It’s been just over a month since I first posted about my London List and declared my intention to stop procrastinating and start seeing and doing some of those things that have long been on my “One Day” list.

Last month, I headed down to Greenwich Park to start my challenge and visit the Observatory, which is part of the wider group of Royal Museums Greenwich, also including the National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House and Cutty Sark. We picked the right day for it too because London was at its absolute best: perfectly crisp Autumn weather with not a cloud in the sky and bright leaves everywhere.

I’ll admit I had an ulterior motive to being there, because I went to see the Ansel Adams photography exhibition at the Maritime Museum, which was incredibly inspiring. If you’re interested in photography then the exhibition is definitely worth seeing and it’s on until 28 April 2013, so you’ve still got plenty of time. It’s really a privilege to have seen his incredible work in person and his imagery of America’s National Parks is so awe-inspiring, to the travel-obsessed side of me and the budding photographer. Visiting the Maritime Museum was another London first that wasn’t on my list, so I’ll take that as a bonus round too :)

So, after spending quite a while at the exhibition and browsing the merch in the pop-up shop (some cool gifts for photographers in there, FYI) my husband and I took a lovely stroll through Greenwich Park up towards the Observatory, which is perched on top of the hill…quite a novelty! There’s some incredible views out across London from up there, and due to the aforementioned lack of hills in this city, it always feels like a bit of a treat to see such an amazing vista.

Then we had a wander through the Royal Observatory, sticking to the free-entry Astronomy Centre, learning more about the history of astronomy and some clever sky-watching gadgets. Although we didn’t pay to go into the Meridian Courtyard, I did get to stand across the Greenwich Meridian Line – a bit of a novelty but it was one of the things I wanted to go there to see, so I was happy.

The proof: me standing over the Meridian Line at the Observatory

Stupidly, we completely missed the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition exhibition which is showing there at the moment (and it’s free!). I think we might have been photography exhibition-ed out by that point, but it’s definitely an incentive to go back again and visit another day as it’s on until 17 February 2013.

This is only the first task crossed off my London List but already I’ve found an unexpected (yet unsurprising) benefit to the challenge – finding new regular haunts in London. I also get the feeling I’m going to be finding more and more places and events I want to add to my list as I tick each thing off, like a rolling, one-in-one-out list of stuff to do.

This month I’m planning on seeing another show on the West End so that should be my next London List write-up. Pretty excited about this one, going to the theatre is usually a guaranteed incredible evening out in London – any guesses which show I’m going to see?

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The London List is a year-long challenge I’ve set myself to do and see 12 things in London that I haven’t gotten around to doing in my past 4 years living here. For me, it’s about having more adventures in the city I live in between the overseas ones.

I’d encourage anyone who wants to see more of London (or wherever they live) to make their own list of 12 things to do – big or small – in the next 12 months.

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