My northern perspective on London.

More images from my tour of London, Canada, as promised you in an earlier post “No not that London — the other London” (April 7, 2005).

As a young immigrant child I lived in the East End of London (E.O.A.) [Read “My youthful biker memories from London EOA” (April 13, 2005)]. As a screwed up teenager, my family moved to the West of London - Wharncliffe Rd. near Blackfriars St. We lived within a good stones throw proximity to the Blackfriars Bridge. I did a watercolour painting from the levy of the Thames River of this bridge at night; its cool (well Prussian blue) . I’ll be sure to give you a glimpse and talk about the painting on this tour or you can see it now by clicking here. As an adult, I have lived with my wonderful family in the Northeast of London for some 20 years. I got hitched when I was 30 and moved into this home with Maria 20 years ago.
The entire time I have lived in London, I have always lived in the north end of the city. Be that Northeast, North-West, North, or central. Even when I lived downtown, I lived north of the Thames River, the CNR railway and just south of Dundas St., which are used to determine the boundaries from North to South. I have known the city most of my life from its northern perspective looking south to the Thames. I have lived in London such a long time that I know every vista well: east, west, south or north but the north face view is my most familiar.

Looking south at London's downtown from Brescia College. U.W.O.

As a “high” school aged, mixed-up teenager, I would travel by this vantage point on a daily basis: Sarnia Gravel Rd. at Western Rd. I used the public bus to make my way to “high” school at Sir Fredrick Banting H.S. (Funny, I’m now a diabetic and I owe so much to Banting – thanks for the dope). I learned quickly why they called it “High” school. All those rich kids, with their oodles of cash, would smoke joints in their daddies cars in the school parking lot all day – that’s hard to do on a public bus “Hey driver can you pull up to the back of the school then chill a bit, maybe smoke some reefer.” NOT gonna happen! It didn’t matter much, as I hadn’t the scratch anyway, so I couldn’t have afforded the weed even if I wanted to smoke it with a bus driver! Yes, I have issues with money – I don’t have any, damn it. I hated high school and the coming of reason as I became a man –> some other time, it’s just too long.

This hill is located behind Brescia College of The University of Western Ontario (U.W.O.), on the southern perimeter of the property. It became a frequent visiting place for me as a teen. Not only does it offer a great view of the city but before the recent development and expansion of U.W.O., it was also a relative quiet place. So much so, that up until recently a local farmer still grew crops on the hill.
As a young teen, I would often sit on this hill thinking about the meaning of life: why my life seemed to hurt so much. I’d pray do yoga, meditate, or smoke cannabis, all the while looking out at the city or inwards to my perceived broken soul. I never had an epiphany, any liberating thought, or paradoxically a mountaintop experience, on this gentle sloping hill, just views both inwards and outwards.
It remains one of my favourite vantages to view our city because of its proximity to the core and the monastery were I work. This picture was taken a week or two ago. The leaves of the trees had still not sprung to bud. If the leaves were indeed out, you’d see why this city is called a Forest City, as you looked out over the green foliage to the downtown. I will show you more images in the time to come to convey this forest aspect.
Regrettably, because of the limitations of my camera, the above image does not correctly convey the entire vista, as I know it. Because of the focal length of the cameras lens, I can only show you a portion of the whole view as you would see it sitting here with me. When I put on a wide-angle lens, the camera puts you further back in perspective and the downtown core is incorrectly miles away, as seen in the image below.
Nevertheless, these two images together do make my point. The top one shows the city as it would be sitting there and the lower one shows you how large an expanse this vista from the hill provides for viewing London, Canada.
If you came to visit me I’d take you to this hill, night or through the day, it matters not when.

The same view using a wide-angle lens, then merging three digital photos.

For my cynical friends in New York – no they don’t sell tickets to watch paint dry here.

I hope I’m not boring you all to tears with this London shite and if you’d rather see my favourite pictures of New York City then visit my website by clicking on this link. I must admit the view from my New York Studio was somewhat more impressive in terms of cityscapes.
Then again, I also truly love it in London because my family is here, we live next to a park and a large woodlot, we have no fences, the city is forested, the clean air the forest provides, it is a safe place to raise children, we live close to the great lakes and most importantly our very civil Canadian society – bless them when they take care of me.