My school is next door to Somerset House that, in the winter, features an ice skating ring; a very pricey ticket it is to use it's facilities.
So as stuck in the semi-cold -- still in the 40's here most days (about 4-8 degrees celsius) -- I decided to watch the people in the rink. They were just preparing the ice when I got there and within two minutes people were allowed on it.
A lot of people fell. I was surrounded by 'spectators' looking on, most to make light-hearted fun at those who were not any where near professionals. It was fun. I conversed with an older English man who was next to me -- probably in his 60's -- who laughed as one boy fell. I don't remember what we said to one another. I am horrible at recalling events. Dialogue in particular is never remembered by me. It was a typical jovial chit-chat with someone who happens to be next to you.
As it was night-time and my camera is-- for lack of a better word -- shit at night, here is the best picture I could "summon":
Somerset House, whose origins I do not know, I figure, nonetheless, since it is a very large mansion in the middle of London that features the most famous ice rink in the city, has to be steeped in a rich, interesting history. It is of three connecting sides, the side in front shown in the picture, then a wing on either side, like a half-courtyard, so that one side is open for an entrance that is not barred by a door or building. The Strand, and the busy street, is only a few steps away. A not so hidden-away picturesque mansion in London, next to my modern college on the one side and (if memory serves me correctly -- although we've already stated that it is rather rubbish) some kind of food store on the other.
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Almost every night I take a walk along the Bank of the river. It is dark by 4:30, which is what time I usually come home from wherever I have gone that day. So I eat dinner, maybe do some proper book reading, & rubbish about on the Internet for longer than I should.
There is a Christmas festival on the bank now and being Saturday night it was loaded with more people than usual. I've been to all of the stands many times, so tonight I walked past them without a glance. Half of the bank is filled with people/festival commotion, the other half containing the National Theatre and park-like trees, is relatively uninhabited, except near the BFI where outside there are picnic benches where people drink beer and sometimes eat meals that they've purchased inside. Can I just say that I love how people drink beer outside pubs and restaurants. It seems to combine the city experience -- which is so insular and chaotic -- with the homely. You walk down a street, looking at the buildings, shoppes, rushing traffic, as you do, and then come across a pub, many of which are down a side street, leading one can only imagine, to come across a pub called The British Arms, or The Coach and Horses, with people packed inside, many forced to go outside once purchasing drinks to sit around tiny round tables or on benches or, when all else fails, stand with pub glass in one hand.
I usually walk to the end of the bank that looks directly out to the City, St. Pauls rising above the rest of the buildings, some, if they were of a literary turn, might write, defying the modern buildings -- such as the Gherkin beside it.
It is interesting that every night I walk along the bank and always pass the three long tables of books that are stationed there. There are huge black, I would suppose heavy, luggage cases that are stationed along the railing of the bank where the books are placed every night, safely locked up, to only be taken out again in the morning. From very early in the morning until about 8:00 at night they are on the tables. The people who you pay for the book are always very far away along the railing; the books are in the middle of the walkway, so that I think it wouldn't be too difficult to snatch one up without paying. I never bother to really look at them, even though sometimes I'll be in my room and think I would like to read something, to only go on amazon, when I could simply walk a few blocks from where I live and pick up something cheap.
Well, the whole purpose of this section of the blog -- which is now much longer than I intended, which makes me fear that the reason I have written will have no "shock and awe" quality to it, since it is but so small -- is that I did see an item, a little nugget among so many large ones, in a box, still left out, although many of the other books were in the process of being put away. Goldsmith's Poems it is called, although an essay or two is also included. It wasn't because I had just read about him in a book I am reading for one of my essays -- Raymond Williams's The Country and the City -- but because it is so small (I do love small books) and clearly from the late 19th or early 20th century (although I'm pretty sure the former; it doesn't say) that I had to pick it up. The lettering inside is ridiculously small, even one with perfect vision would tire of it after a minute. It smells as a much older book does, one that's stood neglected on a shelf for 20 years. Some pages nearly falling out and the first few very dark, possibly water-stained. A small hole in the first page; otherwise crumpled. In short, a delightfully old book that just by placing in your hands you feel, not to be too unrealistically passionate, but really as though you are a part of the journey of this book. It can be a transcendent experience. A book produced over a hundred years ago should be picked up by you, along some anomalous bank. It's nothing to get too worked up about, but just something that enters into your head a little, if you're like me.
I tried to show it's size but I don't think a photo will do it justice:
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