Around the block

There were signs of spring in the village this week:

Daffs at the Hall (thanks, Kate and family for planting those; they're really cheery for everyone walking past, and you can't see them from the house...)

Across the road, blossom on the tree by the church:

And some forsythia.

And here's some more forsythia on the same day, in a slightly different setting: the pods at the top aren't seed-pods - they're the topmost people-pods of the London Eye.

Wandering along the South Bank, you do see some strange things: yes, it is indeed a "living statue" in Charlie Chaplin/Hitler make-up, a policeman's uniform, a tutu and a truncheon...

Or Big Ben seen through the legs of a semi-skeletal Dali elephant...

And a photo I've been wanting to take for a long while - Boudicca, implausibly dressed in diaphanous robes, by Westminster Bridge and Portcullis House.

She looks great - three storeys high... Until you see her from a distance, and realise her relative size in the landscape. Which is, I guess, why the Iceni never stood much of a chance.

There's an urban myth that Boudicca is buried at Kings Cross; it's a nice metaphor for the hopelessness of trying to get from East Anglia to London on mornings like last Monday, when the process took 5 hours... A chariot with knives on the wheels would have been seriously welcome; and quite possibly quicker...