After Rochester it was time to catch up with my oldest friend Simon and his wife Charlene. When you have two people in your life as important and as close to you as these two it's hard being on the other side of the world but happily at our three year reunion it was like we'd never left. We spent three days with them, mostly drinking, and had a great time (aside from the trip to watch Arsenal lose to Chelsea.) Then we went to Crystal Palace Park, of which there will be more later.
Crystal Palace Park is the parkland that surround the former site of The Crystal Palace, a cast-iron & plate glass building originally built for The Great Exhibition of 1851, moved to Penge in 1854 (yes taken apart and rebuilt somewhere else) and destroyed by fire in 1936.
Post-fire the grounds seem to have been largely abandoned, without even a monument or plaque commemorating the fallen icon of the idustrial revolution. It does however still feature the Victorian stone dinosaurs (again there's very little information on display, the local council are really missing a trick with this stuff,) a maze built to commemorate the Society of Girl Guides and an urban farm.
And so ends this series of catch up posts, thank you for being so boring Vienna.
Nawwwwww, I am loving your holiday happy snaps.
ReplyDeleteRather than a postcard, could you please steal me the pig from the urban farm? That would be lovely. I think I have a bit of a crush on him.
Let me know when you guys get back here!
I am obviously, though anonymously, missing you both!