Journey to London

Last Wednesday was my 20th Wedding Anniversary, and as you may have read in my previous post, my lovely kids booked us a table at the local all-you-can-eat Chinese for Tuesday evening (20th anniversary is for China!), and then they had given us gift vouchers for a Champagne Flight on the London Eye for Wednesday.

So Tuesday evening arrived, and all freshly showered and changed, with lightly applied make-up we set off for the restaurant, with strict instructions to get our (their) money’s worth, and to ensure that diet or no diet, we definitely had to have a dessert. Crikey, what an awful challenge. Fancy having to eat lots and lots of Chinese and then have dessert as well! How could I refuse?

The waiter showed us to our seats and took our drinks order and we made our way to the buffet area for our first course of the evening. As we were eating, I was aware of a party of 5-6 adults being shown to their seats at the table directly behind me. “Whose flowers are they” one of the elderly ladies enquired, “they’re not ours”. As the waiter came over to take their drinks order, another in the party asked the waiter about the flowers, stressing that they were not for anyone amongst their group. Said waiter then began to read the card… “To Mum and Dad, best wishes on your 20th…..” I spun round in my seat, with a grin from ear to ear, “They’ll be ours then” I said. They were absolutely beautiful, this is one of the roses from the bunch, (taken on my new SLR, but don’t tell Elaine.. shhh).

The rest of the meal was uneventful but very enjoyable, it is a while since we have been out to eat, just the two of us alone. I did get brave half way through the evening and attempt to eat with chopsticks… when in Rome and all that… so when in the Chinese I figured I should give it a try! Not my best decision.

This was not the first time in my life I had attempted this feat, why I thought the end result would be any different I do not know, maybe it had something to do with the wine! After 10 minutes and the consumption of nothing more than about 3 meat filled mushrooms, a couple of strands of noodles and a very precariously held piece of beef in black bean sauce I reverted to the knife and fork… what a fantastic invention.. if God had meant us to eat with twigs he wouldn’t have given us the brains to forge steel into useful implements now would he? That’s my angle and I’m sticking to it!!

The following day, we got up and ready for our trip into the city. We had booked our flight for the 7pm ride when it would be dark and we would get a fantastic city landscape in lights. We decided to ‘let the train take the strain’ and leave the car at home, parking in the city is unbelievably difficult and VERY expensive. So we waited until 10am which is when you can buy cheaper tickets, (the one’s you don’t need to take out a bank loan to afford!) and bought 2 returns to Charing Cross plus a zone 1&2 travel pass that would allow us to get on and off the tube at will and travel all over the city at leisure.

Trying to exit the station at Charing Cross up to street level was quite difficult as there were people stood still all the way up the stairs. As we edged and squeezed past them one at a time it became evident that the reason for this uninitiated congregation of bodies was the weather. You know that saying “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “It’s bucketing down” well it was doing both – at the same time. This is what we had to shelter from before we could even begin to get our bearings and start to enjoy the day!

Once it had eased up considerably, we made our escape, following the sign posts pointing towards Leicester Square. The first hour or so was spent in this fashion, dashing from one spot undercover to another, and huddling together with a large proportion of the rest of the city when the heavens opened up and did their very worst.

Next we moved on to Trafalgar Square, where I was looking forward to seeing Nelsons Column and the fountains.

Just my luck, as we rounded the last corner of the National Gallery which fronts onto the square, it was immediately obvious that the fountains were not working. They were completely devoid of any water and were in the process of being cleaned.




Standing at the top of the great steps infront of the National Gallery looking down onto Trafalgar Square with Nelson on his column, guarded by the four magnificent lions and the fountains with their fantastic bronze sculptures, I could see in the distance, looking straight down The Mall, Big Ben towering above the city.


One of my loves in the city is Tower Bridge. I posted some pictures a couple of weeks ago that I took on my Paddle Steamer trip up the Thames. Now I had the chance to photograph from ground level.

We weren’t fortunate enough to catch the bridge raising but it is still a fantastic and completely unmistakable engineering masterpiece. It is beautiful.

If you wish, you can take the Tower Bridge tour, and walk up the inside of the West tower and along the walkways high above the road level.

When the bridge was originally constructed, these two walkways were to enable pedestrians to cross over the river even when the bridge was in the process of raising.

However, these were closed in 1910 as it became apparent that the much preferred option was to stand and watch as she majestically opened up her bascules to allow a tall ship to pass up or down river.


There is a lift from the top of the Tower that then takes you down to the engine rooms and show the original equipment that was used to raise and lower the bascules.

The audio descriptions and history, which are available in a choice of many languages at the touch of a button, make this part quite informative and interesting even for those who are not mechanically minded.

The highlight of the day was the London Eye Champagne Flight. We were met by our hostess and led onto the eye via the fast track route and hence avoiding the long queues, pretty neat when you’ve been traipsing round London for several hours.

There were only 11 people on this special flight, and so we had plenty of space in our capsule to move around freely and shoot photographs at will.

The first shot with the zoom lens was a complete white out, with the flash bouncing off the concaved glass panels of the pod as I suspected it might do.

The second, third and fourth shots were pretty dismal, furry, blurred images. I had no tripod, and hand held night photography at the best of times is pretty impossible -

-on a moving object it was not the best scenario, but it’s what I had to work with, so I persisted, I’m stubborn like that!












Once I had changed the lens to the smaller 18-55mm and braced myself against the side of the pod before each shot I had much more success. Some were still a little blurred, but I am an amateur so what the heck.


My favourite photo of the whole set is this one. I’m not known for blowing my own trumpet, but I think it’s pretty fantastic.