Greenwich

Today was wet, but I ventured out to to Greenwich Park to the Royal Observatory, which is also the location of the Greenwich meridian. The location served as a research place for astronomers, Mean Time, and marks the point 0 for longitude.

The park was practically deserted- just a few dog walkers, and up on top of a hill was the observatory.

I was here once nearly 30 years ago, and I have a photo of my brother and I standing on the east and west sides of the line. Today, just me.

The building you see below is actually a camera obscura- the whole building. I was alone in the dark and a faint picture appeared before me- but being so overcast made it fuzzy.

I also attempted to reset my watch to accurate Mean Time, and I think I'm pretty close- the train system here is synced to this... Meanwhile, my iPhone is nearly always off by 5 minutes! I'll have to start again shortly anyway as I head home...

The funniest thing was you could listen to the various voices which announced the current time when you called on the phone since 1936. "at the sound of the third beep the time will be 7:15 and 24 seconds...". Sara Mendes de Cosa, Brian Cobby, Pat Simmons, and Ethel Cain spoke to more people than you can imagine!