A little pause in the travelogue, somewhere between France and Belgium, to come back to California. I drew this in June, the building across the street from where I work. It’s the Earth and Physical Sciences Building, drawn for a colleague from that department who retired at the end of June. There’s the water tower in the background. We are right now in the midst of a long hot summer, I’m not really a fan of hot weather. I actually drew this from a photo (you can usually tell), though I’ve drawn this view a few times from similar angles. This one was from a photo taken in the middle of the street. The building has big rocks outside, all around the edge, because they study geology here (in the Earth and Planetary Sciences department). I sometimes wish I’d been a geologist. Actually I say that, I don’t really, but it is an interesting profession. We didn’t have geology at my school, at least not when I went there. Some of the older boys at the school talked about having taken geology at some point, but it seemed like something long gone in our school curriculum by 1987, and we just did boring old chemistry, physics and biology. I think we did learn about rocks in geography, come to think about it, but I probably thought that was boring too. My son likes geology, and when he was smaller and had to come to my office during summer breaks in years past we’d sometimes talk a little walk around this building to see the big rocks.
It was nice on my second and final morning in Lille. The rain had stopped, the sky was bright with patches of cloud, and the sketchers were still everywhere. I walked over to the little patch behind the Treille cathedral, as drawn by pretty much every urban sketcher in this whole Rencontre, and drew the colourful little houses. These narrow little buildings reminded me of the ones I had drawn in Liege a few years ago. As I sat on the little bench, more and more sketchers came and started drawing (there is just one in my picture, there were at least seven or eight just in this view by the time I stopped, but I’d alreayd drawn that bit). I spoke to a couple of them in French, exchanging tips on pens and other art materials. I was going to draw the cathedral itself but the morning was already getting away from me. I had booked a train ticket to Brussels for later that morning.
I did get a couple more quick ones in. This is a Lille fire hydrant, because I have to draw a fire hydrant in each town. I think I have drawn ones like this before in France. You might like to see a Flickr album of my hydrant sketches. Below, a sign I spotted outside one of the ‘estaminets’ (restaurants) nearby, with an example of the local ‘ch’timi’ dialect. It says “Qu’o qu’in minge ichi? Des vraies frites d’ch Nord Chti Miam!!” Now I know you’re thinking “haha, a rude word”. What this actually means is “What can you eat here? Proper fries from the Chti North, yum!” Or something like that. It was time to move on from one place that does great frites to another place that does great frites, Brussels. See you en Belgique.
It stopped raining for a little while after lunch. After walking about the back streets of Lille in the steady drizzle to find a restaurant to sit down in and enjoy some ch’ti region food, with little success (most of the outdoor seating had closed up due to the rain, and places were generally full inside at lunchtime) I ended up eating at the cafe that was that day’s “hub” for the urban sketchers, near the Treille cathedral, and just had a fairly small snack. I ended up chatting with some German sketchers I bumped into, such as Basel-based Tine Klein who I had met at previous symposia, she paints dramatic watercolour sketches I really admire and was talking technique with her friend from Berlin. I didn’t see any of the other sketchers I know, I was planning to join them in the evening for the drink-n-draw (or rather “drink-n-look-at-amazing-sketchbooks”). So after lunch I went back to the hotel to dry off, and when I headed out again the rain had stopped. I headed towards the train station, Lille Flandres. I couldn’t remember if Lille Flandres was the French name for Ned’s wife, on the Simpsons. In the road leading up to the station, Rue Faidherbe, there are these big green sculptures, so I stood next to one and drew the Gare itself. It opened in 1842, known then as just ‘Gare de Lille’. I spent a lot of time in European train stations when I was younger. In the summer of 1998 I took a five week trip around Europe with a Eurail pass, carrying the big Thomas Cook Rail Timetable book with me, but I never passed through Lille Flandres. I love a train though. I got this far with the station and that was enough, because the rain was back.
I crossed the street and took shelter in the awnings of a closed cafe. The rain wasn’t heavy (yet), and I felt quite contented. As a resident of Davis California I don’t see much rain any more, so it’s still a thrill to get a downpour, even one that stops me sketching wherever I want (spoiler alert – it rained a lot more on this trip, I still made the best of it). I still had a decent view of the rear of the Eglise St. Maurice de Lille and I couldn’t resist all those triangular turrets. I plotted it out and started sketching, and then the heavens opened up. I’m assuming someone in the heavens left the bathroom taps on. The rain was the heaviest I had seen in a pretty long time, and it was getting hard to really see. It was also being driven in towards me, so I was still getting wet, though not as drenched as those dashing down the street. Well, I thought, no point in trying to draw in pen, so I gave up and went to the next page, and added a wash, before adding in what details I could with the paintbrush (below). Not the sort of thing I usually get to draw but I definitely enjoyed it, and it definitely reflects the mood of what I saw more than the line drawing. I left the original sketch as it was, that’s part of the story.
The day’s urban sketching exploration was over though, so I jumped from shelter to shelter and dashed to my hotel. I am glad I stayed in such a good central location. It wasn’t a fancy hotel, just a regular Ibis, but the room had a desk which is something I always look for in a hotel room, as a sketcher who sometimes has to finish stuff off.
In the early evening, I walked out to the citadel park, to a little bar where the Sunday night meeting of French urban sketchers was going to take place. There I met with people that I knew from sketching trips gone by, such as Sophie Navas, Vincent Desplanche, Mauro Doro and more, and enjoyed a beer and looked over some amazing sketchbooks. We then went on to meet with my Belgian sketching friends Gerard Michel, Fabien DeNoel and Arnaud De Meyer, as well as French sketchers Martine Kervagoret and Lolo Wagner, it was great to see them all again. There were some others who I did not know as well, and others whose art I was very familiar with such as Jean-Christophe Defline and Sylvain Cnudde, whose work I have been really loving for a number of years (his sketchbook is even more amazing in person, I tell you). We had a quick drink at a cafe, before many of us went off to find some dinner at a place big enough for an urban sketching evening. Aux Moules on Place Rihour was that place, we ate in the large room inside and the staff were very friendly. I did do some sketching on the paper placemat (as did others), and also drew a panorama. Sophie (who I had first met briefly at the Strasbourg USk France Rencontre in 2015, and who now lives in Strasbourg; her sketches are great and she also designs excellent posters) did ask if I minded that everyone spoke French (she knows my French is a bit rusty) but I said that I loved to listen, and that I did understand most of what was being said, but I probably couldn’t join in to speak as much! Vincent Desplanche had copies of his book of sketches from Japan to buy, I snapped that up.
My sketch on the placematsketches by JC Deflinesketch of me by Sylvain Cnudde
My moules were great, the beer was nice and it was fun to meet up with old sketching friends (and listen to some French, if only occasionally speaking it!). It had been another long day, so I went off to bed and fell right asleep. Next day I would be off to Belgium for a few days of sketching and exploring.
The sudden storm from the night before turned into a steady shower through the night and all morning in Lille. I don’t mind, I like the rain, and the day before had been very sunny. On rainy days when travelling with a sketchbook you do have to be creative, and open to the fact that maybe you will need to sketch inside a lot more, or just have a different experience. I live in Davis California nowadays, so rain is a proper novelty. That said, I went out for breakfast pastries in the morning, and I just had to try and sketch the bakery. Paul is a chain, but the bakery still looked like a good sketch. However there was very little shelter across the street, so I stood back to the wall holding my sketchbook upright and drew what I could, adding in some colour when I got back to the dry hotel room to eat my pain au chocolat. Oh man, French pastries for breakfast is still my favourite thing to wake up. Although on our second trip to France in July, I could tell my wife was getting a bit bored of them. I particularly like the pain au chocolate aux amandes, the one with almonds in it, it’s delicious. Big fan of an escargot as well (the sticky raisin-filled pastry shaped like a snail’s shell).
As I say, you have to be creative as a sketcher when it rains, and you also have to seize the best spots before they are taken. Here at the back side of the Notre Dame de la Treille cathedral in the middle of Lille I found a shop on Rue de la Monnaie that was not open but still had its awnings out, with a good view down the alleyway leading to the bluish-grey hued church. It was raining steadily but not yet too hard, and generally people weren’t under umbrellas. Another French sketcher came and started sketching underneath the awning too; events like this are nice because there are so many sketchers around and they all say hello to each other, and you get to see other peoples’ styles. Some more passed by, evidently looking for a dry spot. Several French sketchers I had met were seeing Lille for the first time, like me, though I did speak to a local while drawing this as well, he was telling me about how he loves living in Lille. It’s a nice place (and in a great location, so easy to get to London…). Though as with everywhere else in this part of Europe, you get used to the rain. I spent a year in Belgium, I saw my fair share (it rained a lot more there than even in London).
Next up, I stopped at the interesting-looking Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse. While I didn’t go inside the museum itself (I’m here to sketch outside! Rain be damned!) it was interesting to walk around the courtyard and some of the grounds. There is a big purple ‘cosmic serpent’ sculpture as you go inside – two serpents, actually – but it was just too wet to really draw those. There was a small covered area in front of a corridor facing the courtyard, where about four or five sketchers had installed themselves on various little stools. There wasn’t much room, but I squeezed in out of the way, and held my sketchbook vertically to attempt to draw the clocktower. It looks like the two serpents are waiting for someone to come and let them in, or out. The rain was pouring down by this point. I listened to the other sketchers talking in French, they had some very nice art styles. Behind us there was a corridor leading to the Jardin Médicinale, and I could see someone drawing what looked like a little figure with a pumpkin for a head. The sketcher left, and I drew the corridor with pumpkin man at the end of it. He looked a bit dejected, poor pumpkin head. I walked down to the little garden, and it was full of similar figures with pumpkins and other such vegetables for heads. Very realistic little people they were, with believable poses, doing things like watering the plants, or climbing a ladder – I drew that guy quickly. They are called Minitos, and were made by Jean-François Fourtou. according to the Lille 3000 Utopia site, this project originated in “a tale that the artist recounted to his daughter about little characters who lived underground in their garden, digging labyrinths and growing things in the vegetable garden.” I enjoyed being around them. The rain kept on coming down though and I was getting hungry (though maybe not for pumpkin soup), so I went to look for lunch.
Saturday evening in Lille, I had dinner outside at a little restaurant near the Port de Gand as it got dark, eating a delicious ‘ch’timi galette’. I did keep seeing these things on the menus of all the ‘estaminets’ in the area called ‘Welsh’, which is apparently a local specialty. The descriptions I was given made it sound like they mostly had ham in them so I gave them a miss, as I don’t eat ham, but will look a bit harder for a non-ham one next time. I was out by myself, and I wanted to try some local Nord-Pas-de-Calais beer before heading to bed, and there was this one little place called ‘Bierchope’ that looked inviting. I could tell as soon as I walked in that this would be a sketch, though you don’t see all the bottles behind glass along the wall behind me. This place had a ridiculous selection, specializing in all the beers in that part of France, so I sat next to a group of people all chatting in the northern French dialect, ordered a really nice beer called ‘Beer Choper’ (the label was amazing), and got the sketchbook out. Within minutes, a massive rumble of thunder. Outside, rain started absolutely belting it down. Minutes earlier I had been sat out there at a table with a galette wondering what a Welsh was, but I’m generally lucky when it comes to these things. The downpour was so heavy and sudden, the noise of the rain was almost matched by the panicked patter of feet splashing down the street for cover. Well, I guess I’m in here for the evening. Flashes of lightning raised a few eyebrows as they reflected through the bar. The bartender was very friendly and played great music. All along the stairwell were framed illustrations of other bar and cafe scenes, not too dissimilar in style to the way I like to draw. When I’m relaxed like this and in a good mood, the drawing really comes easy and quickly. I had had a good day of sketching – it’s never enough, I always need more drawings, but this was a good way to round things out. For my second beer, I went to the barman and asked his opinion, what local beer should I drink? Without even asking what I liked, he grabbed a bottle from the fridge, opened it and handed it to me, a beer from a local brewery with a name like ‘Piggy’, I don’t remember exactly. It was ‘coconut flavoured’, he assured me. A bit too much so, for my liking, but I bought it and I drank it. Not sure of the coconut connection to the coal mining towns of the Ch’Ti region but I suppose when it’s stormy outside, it reminds you of being in the stormy tropics, on a beach somewhere. I really liked this place, and this was my favourite sketch from Lille. Had I not been travelling from north London since 7am and wandering about Lille with a sketchbook all day, I might have stayed for another beer recommendation, but my bed was calling, and I had a full day’s sketching and exploring ahead of me the next day. Just before I left Bierchope, the rain completely stopped. Perfect.
I arrived in Lille by Eurostar and was immediately overcome with a pretty happy feeling, the one I always used to get when arriving in a foreign country. I had all the time in the world. I was in Lille to attend the Urban Sketchers France Rencontre Nationale, a huge gathering of sketchers from all over France and neighbouring countries, just to sketch everything, not a bunch of workshops like the Symposium, it’s just all about sketching and gathering. I last went to one in 2015 in Strasbourg, one of my favourite cities: https://petescully.com/tag/usk-rencontre-nationale-2015/, and have always wanted to come back to France and sketch again. I usually know a lot of the people that come to these ones, and I have to work on French; this time I didn’t really tell many of my francophone sketching friends I’d be coming, mostly because I wasn’t 100% sure myself that I would make it. After the past three years, along with the family events happening in London (the day before was my dad’s birthday), I had low expectations of this trip actually happening, so I didn’t want to go making plans. So it was really funny when I first arrived in Lille just after lunchtime on the Saturday and was looking for my hotel, when I bumped into sketching friends Fabien DeNoel (from Belgium) and Vincent Desplanche (from southern France), drawing a complicated building across the street. That was a nice surprise! Fabien told me that Gerard Michel (his uncle and one of the urban sketchers I’ve known since the very start, I stayed at his house a few years ago before the Amsterdam Symposium) was sketching in the main square, but I could not find him. My hotel was very close to the square, which is pretty big, and so after putting my things away I went outside and drew the scene above, from right across the street. That is a very similar view to the one I did in my Virtual Tour de France last year (a virtual sketching project I am still working on, very slowly – I have had two real visits to France since starting the virtual one). The huge Beffroi of the Chamber of Commerce is impressive. Lille is an impressive place, and I can’t believe I’d never visited before, given how close it is to London. The station where the Eurostar stops was only a short walk away from the centre-ville, and the city had a nice buzz about it, a ‘first weekend in June’ kind of feel. I could see sketchers dotted about all over the place, I didn’t see many other faces I recognized yet, but I could walk past Godzilla and not notice. I passed through the Place du Theatre past the opera – there was a big musical performance happening outside. There was a pretty lavish looking building opposite – the Vieille Bourse – that I passed through, there was a courtyard in the middle with booksellers and a bunch of sketchers, and on the other side was the Grand Place du General de Gaulle, a big busy square. There were people with sketchbooks everywhere. I found a shaded spot under a tree directly facing the Bourse, and took to sketching all those windows. Other sketchers I spoke to in the following couple of days had also been sketching all those windows, so many windows. Every window counts! But they really do seem to multiply as you start drawing. As I was sketching, the Grand Place became more and more colourful, as this was the weekend of Lille Pride. They came through at just the right moment, a way to break up the monotony of drawing so many windows.
It’s hard to draw so many people moving past but I gave it a go! It was a very musical and entertaining parade, so colourful (using the waterbrush you have to be quick doing the colour changes) but thnakfully some people did stop for a bit so I was able to sketch them for longer. There is one sketcher on the edge of the picture, she was stood to my left, I think she was from Paris. My favourite sign was the one that read “Mieux Vaut 1 Paire de Mères qu’un Père de Merde” (“Better to have one pair of mothers than one shit father”; the pun works better in French). There was also one guy I sketched who kind of reminded me of Timmy Mallet. I wanted to draw the large elephant that was passing by as well (not a real elephant, just a massive painted model) but it went by so fast all I could get was a brief sketch of it from behind. Once the parade had all passed through, I got back to sketching the windows of the Bourse. I do enjoy drawing parades and marches, because it’s an intense quick piece of work and you have no idea how it will go, or what is most important to draw bigger or smaller, so all you can do is draw reactively and see how it ends up, and however it ends up, that is the experience. That said, I’d not been around so many people in a while – well, at least two days, since the Jubilee, a different crowd with more blues and reds and royalism – so my crowd panic was in there, and at those times I need to be drawing something to stay relaxed. The colours and music and festive atmosphere helped though.
It was a pretty warm afternoon, and so I wandered off for a cold drink, and found one of very few places that sold Pepsi Max, and sat outside to draw the view below, looking towards the thin tower of the Hotel de Ville. I like the distinct style of the towers on buildings in the far north of France, it reminds me of passing by places like Calais on the coach when I was young, along with the unusual water towers dotted around the countryside. I used to say I would love to write a book about those water-towers, and draw them all, but actually when I think about it, no I wouldn’t, I’d rather do something else with my time. I do like this particualr tower in Lille though, it’s comically thin, like a belfry that’s been on a diet. I enjoy drawing these streets, and if you look closely, some of the buildings look like the French flag.
I looked up where the early evening pre-dinner meeting of sketchers was going to be, and I walked over there but most of the people had left. I did see another sketcher who recognized me from one of the London sketchcrawls a few years ago, and a few other faces I wasn’t sure if I remembered. I didn’t have a ticket to the main dinner event and planned to meet up with my French sketching amis the next evening, so I just went back to the hotel, and rested my legs before heading out for dinner. The sky was grey by this point – rain was coming in – but the early summer evening light meant i had to grab one last outside sketch, so I drew the distinctive dome of the Hotel Carlton. I would have liked to have stayed here, but I saved a few Euros and stayed at the Ibis instead. The sunset was not so dramatic, but the light had a dramatic effect on me so I interpreted it like this – it may have been shades of sunlit grey but this is how it felt. There’s a lot you can do with a grey sky. I only needed the outline and a column of details down the middle and the sketch was done, this is all you need for the mind to fill in the rest, but this also makes the main focus stand out. I was quite proud of this sketch. The day being done, I went off to find some food.
So anyway, the Queen had yet another Jubilee, this time for being Queen for 70 years, which is a record for an English monarch. British monarch too I think. It’s a long time. I think that is to do with modern medicine, but then Victoria was around for ages and she lived in the Victorian age. Elizabeth I also went on for what seemed like ages, and that was in the Elizabethan age, which was probably disgusting. In terms of the all-time world monarch list, Queen Liz Two is actually second only to Louis XIV, the French ‘Sun King’, who is one of only two monarchs on that list to get a song on the Beatles album Abbey Road (the Queen was the other, making an unnamed appearance in Her Majesty). She recently overtook Rama IX of Thailand and Johan II of Liechtenstein (both kings in the 70 year club), though the latter uses the same theme song as our Queen Bess. In two years Elizabeth II will take the crown from Louis Quatorze, assuming she is still with us and we haven’t started the Short Reign Of Charles III yet. Then again, there is another king who was king for 82 years, Sobhuza II of Swaziland, who was king of the country when they became independent from British rule in 1968, so I guess the records are like, well before that date doesn’t count. Well they do count, and Lillibet is going to have to stick around cutting ribbons and watching horses run fast for another 12 years to beat his record. Nevertheless, there was a lot of celebration for Her Majesty’s Platinum album, 70 Greatest Hits. It’s a little strange to think that she was the Queen when the Beatles were still at school. She was the Queen when England won the World Cup. She was the Queen the last time Wales played at a World Cup. She was the Queen when the M1 motorway opened. She was the Queen when the band Queen was formed (will they have to change their name to King when she dies?) The Platinum Jubilee celebrations were scheduled to take place while I was back in London (no, I didn’t go back there for that), though I was leaving for France in the middle of it. My mum loves all that, and she decorated the house in union flags, the most in our street. There was no street party this time, unlike for the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 (and the Silver Jubilee in 1977, though I was only a baby), but not the Golden Jubilee in 2002. It’s like we alternate when we have them. Maybe we will have one for the 75th Jubilee, which is confusingly also called the Diamond Jubilee, or the 80th, which is disappointingly called the Oak Jubilee. Imagine that, the Oak Jubilee.
On the Thursday that the celebrations were to begin in London and elsewhere, I went with my mum down into central London to watch the flyover and walk about in the crowds. We went to Trafalgar Square to await the Red Arrows and all the other planes from the RAF (I do love seeing the planes, I must admit, I’m a sucker for a Spitfire). It was busy alright. We were outside Charing Cross Station, and I sketched the crowds a bit (above), while my mum went into the little Sainsbury’s to see if she could get some wine and a sandwich. That was not an easy prospect, the place was packed. So I said I would go in there for her, and I braved the squashed throng, and while there were no sandwiches left, I did get her a bottle of prosecco and the last plastic cups in the shop. I needed some time to recover after that, I don’t like crowds in small places, so we sat on the step and drank the wine, and eventually the planes flew over and everyone got excited. You couldn’t get anywhere near the Mall. We walked down to the Ship and Shovell pub to use the loos, and then just wandered about towards St. James, up Pall Mall and down Piccadilly. There were people from all over the country, all over the world actually, maybe the universe for all I know. It was a historic occasion, but I was glad to not be around for even more crowds and pageantry, and TV shows about the Queen, and so I went to France to do some sketching.
On the first day of June, which is always a good day in the calendar, I took the tube down to Battersea to meet up with friend Simon, who was flying over from Dublin that morning for a few days. I say I took the tube down, well this being classic London, I left in good time only to find the Northern Line was down, so I had to get a bus to Queensbury to jump on the Jubilee Line. Can’t escape the Jubilee. Incidentally that Jubilee Line was named for the Queen’s 25th (Silver) Jubilee, which is why it is coloured in grey. This year it was the 70th (Platinum) Jubilee, and they named the new Crossrail after her, the Elizabeth Line (that was actually her mum’s name, Elizabeth Lines-Bowen) (I think they missed a trick by not renaming Crossrail as “we-are-not-amused-rail”, ok maybe not). Anyway silly jokes aside, I was hoping to see the new London underground station on the Northern Line, Battersea Power Station Station. That is actually its name. It is the tube station for Battersea Power Station, so therefore it is Battersea Power Station Station. However, once me and Simon met up, at Vauxhall Bridge, we never found it, as we were catching up on three years of silly jokes. It was a fun day out we had along the river, and then up into Chelsea, and the clouds were incredible. He’s a pro photographer and got some great shots – follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/naderissimo/ – and I started some sketches, very much in the ‘finish these later’ category. I had not drawn Battersea Power Station before, I do want to draw it from the other side of the river sometime, but it has all been redeveloped in recent years and is all a bit fancy now. I notice that the Urban Sketchers London had a sketching event down there recently, part of the ten year anniversary, as many Battersea Power Station sketches kept popping up on my feed, making me want to go back down that way. I haven’t really explored there before, so it was an eye opener.
We walked down through Battersea Park, where I have not been for many years, until we took a rest by the Albert Bridge (above). I drew this bridge as an illustration for a book years ago, the “London Walks, London Stories” book in about 2008 or 2009, so I was keep to draw it in person. Not super easy, so I drew the main bits, the main outlines, and drew in the rest of the details later. We were busy chatting. Albert Bridge is named after Queen Victoria’s dead husband Prince Albert (I mean they are all dead now aren’t they, the Victorians), and is one of the best and most charming bridges in London. Lots of things are named after Prince Albert, you’ve got the Albert Embankment, the Albert Hall, the Albert Bridge, the Albert Memorial, Albert Square, and of course the Prince Albert, which I won’t elaborate on further. We crossed Albert Bridge and wandered about Chelsea, looking for one specific pub that Simon knew about, and I can definitely say I got my ten thousand steps in that day a couple of times over. Still at least we got to look at some cool shops and see loads more colourful Jubilee displays, including this union-jack-themed mini. Simon used to have a very beloved mini, so I just had to draw this, though now he lives in Dublin he probably wouldn’t drive this particular one about. There were so many interesting floral displays along the Kings Road, we spent a lot of time taking photos (and being silly of course) before resting with a pint in the old pub he was looking for, and then heading over to Harrods (I got some delicious cannoli). One thing about this trip, I did explore a fair bit of London I either hadn’t been to before, or not been to in years. It’s like a book you can keep coming back to and learning something new, but because it’s the city where I’m from there’s always a connection.
After visiting the Classic Football Shirts shop in its new location on Commercial Street, I decided to take a walk down to St. Katharine’s Dock, near Tower Bridge. I hadn’t seen any football shirts I wanted to buy, all the really classic ones were out of my price range, although the pound is very weak against the dollar so maybe I should have gotten that 1992-93 light blue Spurs 3rd kit I’ve always wanted. I ended up buying some socks (one pair themed like the 1984 Belgian shirt, and another themed after Roberto Baggio’s 1994 Italian kit), and having a hot chocolate. It was the last day of May, it wasn’t cold but wasn’t hot, it was good London weather, and the weather was about to turn wet. I walked through the east end, taking photos of old pubs I would draw later, but didn’t have time to stop and draw now. The clouds were looking a bit ominous. I’d not been to St. Katharine’s Dock before, at least not since I was a kid and can’t really remember that. My mum likes to go there for lunch, and another mate had told me about the Dickens Inn, and it looked like something I should draw. So I walked about the pretty little docks, there were some boats I thought about sketching, but I sought out the Dickens Inn instead. I found a good spot with a classic red phone box in the foreground, and started mapping out the sketch…and then the skies opened up. It wasn’t so bad, but I had to find something to stand under. So I stood inside the phone box! Yeah this is great, what a story. No, that was uncomfortable, and the phone box just got a bit steamy, and what if someone needed to use the phone? Oh right, it’s not 1994. Anyway, I found a better spot, underneath a tree, this time with a classic red postbox in the foreground. I abandoned that fairly quickly, trees aren’t actually that good at keeping you completely dry, plus I thought I heard a rumble in the sky, though that might have been my tummy. I don’t stand underneath trees if there’s thunder, thunder famously hates trees. So there was the awning of a nearby building, this time with a classic gas-lit lamp-post in the foreground, yes this will do. I drew for as long as I could, which turned out not to be as long as I would have liked, because that rain, man, it kept on coming and just got heavier. I’m almost flat against a wall with little keeping me dry thinking, just do this later yeah. So I dashed inside to dry off.
It’s a big place, the Dickens Inn. It wasn’t super busy but there were quite a few people in there, several American tourists (probably why all the tv screens were showing baseball), and a lot of wood. The website says that “it is believed” to have been built in the 1700s – the building, not the pub, this being an old warehouse, maybe a tea factory, just east of where it currently stands. “Years later” it was turned into a tavern. That would be in 1976, so it’s not as ancient as you might think, being as old as I am – we would have been in the same year at school, but it probably has better eyesight than me. It’s not called the Dickens Inn because Charles Dickens used to drink there (this being the one pub in London’s Zone 1 that Dickens apparently wasn’t a regular at), although “Dickens” did drink there, that being his grandson Cedric Dickens who opened the pub. There are Dickens references about, as seen written on the beam in the sketch I did above. It was very nice in there; the windows were open, and outside the rainstorm grew heavier, the rumblings of thunder grew louder, and I had an afternoon of not needing to be anywhere thanks, so here I stopped, eating a pub lunch and having a couple of nice pints, and of course getting the sketchbook out. Bliss. This was the first London pub I was sketching in a long time. I wouldn’t mind coming here again some time.
When the rain slowed down a bit and I was done with sketching, I walked over to Tower Bridge and crossed the Thames, and enjoyed an ice cream in the rain from a proper ice cream van. Ice cream vans in England look like ice cream vans; the ones in Davis, not so much, more like creepy child-catcher trucks with scary jingles. I had a 99 of course (they cost a lot more than when I was a kid), and walked along the river in the rain, before heading back to the Northern Line. Have I mentioned that I love London?
I had a few nice family days in London, went to my older brother’s wedding, met my younger sister’s baby for the first time, ate some lovely breakfasts after discovering that Richmond Irish Sausages now come in a chicken sausage variety. Yes please guv. I must point out, I gave up eating red meats (beef, pork, lamb) when I was 12, and one of the only things I regretted giving up were the Richmond Irish Sausages. I bloody loved them. But they had to go. So when I was in Asda and saw that they had a chicken variety, well, that was discovery of the century. They were so good. Anyway, breakfasts aside, I took another day out for some London sketching, and went down to St Pancras. I was headed towards Classic Football Shirts, always a destination when I come back, but now in a new location near Aldwych. Outside Kings Cross, I had the most delicious lime and coconut doughnut (wasn’t cheap, was well worth it though), and then draw the road between Kings Cross and St Pancras, towards the latter’s famous gothic station facade. The sky was fairly ominous; we would have lots of rain later, but this is England, where the weather can go either way, but rain is never off the table. So I had to paint the sky. Across the street, unseen in this (unfinished) sketch, there was a queue of people stretching almost a mile long. I asked a station worker who was managing the line what it was for. “Eurostar!” he said. Delays caused by staff shortages, too many people travelling, the Jubilee, all sorts of things. I was worried, because I was going to be taking the Eurostar myself to Lille just a few days later on Saturday. How long were these people in line? “Three hours at least,” he said, clearly having a miserable day at work; he had my sympathies. I asked what time he advised I come for my 10:30am train on Saturday. “Jubilee weekend? When the station opens, I’d say, if you are lucky.” That would be at 5:00am. Right. Oh well, I thought, I’m glad I asked. I hope his day got better, he was very helpful. So I’d have to show up five and a half hours before my train? Phew. My ticket said to arrive 90 minutes early. I’d have to leave Burnt Oak at what, 4:30am? Would there even be a tube? I’d have to get the night bus, and we all know how I feel about those. Doesn’t feel right if I’m not eating cheap greasy fried chicken, and wake up at the wrong stop. Tant pis, as they say in France. If I end up not getting to France, I’ll get more time to enjoy the Jubilee. I was determined to get that train.
The main reason I’d stopped at St Pancras was because I wanted to visit St Pancras Old Church. I’ve never been there before, but had seen pictures of the graveyard and thought, I should sketch there next time I’m in London. So I walked up to find the church, and a man seated just inside the gates asked if I needed any help. He told me that unfortunately the church and the grounds were all closed for an event for the next few days (Jubilee related? Not sure but probably) which was a bit disappointing, but there’s a lot of London to draw so I wasn’t too miffed, there’s always next time. I did try to draw the church from outside the fence, looking up, but to be honest it was a weird angle and I wasn’t super comfortable, so I gave up and headed for the tube.
I’ll post the rets of the day’s sketches next time, but wanted to keep on the St. Pancras theme by posting the next sketch which is actually page 1 of the following sketchbook (landscape sketchbook #43 if you are following along; check out petescully.com/sketchbooks for the full list!). So Saturday came, the news was all about travel chaos at the airports and stations, and did I leave at 4:30am? No I did not. I left at about 7:00am, thinking you know what, I’m not daft. When I got there, instead of desperate queues and confusion, the hall was empty and orderly, and there was a sign for each scheduled Eurostar’s line to start, with my one not opening for a good hour and a half. Plenty of time to just hang about, and do what? What would I possibly do with all my time? So outside I went and sketched St. Pancras Station again, from a bit closer up. This is a very detailed station that requires a bit more time a touch of patience and a lot of good eyesight, and out of those, two out of three ain’t bad. I wasn’t right on the street level so nobody bothered me, and I was done with time to still wander about the shops and get a snack before my journey to Lille. Travel lucky again.
You know I always wondered who St. Pancras actually was. We used to see that name on the Underground map when we were kids and laugh, because it sounded like ‘pancreas’, and since we had no idea what body part the pancreas was, we giggled because it was probably a rude part. The Underground map is actually full of possible naughty double-entendres, none of which I would have understood when I was nine, but still sniggered at “St. Pancreas”. Apparently St. Pancras was from Phrygia but moved to Rome and was beheaded when he was only 14, just for being a christian. To paraphrase Stewart Lee, “These days mate,” Roman chariot taxi drivers used to say, “they arrest you, lock you up and chop your head off just for saying you’re a christian.” This was in fourth century Rome, under the persecution of Diocletian, so they totally did, even though he was only fourteen. So now Pancras is the saint of children. And years later, children in London (such as I) would laugh because his name sounded a bit like a rude part of the body that isn’t even rude. It’s a funny old world.
Next up, more London sketches (with more completely sensible history). I’ll leave you with a joke. “‘Scuse me mate, how do you get Kings Cross?” “Forget their birthdays. Hahaha.”
petescully 