London Docklands sunset – September 2009
You don’t have to love aeroplanes to live in London – but it helps. We have the world’s busiest airport (most international-bound passengers), London Heathrow, to the west but also London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted and London City Airport that serve our city. I live literally a stone’s throw from London City Airport and it’s a good thing I have been obessed by aeroplanes for years (thanks dad, thanks Paul!). I can see the stubby little BAE 146s taking off from City from my upstairs landing window and their sound is usually the first and last thing I hear at night. And when the air-traffic controllers so decree, planes in the Heathrow holding stack turn precisely over my conservatory, giving my lunch guests a free airshow.
It’s not often that you can look into the London sky and not see an aeroplane or a vapour trail – or both. This sunset was photographed over the Royal Albert Dock near my house and every cloud you can see is a vapour trail in some stage of disintegration. And yes, that black dot just below the centre is an aeroplane 🙂
This is part of a series of non-food photographs that will be published every Saturday on CookSister. All photographs previously featured may be viewed on my Saturday Snapshot archive pages. Many photos featured in Saturday Snapshots are available to buy as high-quality greeting cards or prints in my RedBubble store – feel free to browse. They make great gifts for friends, family, or yourself!
Greetings from a very hot Cape Town,
Lovely photo. And I love that sun-dried tomato pesto & olive crostini recipe.
Thanks for sharing.
Juz
Makes for great sunsets! I remember that about London living, but at least we weren’t in West London, where the planes are that much lower and noisier.
We still get plenty of planes here, either heading for Cape Town airport or else practising their stalling right over us – our airspace is a designated small plane training area.
I got to go to London for the World Travel Market a couple of years ago and was amazed at the fact that there are always planes or plane “tracks” over the city. Beautiful shot.
Jeanne! Two of my favourite things – sunsets and airplanes – Loving this shot – gorgeous! Watching plane trails is so calming for me, I’m so lucky to live under the heathrow flight path =)