Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Greenwich meal time

On the weekend we went to Greenwich to see Ricardo's nice niece Louisa who is over here from Australia for 4 days looking for work. She was staying with a friend who lived there. It took us a few hours to get there as the traffic was down to a crawl because of the weather. We went early though so that was alright so we could get to the observatory for a good look 'round. It was a perfect example for Louisa of a typical rainy London day although the longer we were there the more it brightened up.
The observatory was sensational and I wish we'd set aside a lot more time. Here is Ricardo standing where time begins at 0 degrees.
There is a spectacular view, we're not used to such vertiginous drops living here in Norfolk.
Here are a couple of views of the elegant Georgian interior too.

Richard had read the book called Longitude by David Sobel and had told me the stories about how long it took to make the time pieces that eventually solved the problem of how to find longitude when aboard ship including the hilarious wounded dog theory. The 'H4' timepiece that eventually won the prize is an amazingly elegant and contemporary looking watch whereas his first trial called 'H1' was as big as a small table.
So we had had a great time already by the time we got to see Louisa but we had even more fun with her and her lovely friend Owen at a nearby pub called the Gypsy moth, great food and really nice atmosphere, we stayed yacking there until about 5 or 6 pm. Lousia is a geneticist and both brainy & beautiful but also completely down to earth and great at explaining things like Sex Determination & Gonadal Development! Really nice to see her.

4 comments:

Roxi said...

yay! lucky lou lou.

GinaLamour said...

Jo...I live in Greenwich too :) I can't believe I havn't even blogged about it yet :) I suppose it's just home to me and not a tourist hotspot. So pleased you enjoyed it and really love your pics :) Gina x

JoeyJoJo said...

Thanks Gina. It's always the way isn't it, that if you live somewhere then it's just home really until someone from further afield opens your eyes. My advice is go to the observatory this weekend and observe, then give us a blog post about your findings. xx

GinaLamour said...

Haha...You're right. :) I must go with Toby. We went years ago but it's just always there...too easy :) I will definitely make the effort and blog sooon . xx