers what I see on my morning walks to breakfast - just showing people around, as I would if they visited me in London. Showing them the beautiful side of London they might not usually see.

Just arrived in London this morning. Was in NYC over the weekend and walked in Central Park from the Plaza to W. 89th. Everything was in bloom! Staying in the Battersea Park area but will get over to Holland Park and also to Hampstead Heath too.

Take some pics if you can, R69.

Most of these I've posted are of Kensington neighborhood of London. Holland Park is in Kensington too.

It's quite Mary Poppins-ish, isn't it?

Hot and sunny in Switzerland. The tulips are quickly burning out. People are on the beach at Lake Geneva and some even attempted the cold water.

Ladbroke Square.

(shame about those fugly internet box things on the left)

[quote]London is so fucking huge. It's the size of a small country. People generally find their corner and stick to it.

WTF are you talking about, London is huge? The entire country of England is about the size of New York state!

yes, odd that such a small country has such a vast capital city, isn't it?

London IS huge. And the distance between tube stops is shocking for someone used to New York and Paris.

It was Capital of The British Empire, lest you forget.

Why do the photos never have blue skies, always grey? Or is it pollution? Is it close enough to oceanside to keep the skies clearer?

Here you go, R77

Nope, it's pollution all right, r77/ r78.

Coincidentally, there happens to be an article on London's pollution problem (it's occasionally worse than Beijing) in today's NY Times:

Well, the sky was pretty blue this morning (in spite of the pollution) when I set out and then it clouded over.

Blue skies over London

Is that you, Edina?

Yes R75, there are some Metro stations in Paris where you can see the next station through the tunnel.

No one is jealous of you living in the acid attack capital of the world, OP.

The camellias and magnolias are really lovely. Thanks, OP.

Which flyover shithole do you live in, beast @ R84?

They're lovely photos, OP. Ignore the trolls.

I love this thread. Please keep posting pictures.

I was there last week and it was so beautiful: grey skies and lots of trees blooming. Please post more photos, OP!

Thanks for sharing OP.

You're welcome. Glad you like them. I'll try to post some more later.

No, OP, definitely not jealous of you living in a hyper-expensive, bloody unfriendly, overrated city with mostly crap weather and more violence than ever. You can keep it all to yourself, my dear. ;)

OP seems to think that this locale and her tired and stereotypical experiences merit recording.

I shall not post a photo of my South Ken flat because it is no one's business and I do not fetishize one location over another on this planet. And at least the flowers in the square I share are there because I grow them, not because I'm out snapping shots on a public street and thinking people are jealous of my presumption.

[quote]I shall not post a photo of my South Ken flat

better not, because it doesn't exist.

The South Ken troll often appears on London threads and every time makes it obvious his South Ken flat doesn't exist - sometimes he still owns it, sometimes he's sold it...

I'd love to have climbing roses -- climbing anything, really. But alas, I am surrounded by farm fields and nature, which = raccoons, squirrels, rats, mice. A beautiful climbing plant would be an outdoor stairway to my attic

London has been forever changed... into a 3rd world shithole.

[quote] People generally find their corner and stick to it.

I was thinking that looking at these lovely photos. Last time I went to 'west' London was to see Winder Wonderland in Hyde Park. I think live in the corner alluded to by R96, which I happen to prefer.

What should I do to prepare for 4 days in London?

Do I need to reserve ahead for any cool places or do I just join the queue? See, I’m already joining in. Haha, the Berlin Chancellory required 5 days and the White House was 6 months, IIRC.

No time for the Jersey Zoo. I’m afraid. If I were a rich man, liddy diddy...

Op/R22 - is that running from Camden Hill Road down towards Ken Church Street ? From the corner where the Windsor Castle pub is ? I could well be wrong. I really haven’t been back to that particular area since I sold the place.

Most of your photos are familiar. I used to live at the top of 33 Gloucester Walk.

R54 - As my late partner was in television/theatre even chatted with Patricia Routledge on Kensington Church Street.

I was staying in Paddington last night and walked from there through the parks to Lambeth this morning. Loved it, bar perhaps the herds of cyclists. But it was the very start of the day and everyone was headed to work.

Strangely, not one person flung acid in my face which I’m sure will disappoint the ‘London is shitty and dangerous’ trolls on here.

I owe everything good that happened in my life to the city. Came down when I was in my early 20s and never looked back.

Thanks again for the photos. Enjoy the summer !

[quote]Op/[R22] - is that running from Camden Hill Road down towards Ken Church Street ? From the corner where the Windsor Castle pub is ? I could well be wrong. I really haven’t been back to that particular area since I sold the place.

Yes, it is exactly.

[quote]Strangely, not one person flung acid in my face which I’m sure will disappoint the ‘London is shitty and dangerous’ trolls on here.

Yes and fainted from the pollution. Had a nervous breakdown from the grey skies and were blown up in a muslim riot attack.

Everywhere's a shithole on DL...apart from New Zealand, of course.

Anyway, those gurls take their fun where they can find it.

I visited London in the 90s. I happen to like the fog so it was perfect.

the London fogs were long gone by the 90s.

R102, how is that possible? Muslims?

Where do you walk on sunny times

When the rivers gleam and the buildings shine

How do you feel when the pollen falls

And the summer clothes brighten gloomy halls

Finally this week the forsythia, camellias and magnolias are blooming here in the Hamptons. Still pretty cold, though. Next week it will be @80 degrees in NYC. Not here, though.

[quote] Jealous, bitches?

Yes, yes I am. I'm a New Yorker who loves walking around London.

What did you have for breakfast, op?

A much belated Spring in NYC - but finally blooming trees and warmth. London definitely wins in the Spring - much more greenery and low rise. Thanks for the pics - and saving me a few thousand on a Spring trip.

What are the best breakfast/brunch spots in London?

R105. False. London behind the High Court with muted barristers in wig and gown floating through the evening fog is magical.

BTW Brooklyn may have cooler/warmer temps than London, but it hasn't got the unforgiving winter wind and sleet that I find most disturbing.

I think you to have grown up with gloomy weather to live in London long-term. Most Australians can't handle it for the long-term. Even when it's sunny, it's still a dull sunshine.

The area wedged between Kensington Gardens and Holland Park is to me the most beautiful district in London, rivaled only by gorgeous Hampstead. All you need is a few spare million pounds.

OP, seen any good stabbings lately? Better clutch that handbag tight after dark before the moped gangs appear.

Chelsea Kensington and Belgravia are London. The rest is too damaged by post war blight. Or are so far away, they are really like suburbs. My opinion as a regular visitor. Even Notting Hill is overhyped - some nice streets with a lot of ugly mixed in.

My first trip to London in the 1990s and I was sitting my first morning at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe in Holland Park having a cuppa and crumpets and who strolled by?

Dame Judi Dench, striding down the street completely nude except for a pair of high heels. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

OP is deeply tiresome.

DL isn’t a olace for you to dump your snaps, dear.

(rolls eyes)

[quote]Chelsea Kensington and Belgravia are London. The rest is too damaged by post war blight. Or are so far away, they are really like suburbs. My opinion as a regular visitor.

Well you haven't been around enough. there are many lovely districts.

Try Islington.

Islington #2

Barnsbury

Barnsbury # 2

Primrose Hill

Hampstead Heath

Hampstead Heath # 2

Thank you for new ideas for strolling next time I visit. I’ve done Hampstead- though it was a little far out there from any active nightlife, restaurants and cool spaces (cruising aside).But Islington looks interesting and close in.

[quote] I’ve done Hampstead- though it was a little far out there from any active nightlife, restaurants and cool spaces

Hampstead definitely has plenty of restaurants - I'm not sure what you mean by cool spaces.

Not really, OP. It's just a multimillion-pound house that most of us, including you, will never be able to afford. For most people, housing in London is crazily over-priced.

Turnpike Lane

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

^ That's the Tottenham Independent, not the Independent! Tottenham has one of the best high streets in the country, according to the article.

Shepherds Bush Market.

Very nice. Rustic, even. For Shepherds Bush.