I took a Virgin train to London, speeding through the yellow fields of the Home Counties to the West End. Butterflies always start to flutter in my stomach around Watford Junction as the farmland is replaced by proud Edwardian townhouses backing onto the tracks, and in places you can still see the blackened Dickensian underbelly of the old Victorian city. A quick flash of history, and suddenly Euston – the station that welcomes me to my native south. The excitement is instant: the people, the noise, the buzz…
Cool Britannia!
The whole of London is red, white and blue! You would never guess that up until recently, any overt display of national pride in Britain was associated with political extremism. Fortunately we’ve reclaimed our identity with the double whammy of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic games. It’s OK to wave The Union Jack again, and believe me, everyone’s waving them. It’s been called the Union Jack since 1600 and I think the word Jack has a certain swagger to it, representing the British character: a cheeky kind of resilience, a spark of tenacity beneath our famous reserve. You might hear some apologists calling it the Union Flag, but quite why anyone would want to snip away part of our heritage when the Torch has only just arrived is beyond me.
You’re going to be seeing an awful lot of Union Jacks over the next few months, wherever you are in the world.
the vibes 
Love the article that goes along with this post – the pictures are pretty great too!
Thanks, Shannon. There’s more to come!
I love that yellow field, and the clock. Wonderful and bright!
Cheers, Cassie. The fields are lovely, they just flash past when you’re on the train and the colour is gorgeous. I don’t know how I managed to get that picture without too much speed blur, but I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out.
I go away for 2 weeks and you’re blog goes mental! And i notice you’re a brand now.great pix as usual.
Yes, you missed the party! I doubled my hits, had famous people commenting and won two more awards. I’m not a brand, I just bought my own domain name and started watermarking my pictures – after all that exposure I’m taking things a bit more seriously 😉
Awww this post makes me miss London even more.
The field picture is amazing and so are the others.
Loving your post. Keep them coming
I’m sorry you’re missing London! I’ll post some more pictures from my trip soon 😀
I’m not in London.But I know what you feel about going into London. In fact I should do it soonish, and maybe go to Hyde Park to a concert before the “madness” kicks off.
Yes London’s great fun, but I can see it’s going to be impossible to get around during the Olympics. And the hotel prices have already gone up! We were going to bid for tickets to the closing ceremony, but that’s just silly! Hope you get there soon 🙂
I can see this is going to have to be my place to turn to for any upcoming Olympic news. Love your photos. Sounds like a really exciting place to be around now!
I think I might avoid the obvious stuff, but I might do a post on Mount Olympus in Greece – where it all began. Had two very nice holidays in the lap of the gods…
That sounds great – now you’ve got me in suspense!
Great post. I agree it is so nice that it’s cool to be British once more.
Hi Rachael, it’s definitely the Year of the Brit.
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