Bucket list time!

[sabotabby]

So much walking up hills. So worth it.

First up: Hampstead Heath. For someone who walked up multiple mountains last year, I am awful at hills. But I am going to be so fit when I get back home, omg.

Then Bucket List Item #1: Highgate Cemetery.

If I had to come up with the names of two men who are among the reasons I turned out this way, you would find both of those people buried here.



Note: No other gravestone has a lot number. Someone just put it there.

Douglas Adams sparked my love of sci-fi and British humour and as a wee tiny child of 8, I had most of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy memorized, even though at 8 there was no way I could have gotten all the references. But it was my favourite book for years and years.



I left a pen on his grave. It’s my only pen, so I guess I’ll have to get another one on the way home.

And of course, the big man himself, and I imagine I don’t need to explain why visiting his grave was the top thing I wanted to see in London:



(I have many other photos; I am sparing you b/c I am nice.)



Bonus Malcolm McLaren as he’s there too:



Then we went on a Hidden London tour of the abandoned station at Highgate. It was meant to be a Big Deal but war and economics interfered, and it was decommissioned. Now nature is reclaiming it and the city has decided to just leave it alone and let it be a sanctuary for endangered bats.



I have a lot of other pictures of it too, but for some reason Flickr isn’t allowing me to upload anything horizontal, so you’ll have to wait to see those after I edit them.

Then we went to Manuelita, a play about Manuela Saenz, a Latin American revolutionary and lover of Simón Bolívar, which was excellent and surprisingly entertaining.

Now I am off to bed.

Comments

[dewline]

Weird, that issue with horizontal image files. I haven't had that issue with Flickr!

[sabotabby]

Neither have I. Just on my iPad, and just recently.

[dewline]

Wondering if it'll happen if I start using Flickr's Android phone app. Laptop-uploaded images display just fine.

As for the actual content....

Mr. Adams' grave: that was a motivated fan behind that lot number marker, I suspect. Also, I had the phrase "Need a pen? Take a pen. Have a pen? Leave a pen." running through my brain there.

Regarding Mr. Marx: this is probably as close as I'm ever going to get to visiting myself. Impressive.

Highgate Station: bats certainly need the help these days, too. Not a bad choice.

[nostalgia]

McLaren's grave is so extra, I'm sure he'd approve :)

[joymoose]

That quote is surprisingly inspirational.

[sabotabby]

Right? I did an artsy one on my other camera that’s just a close-up; hopefully it worked as I need it to put it where other people have “Live, Laugh, Love” plaques.

[ironed_orchid]

This is why we're friends.

[sabotabby]

I’m surprised it wasn’t more punk rawk, but the quote makes up for it.

[rdi]

The crest on top just makes it. The quote is good too.

[kore]

Oh, man, all the pens made me cry.

[sabotabby]

MY HEART

[joymoose]

Douglas Adams grave is just right. :)

[sabotabby]

It was apparently just plain and then people started adding pens. Which. Yes.

[minoanmiss]

*raises fist with you*

[sabotabby]

I have probably too large a collection of fist-in-the-air grave/monument/mural photography.

[minoanmiss]

TOO large? No such thign!

[sabotabby]

I’m being a wee bit ironic here. :)

[mistersmearcase]

It's weird I didn't end up into sci-fi/fantasy as I was OBSESSED with Hitchhiker's Guide. Knew a great deal of it too, I think. Cried at the death of [spoiler] in a later book. I read very little in the genre thereafter.

When I saw a picture of you in a cemetery in England I thought "um, how is she going to photograph herself doing THAT?"

[sabotabby]

Oh, I too cried at that. Related to that particular character quite hard for some reason..

Doing what???

[mistersmearcase]

Tramping the dirt down or otherwise paying your respects!

[mistersmearcase]

Now wondering if we discussed the particular character death before. Identified hard. Got very sad and when my mother asked me why I was moping burst loudly into tears.

[sabotabby]

I don’t think we have, but also, I think it’s Understood in a big way. Adams gave us all a gift with that character tbh. Like even at 8, I got it.

[ironed_orchid]

I miss Douglas Adams.

The abandoned station at Highgate seems like it would fit into a Rivers of London story.

[sabotabby]

It does. I’m surprised it’s not in one, actually.

[pofflewomp]

Yes. I always as a child hoped to and still do hope to write such.
There are quite a few stories set there I think. I can only remember a Ruth Rendell crime one, but there's a list somewhere.

[dagibbs]

Douglas Adams and Karl Marx -- that explains so much!

:)

[sabotabby]

There’s my personality, right there.

[cloudsinvenice]

I like the thing with the pens. That's fitting.

[sabotabby]

It made me a bit more hopeful about humanity.

[pofflewomp]

Yes I love that all the lost biros have gathered to bid him farewell. :)

When I visit the cemetery I also pay tribute to George Eliot as she was a formidable intellect and inspiring strong woman.

I breastfed my buggle on Marx' grave hoping something good would come of it in a mystical sort of a way.

[pofflewomp]

Oh I was there too! I swim on the Heath most free days.

The abandoned station was a special childhood haunt for me.
I used to creep up in terror, listening for screeching ghost trains.
The mental hospital wherein many of my friends have resided at one time or another backs the cemetery and Marx peers in on the secure wards at night.

[sabotabby]

Really? Wow. I don’t know if I’d feel better if I knew Marx was watching me or not.

[pofflewomp]

Yes. There was a storm one night when my ex partner was in there about 10 years ago and he phoned me and told me how the trees were swaying in gales and Marx' head was appearing and disappearing behind madly flapping foliage and freaking out the patients, sparking heated discussions as to the whys and wherefores of this giant head glaring at them amidst the thundercrashes.

[sabotabby]

Now that would make for an amazing short story.

[notasupervillain]

Awwwww. I was so sad when Adams died.

[sabotabby]

I was a mess.