A QUIET HAVEN, ART IN THE SQUARE MILE AND CITY DRINKING ............

Within the square mile in the City of London, not a stones throw from The Gherkin, is a quiet little hamlet. When you saunter along the peaceful little streets, you would be forgiven in thinking that you were in a small English village.

Old and new sit happily side by side .....

The church of St Helen's of Bishopsgate dates from the 12th century and was the parish church of William Shakespeare when he lived in the area in the 1590's.

Sculpture in the City is now in it's 6th year and transforms the Square Mile with open air contemporary sculptures set in and around architectural landmarks.

We went last year and saw, amongst others, Ai Weiwei's bicycles ' Forever ' ,

Laura Ford's Cats 1 & 2 were there which we also saw when we went to visit Strawberry Hill.

Sigalit Landau's ' Shoes '

..... and Damien Hirst's ' Charity '

If you're ever in the Square Mile on a summer's day, the pubs are full .....

..... everyone enjoying a drink in the late afternoon sunshine.

Just a quick word about blogging ..... when I started blogging in 2009, I gradually started to accumulate followers, building up to nearly 2, 000. Blogger then decided to get rid of a few hundred, which was OK but, I now seem to lose followers rather than gain any !! Should I take this as a sign to stop blogging  or is this just the way of the blogging world now ? I think that many have moved on to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. 

The world of social media seems very fickle and moves at a fast pace ......... c'est la vie !!!!!!

XXXX 

images 1 - 9 & 12 - 15: via me, image 10: via it's nice that, image 11: via suzidepingu, image 16: via david jones