Monument, Rain & Cameron Diaz

On Monday, we met for our usual weekly meeting and exchanged stories from our trips. Some of the group went to Ireland, most to Scotland, and one person to Paris to propose to his girlfriend. It started off a fairly sunny day so I took advantage and went to Monument, designed in 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the Great Fire of London and celebrate the rebuilding of the city. It is a giant Doric column with 311 winding circular stairs (with no landings) that is 202 feet high. From the viewing platform, you get a nice aerial view of Tower Bridge, City Hall, the Thames, and Lloyds of London. I spent the afternoon visiting green spaces for my independent study project, researching possible destinations for our next break, and hustling in the rain to make another glorious evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

While we are getting a few glimpses of spring and warmer weather, we still have days like today where winter slaps us in the face. For a class project we went en masse to the village of Shere which is about an hour’s train & bus ride southwest from Waterloo station and unfortunately when we got there, it was pouring rain and very cold. This made wandering the village in the rain and mud to document the intricacies very unpleasant (especially since some people didn’t bring their brollies) and an hour later, we found it more enjoyable to sit in the pub and drink warm things. (As a side note, in England there are a gazillion pubs with colors and animals in the name and I can never keep track of them… true to this, the pub in Shere is called The White Horse. We have also seen The Black Lion, The White Swan, The Black Elephant, The Brown Goat, The White Dog, The Purple Pelican, etc. I generally cannot keep them straight and thus refer to all pubs as The White Elephant.) I also had bangers and mash today for the first time, which is basically several cooked sausages on a bed of mashed potatoes covered in gravy. It is to England what haggis is to Scotland but unlike haggis, this is pretty good!

Unbeknownst to us prior to our arrival, a portion of a major motion picture is being filmed in Shere… the pub is right across the street from the filming site and there were bright lights set up, all sorts of security, and tents everywhere. Cameron Diaz is in this movie and she actually came right into the pub to use the restroom and walked by our table! Rumor is that Jude Law was there as well but, much to the Interiors girls’ disappointment, he did not make a similar appearance. We thought it was crazy that they’d be filming in this teeny tiny village with just three streets on the same day we were there. It was definitely a highlight of this very cold and wet day. After today and the days I spent hiking waterfalls in the rain in Oregon with Chris before I came over here, I have decided that I really must buy some rain pants!

Our workload is starting to pick up again but we are running out of weekends to make trips out of the city so hopefully this weekend and next we will make it to Canterbury, Bath, Cambridge, etc. We have discovered that if we travel in groups of 4, we get a 50% discount on train fares! More soon.