Greenwich [mean] Time

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
Steve Jobs

A day for browsing today after all the excitement yesterday.  The museums beckon, and one which I last visited when I was 13, a mere 50 years ago - the Imperial War Museum - is first on the list.

I've had a charmed life in comparison to my grandfather, who served in WWI in India and then at the Somme, before returning to the joys of coal mining as the industry was about to crash following the war to end all wars.  So getting a sense of perspective on his life, for my family history story, is helped by immersing myself in the museum exhibitions.  Museums have changed much since my early teenage foray, and I found the personal perspectives in the exhibitions poignant and moving, which perhaps is only to be expected given the passage of time.  Have the exhibitions changed or have I?  In some respects I know I haven't, because after a couple of hours at the IWM I was ready to head for Borough Market, where I was told there would be a cooking demo [free food?] and plenty of choice on the stalls.  And so it was, plenty of street food to choose from - I opted for chicken pad thai with a drink from the juice stall, R went for an Egyptian dish.  Nothing quite like squatting on the pavement eating street food to sharpen the taste buds and enhance the whole experience.  Quite took me back to my brief visit to Bankok when I packed up the day job nearly twenty years ago.

Refreshed, we headed for the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, which was a new one for me and a bit "lighter".  I loved doing the old Airfix kits as a boy, the sailing ships and tea clippers.  Very romantic and nostalgic of course, nothing like the reality of the press gangs, scurvy and horrendous lifestyle aboard for the ordinary seamen.  We walked back to get the bus, past The Cutty Sark, down into the depths of the Greenwich Tunnel and popped up the other side.  But I also enjoyed the setting, the architecture is refreshing too, and that's what took my eye for today's photo - a couple sitting on a bench just taking in the view across the river.