When I was in school and university, during English class, we always used to read about London in books and learn topics that would contain such ideas as: "London is the capital of Great Britain, it is foggy and it is pouring with rain every day". I lived here for five years and I will assure all of you "living in the dark" of this crazy stereotype that London has a wonderful climate.

On average, I would say the weather is good. Of course, what happens to me a lot, is that I will look out of the window, see clouds, take my umbrella, only to find out by the time I come back that it wouldn't rain. On other days, when the sun is shining and the sky is clear, you leave umbrella at home and come back with a soaking bra. That is probably why English still find the weather topic such a fascinating one! However, summers are lovely and warm!! I even managed to get a smooth tan without even trying! London was foggy back in, what, 19th century? But the fog is gone and Jack the Ripper is hopefully dead by now too!
On the other hand, when I complain about the cold, my English friends tell me: "Why are you complaining? It must be freezing in Russia with snow everywhere. You must be used to this weather" And I think to myself "Really?" I am not going to speak about everywhere in Russia, but in Moscow for example, we see a clear change of seasons. In winter we have snow, in spring we see disgusting melting snow coupled with beautiful blossoming flowers, in summer there is the sun and in autumn we have multicoloured trees loosing their leaves and some rain. The summers are usually very hot and thank you Fates, I am stuck in London! +35 degrees in the shade at 9 pm? Road-workers digging up roads at night because it's too hot too work during the day? And craziest of all, forest catching fire because of the burning sun!
In the picture you can see Moscow at 7pm: the vision is only clear in the nearest 100m.
WHO IS FOGGY NOW? Huh?

 Hits: 79   Read Comments (1)

Chelsea Flower Show 2010

The famous Chelsea Flower Show took place in the Royal Hospital grounds (not far from Sloane Square tube station in London) this spring from 25th to 29th of May, 2010. Tickets were sold out very quickly, however, many people came on the day to resell them, so after a 15 minute wait I managed to get hold of a ticket. To be honest, I was not sure what to expect as this was the first time that I was attending Chelsea Flower Show. Naturally, I suspected that there will be flowers… but actually the theme that would describe the show best would be ‘countryside garden’ as many stands were dedicated to garden decorations such as metal statutes, water fountains, summerhouses and others. There were also many artists who were selling paintings of flowers or cards with flowers drawn on them, a hat stand, wind chimes, jewellery

and various other stands and objects… It was arranged in the following way: around a huge marquee in the middle which contained all the florists were little stands with people advertising statutes, summerhouses and other outdoorsy things.

Inside the marquee, one could see many tulips, roses, mini-trees in the Japanese style a.k.a. bonsai and even a strawberry stand from Ken Muik… I really enjoyed a huge stand with a beautiful variety of cacti all blossoming with flowers of various colours and Indian inspired display with gold statutes and flower-made dragons.

Amongst different catalogues that I took I found a ‘rose catalogue’ from ‘Harkness’: I would top ‘East park’ and ‘Bloom of Ruth’ as my favourite 2010 ‘new-comers’ – its petals on the outside are white and gradually going pink as you get to the middle of the rose and going peach respectively with the latter looking more white and delicate overall. They have rich aromas and get relatively large according to the catalogue. Many other beautiful roses are presented to accommodate every taste. I would drag your attention to the ‘Double Delight’: each petal goes from pale yellow at the root to the crimson red at the corners creating a very unique rose in my view.

 Hits: 51   Read Comments (0)

"London in photos" photo gallery is in the process of being developed; keep logging to see for updates regularly!

	London in photos. If you are already living in England, planning to visit London and the UK or just browsing through the Internet, welcome! I have lived in London for a while now and here I have gathered a little amateur collection of photographs of famous and also not so famous London sightseeing. Please register and add your own photos to make this photo gallery bigger and complete!

I hope you will find it very interesting looking through my amazing photos collection which will encourage you to develop this warm attachment to this city – the one, which has inspired me to take so many pictures and create this photo gallery.
There are different directories: London events (Event photography), attractions, celebrities, landscape and parks, 360 panoramic photos, hidden jams.
My major goal is to create a community for London fans – to gather pictures of its different places to visit and maybe give an idea for those who haven’t visited it yet of what they are missing! There is also a forum – there, we can discuss different coming up events, problems which might arise if you are planning a visit, best places to stay, cameras, weather (how can I forget the weather?!) and many many others...

 Hits: 409   Read Comments (0)