Open garden weekend and tennis.

We did a few things this week, another opera at Holland park, Open garden and a tennis tournament.

We went to the Opera on friday night and saw Mozart's, Don Giovanni

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni

It was another great night out.

Friday and Saturday we got tickets for the Open Garden weekend. This is the only weekend where we can go in the private gardens in London. We had had a good time last year and this weekend wasn't any different. On the way to our first garden we passed the site of the first YMCA. 

 http://www.ymca.net/history/founding.html

As you can see this is not the original building.

This is another of the many sculptures in london. I could not find the meaning or reason for this one being put on this building. 

One of the gardens we went to was St. George's Gardens.  This was an 18th century cemetery that has been converted into a garden. This had a history for grave diggers.

http://londoncemeteries.co.uk/2011/07/09/st-georges-gardens-2/

The headstones were moved to the side of the garden.

and they left the larger tombs.

The statue of Euterpe, the Muse of Instrumental Music came from the Apollo Inn. It was given to the Gardens when the pub was demolished.

It was a sunny day so there were people working on there tan-in a cemetery.

Next to this garden was nursery school, this also had head stones on the outer edges. 

They had a banner up with questions the kids would ask.

and a spot to put there wellingtons---we call them boots in the states. 

Lee and Coach checking out the lowered sinks.

A walk down Leigh street

and on Leigh street was a Cast Iron Radiator store. Another store that looks odd to us but is normal for london.

We were walking to another garden and we passed this building. We don't get tired of the architecture here.

We found another park to walk thru, this one is called Spa Field---there is no Spa there.

This was  great place to take a break from the heat. Prosecco and cheese for Lee and I, Coach got water and dog treats.

He was happy for the break.

More sun bather were in this park also. As we were sitting there, military aircraft started to fly over. After a while I said "Why is there so many, is it the Queen's birthday." It actually was the Queens birthday and they were doing a fly by----it's good to be the Queen.

This is my lovely enjoying a much needed day off of work.

Time to start walking again, on the way we passed this wall mural. 

Another sculpture, not sure of the meaning for it. But someone got payed to make it.

A dragon boundary marker, this makes the boundary of the City of London Corporation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_boundary_mark

http://hidden-london.com/nuggets/city-of-london-dragons/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation

This area is called Beech Gardens

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/city-gardens/visitor-information/Pages/beech-gardens-barbican-estate.aspx

It's a newer apartment complex that has a garden and each apartments have balconies with planters. As you can see, you have to plant flowers in your planter to keep up with everyone else.  

The garden is on an elevated walkway, very modern and enjoyable to walk around.

Yes,  it was time to take another break, this was the hottest week ever in London.

After the break we headed home, while catching a view of St. Paul's on the way.

Sunday was another day of gardens and another hot day. This garden also had a tennis court on the property. This was a private garden and the only people allowed in were the houses that surrounded it. 

This garden was also for the people in the houses around it. The developer wanted people to have more interest in the area to sell houses, so he

put a church in the middle of the garden. This is a view of what half of the garden looks like. The average cost of a house in this area is $5,500,000.00 US dollars. But you also get a private park.

A closer look at some of the flowers and plants, a lot of them we have never seen before.

another view of the church.

We saw a few more gardens, one that was used in the movie Notting Hill, a community garden plot and a lawn bowling club. While walking to see them we passed near a recent 25 story apartment that had burnt. Seeing this dampened our spirits for the day, it was a fire that should have never happened. It was clearly an area of the haves and have nots.

We headed home, Coach was done for the day and so were Leanne and I.  We decided to have one more drink to end the day. 

Coach was done for the day, to much walking and to much heat.

Leanne had bought 25 a new cat toy and she was in heaven.  For two days that's all she wanted.

She even slept with it.

Tuesday we went to the Aergon tennis championship. The great thing about this tournament was it's less than a mile from our house.  This is a warm up for Wimbledon that will be in a few weeks. We got there at noon and were able to watch three singles and two doubles matches.  This picture is one of the doubles matches, the Bryan bros. vs  Tsonga/Dimtrov---The Bryan bros. won in two sets.

And it was sunny and hot, we did get burned a little.

Time to go, at least we know which way is out.