Bank Holidays - what to make of them? Sometimes I idly call for their abolition, and usually find someone points out their importance in Labour history. For workers compelled to work long hours in factories six days a week and forced to attend church on Sundays, Bank Holidays were a rare day of rest. Of course, just like Sundays traditionally, there's a downside to being 'off' when everything is closed.
I don't think that Bank Holidays have any great use in Britain now, other than as opportunities for the marketing of conspicuous consumption. People who are paid strictly on attendance don't get paid; the salaried are obliged to take the day off whether they wish to or not. When I was working part time, my annual leave and public holiday entitlement were aggregated and pro rata'd, so whenever a Bank Holiday fell on a working day I begrudged having to use what I perceived as Annual Leave.
Anyway, many people don't get the day off, just as many people work weekends, evenings and nights. The late May bank holiday falls during the school half term, so makes little difference there. Anybody who appreciates the extra day and wants to go somewhere - the seaside or a visitor attraction - finds that enough of everybody else has had the same idea. My grandfather and step grandmother always used to go out on Bank Holidays, in order to sit in traffic queues, rather than go to the same place on any other day of their well earned retirement. This year, with neither of us working Mondays, the late May Bank Holiday ought to have felt like just another day, to be used or ignored according to the weather.
Ah, the weather. An English bank holiday without 'weather' would be as odd a roast beef without Yorkshire pudding. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't what you would call hot. Or warm. Not raining, but dull. Just miserable.
Lacking inspiration we went off to Dulwich Park a very nice but unexceptional park not far from home. By this, I mean, it's lovely to visit but probably not worth travelling to visit, especially not from another area of London which probably has its own very nice unexceptional parks.
A surprising and impressive display of rhododendrons, just approaching the end of the line. These are in the so-called American Garden. I have searched the internet to find what is special about an American Garden but to no avail! But the internet does tell me that rhododendrons are not particularly an American plant.
There was a funfair in the park, poorly attended but disproportionately noisy for its relative importance. I understand why councils feel the need to get such events into parks, in order to benefit from the fees, but they probably drive away just as many people as they attract. I would imagine that such travelling fairs are very pricey for people with limited spare funds; the richer Dulwich types, if they were looking for fairground rides, would probably go to one of the well-known amusement parks, which might end up being cheaper. The rides didn't look exciting enough for the average teenager. Jimmy said this lorry was worth photographing.
Bored, we travelled on and passed the Horniman Museum. From the back of my mind, I recollected some praise of the attached gardens. We parked behind the Museum and Gardens, on a residential street high above London. In fact, it's worth visiting for the view.
In one direction I spotted this. I have no idea what got into somebody's head that this landscape would somehow be improved by placing a dull block of flats entirely disproportionate to the line.
Stand in the right place, though, and you do get a splendid panorama
It's a strange place. There's a large bandstand terrace, pavilion and Dutch barn, with facilities for serving refreshments, which were closed on the late May Bank Holiday (for many, the unofficial start of 'Summer'). We walked the Sunken Garden and Displays which were duller than you could imagine a garden to be in late May, the time when Spring moves into Summer. People were taking their small children round uncomprehendingly; for once I could hardly blame them for thinking it was yet another area specifically designed solely for running around children. I took not one photo.
We didn't go in the museum, but the conservatory is delightfully ornate.
Our final stop was the small animal enclosure. I'm not really sure what to think. I enjoyed seeing the various animals, most of which you have limited opportunity to see in Inner London. But I was left with an uneasy feeling that the space was quite inadequate, especially for the alpacas and the sheep. But I am not only not an expert, I am very ignorant on all matters of animal husbandry and welfare, so I might be entirely wrong. But that was my lasting impression. Along with the pong, especially of the alpacas who both peed several times during our short visit.
In the end I wasn't sure what to think about Horniman. A lot of thought had gone into making it a place with many different attractions, but it didn't seem to be pulling it off. Public spaces now show the effects of crippling funding cuts. We should expect more deterioration in the years to come, perhaps to the point of destruction: even if funding is restored to decent levels, the recovery period will be long.
But it wasn't until I Googled this place, back home, that I learnt there is a nature trail that starts there, and uses the old Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway; it claims to be the oldest Nature Trail in London.
Horniman was one of several places visited this summer that seemed more interested in contriving artificial attractions/events to spoonfeed the passive, rather than celebrating the very real stuff that doesn't have to be shoehorned into a concept. Not the worst, just one of many.
