From the Thames

While the Ottauquechee continues frozen, in London the Thames rolls on.  A report from my daughter Emily and a shot of Peter Ackroyd's "sacred river."

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night...Those lyrics from The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" float into my head every time I walk along the river in the early evening. I had just crossed Millennium Bridge, a footbridge flooded with tourists between the Tate Modern and St. Paul's Cathedral, and stopped in front of Shakespeare's Globe to take this picture. Because I'm studying playhouses and playgoing in Shakespeare's time, I can't help but imagine the water full of boatmen, taking people across from the City to the suburbs, where the theatres (and the brothels and bear-baiting rings...) were, outside the law, separated by this ever-moving, ever-changing band of water. Today, apart from the occasional tour boat, there isn't much to see in the Thames, which has gotten narrower than it was in the 1600s. The wind off the water can bite shrewdly but there's never a route that I'd rather take. As it gets warmer, I'm looking forward to many walks up and down the river and Waterloo sunsets.