A Winter Wander to A Winter Wonder

On Saturday I joined 60 other people to take a Walk London "Winter Wander" tour. The guides were so shocked that our group was so big because they said they usually have much smaller numbers. It was probably such a good turnout because we were blessed with another amazing day with blue skies and sunshine! The Mayor of London and Transport for London sponsor these free walking tours every once in a while to get people out and about in the City. They had over 25 walks on Saturday and Sunday to choose from, and so I opted to take the "Exploring Seafaring London" (an Urban Amble) because I wanted to stay on pavement. It was really cold, but really worth it.

We started at City Hall and walked 3 1/2 hours on the Thames Path to Greenwich. I thought this area along the river looked like a small city port, not right inside London city limits.
New Concordia Wharf- where public hangings used to take place

Near St. Saviour's Dock. The stones you can see were part of a castle and it used to have a moat around it.
Brunel's Engine House-which is now a small museum where the first tunnel was built connecting the two sides of the Thames in the 1800s.

Jill- one of our guides

The surprise of our tour- a farm in the middle of London! Surrey Docks Farm has a turkey, chickens, rabbits, pigs, horses, donkeys, cows and they just were awarded money for a mobile farm to be able to take the animals to local schools.

Statue of Peter the Great at the edge of Greenwich


Walking into Greenwich

When I got out evening church service on Sunday night, everything was white! We had been warned that we were going to get hit with an Arctic Blast, but I didn't imagine it snowing and staying.

This is how you make a snowman when you live in the middle of central London! This was sitting on the stoop by our front steps when I got home last night.

I took this picture at 9:00pm last night...scroll down for the next picture to see what it looked like this morning.

We got over 8 inches of snow!

The public transport system was A MESS today. The buses were not running and the trains were either suspended or severely delayed. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to get to work, but today it took me 2 1/2 hours. So much for someone I met on the day I moved to London that told me the City never gets snow.

When I got to the hospital, they couldn't believe I had trekked all the way in from Notting Hill Gate. (Since I have only been working for a little over 3 months, I figured I had to try!) Only 3 of my colleagues were there- and we were told to leave by noon so that we wouldn't get stuck there without a way to get home. I made Megan and Sharon pose in a picture for me since I had come all the way in on this crazy day.

Waiting for my train.

At least the rest of the afternoon was a Snow Day!

No wonder there were severe delays. It had stopped snowing about 9am, but then started back up around 11:15am and did not stop until 5pm. It was the first time in 20 years that London has had so much snow.

Finally- the Metropolitan Line!

And when I arrived home, the snowman had GROWN! :)