The view outside my window

This is what I see when I look out my window.

It's not as romantic as what might be possible in a city with this much history, but I'm pretty lucky I have a view at all! That hill in the distance is Hampstead, I think.

Last night I watched 10 minutes of fireworks just to the left of the little power room or whatever it is on top of the building next door. Very cool.

One of the hundred reasons I love London, or any old city actually, is that there are so many hidden alley-ways, spooky staircases, mysterious towers and windows that seem to look out of nowhere.

Since my brain is steeped in Hollywood musicals, everytime I look at an interesting roof here, I can see sooty little chimney sweeps, dancing on the tiles, or Mary Poppins floating down to an attic window. I imagine what might have gone on on that roof, who might have snuck out that window, or who were the people that went down that alleyway everyday a couple of hundered years ago.

So I went on one of those walking tours of London. I chose the Hidden London tour, which took us through tiny alleyways and old market streets which maintain their name but have long stopped selling anything. We saw old guild mansions which used to fight each other. We went to several tiny churches and to several old chruch court yards where there was no sign of a church anymore. There were secret gardens, with grape vines! Yes, smack in the financial district! It was great, because you can decide at the last minute to do one of these tours. You just have to show up at the tube station indicated and pay the guide. Very cool.

I also read up on the history of Bloomsbury, which is the name of my neighbourhood. Bloomsbury is most famous for being the home of Harry Potter's publishers (yes, it's right around the corner.. now you know why I moved here! ) and for the Bloomsbury Group, which was a group of writers and artists that lived and created here from 1905 to about 1940 and included Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, among others.

But it was famous for me because it was the setting for all sorts of books, such as Vanity Fair, by Thackeray and quite a few other regency-period books, which I love.

I keep looking at these townhouses and imagining the parties that went on upstairs on the first floow, the servants going through the basement level, the tiny rooms upstaris in the attic.

Parties were on the first floor and that is where the windows are largest and you will usually find a balcony of sorts. Guests used to go in through the front door and as in several movies that portray those days, they would go upstaris to the first floor, where the most lavishly decorated rooms would be. Then the adults would have the second floor as their bedrooms and parlours, while the servants and kids shared the third floor and attic.