Tag: GMT

In honor of the new year

The New Year poem below was published on December 31, 2015 as part of the Silver Birch Press ME, DURING THE HOLIDAYS series. The photo was our own that we took to accompany the poem. In the note I wrote in 2015, I talked about how we still liked to observe GMT midnight, a family tradition made more meaningful now by the fact that daughter E and granddaughters ABC and JG live in London.

Eastern Standard

As the third millennium turned, 
our family toasted with sparkling cider 
at midnight Greenwich Mean Time, 
seven in the evening for us,
in deference to daughters’ bedtimes.

With our children grown, the two 
of us honor that tradition, 
clink glasses, savor the past, 
sip, hope for the future, 
in evening dark as midnight.

Joanne Corey

This year, we were fortunate to have daughter T at home to celebrate with us with sparkling blush grape juice and pear-apple-cranberry pie that B had made. We were able to tune into the firework and light show from London, which is held on The Thames near the Millennium Wheel. The first time we visited E in London in December, 2019, we went for a ride on the Millennium Wheel, so it was fun to see it as part of the light show.

Best wishes for 2024, Everyone!

Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find our more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/01/01/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-1st-2024/

Greenwich

We went on a classic week-off-from-school outing with our granddaughters as part of our visit to their home in London. We navigated a series of bus and Tube routes to tour the Cutty Sark, a clipper ship built in 1869 to carry tea from China to London as quickly as possible.


While it was built to carry tea, it also carried lots of other cargo, exports from Britain and imports, including wool from Australia. (A reminder that jumpers are called sweaters in the US.)


The Cutty Sark is not afloat these days, but still takes lots of maintenance. It’s hard to see, but there is a person near the top of this mast.


This lifeboat was getting a fresh coat of paint.


February is LGBT+ History Month in the UK and the Cutty Sark was participating by flying the Pride flag.


After lunch in a nearby pub, we went to the National Maritime Museum. I was interested to see how some of the exhibits were bringing in indigenous perspectives, such as this map showing language groups from the colonial period in the current US and Canada.


We finished our Greenwich tour by walking up to the Royal Observatory, through which the Prime Meridian runs. It’s the reason we have Greenwich Mean Time.


Before we started our trek back downhill and onto the bus, we enjoyed the view of London from the heights!