Evening amble

I caught bus #159 at Marble Arch after work tonight and rode down to the stop after Trafalgar Square, on Whitehall.  I wanted to take pictures in the soft light of dusk around Big Ben and the Women of World War II Monument/ Memorial. 

I know that I wrote about that monument last year so I won't rehash except to say that it still moves me a great deal.  Tonight as I walked around I thought about the fact that I like that the artist did not include face detail.  By omitting the facial details, the piece is universal in its woman-ness.  There is no layer of ethnicity to hamper identification.  I love the movement of the clothes, different hats, the tilt of a head, the accessory detail.  I walked around and around taking pictures.

(Side note -- the BBC is showing something other than boxing.  They just replayed the race where 2 Turkish women meddled in the 1500 meter run, gold and silver.  The country's first ever gold in "athletics" or track and field as we call it.  I wonder if my hubby knows?)

Back to the women.  I walked and thought about women and the roles we play, jobs we work, the identities we lose or grow into during our life as circumstances change and the garments we wear to hide or flaunt our identity.  I think I wrote this already, but I saw a cartoon recently that showed a woman in a tiny bikini walking past a woman covered from head to tow in black.  The word balloons for both of them said something like, "I'm so glad I don't live a male dominated society where you have to dress like that to impress/please a guy."  Right?  It depends on one's perspective.  I'm not sure how all my ideas were connecting in my head, but they were milling around.

(I'm so tired of boxing.  The BBC channel 1 should be renamed Boxing 24/7.  This is the channel that shows Olympic boxing live, followed by boxing replays, followed by boxing highlights.  Then in case we missed it, shows the bout all over again.  But I did hear an announcer use the work "bamboozle" during the telecast tonight.  That was a first.  The 30 second highlight of the women's 1500 must have been gone on too long and the executives started boxing withdrawal.  So now, back to boxing.)

I took more pictures of Big Ben. 

Then I crossed the street and took a left at the Embankment.  I stood leaning against the stone wall, watching the lights on the Aquarium and the London Eye turn blue.

Then I tried to capture the lights of the city.  I didn't always find the light quality that I wanted, but I had a good time.

I walked home via the Birdcage Walk and Buckingham Palace.  I was amazed at how many other tourists were there taking pictures at 9:00 at night.  But then, there was safety in numbers.