A Sunny Day

Had a great day out in London on Saturday.  We'd been watching the weather forecast all week hoping for a bit of luck - and we got it.  We had sunshine all day and it was so lovely to be able to walk about without a coat (although we'd taken raincoats just in case).


I found a little piece of heaven just outside Covent Garden - London Graphic Centre.  I think I'm going to move in there.  Pens, pencils, Promarkers, paint, books, etc, etc ...........  I could have spent hours and a fortune there, but only bought a new Seawhite book for my calendar challenge and a pot of Golden Fluid Acrylic in Titan Buff.


We walked for miles and miles during the day, quite a bit of it along the Thames Path.  It seems like more of it is open again because we didn't get diverted away from the river as often as we have recently.  We did take a diversion through Borough Market which was great.  There were so many interesting stalls selling different foods and products and we bought a few bits and pieces.  We had a slice of fresh watermelon which was a real taste of holiday and very juicy.


Tower Bridge is decorated with Olympic rings at present, so we made our way up there to have a look.  the South Bank always seems buzzing with activity and is such a nice place to be.

The Emergency Poet on the South Bank

We made our way via the Tube across to Knightsbridge and then across to Hyde Park.  We had wanted to try and find a particular tree with amazing bark that we'd seen at Christmas - and believe it or not I took us straight to it.  I was quite impressed with myself.  The tree itself is really impressive and with a full canopy of leaves looks very imposing.

We then just wandered down towards the river, but kept getting diverted because of the works that are taking place in preparation for the Olympics.  Pretty much all of Green Park and St James's Park were out of bounds so we had to stick to the roads until we got pretty much to Westminster.  The whole of London is going to be unbelievably busy during the Olympics and I'm not sure that I'd want to go anywhere near a Tube station during that time.


It was such a lovely evening that we weren't ready to go home so we walked on along the river along the embankment opposite the Palace of Westminster towards Lambeth Bridge.  It was here that I found a lovely place to get a cup of tea.  The chap there took so much care about making the tea - using tea leaves!  If you're ever in that part of the city go there for a drink, it's great.  Not expensive either, especially given the location and quality of the drink (£1.50 for tea).  In fact it's the best cup of tea I've ever had made for me.

I'm going to journal the day because it was so great.  Mind you I think I'll not mention the journey home which was a bit fraught at times.  We knew that part of the M1 was going to be closed , but when we tried to get on at J10 there were no diversion signs at all.  You were just left to your own devices!  Fortunately we figured out where we needed to go and eventually rejoined the motorway after the section that was closed.  All was going well until the matrix signs advised of an 'incident'.  For some unknown reason the Police closed the WHOLE motorway, for around 30 minutes at midnight.  When we got past the site of the 'incident' all you could see was a couple of police cars and a burned out Landrover on the hard shoulder, but no Fire Engines, recovery or anything else - basically no obvious reason to close the whole motorway for such a long time.  I'm all for ensuring safety - but I think that sometimes the Police can be a little over enthusiastic with their authority and don't consider the number of other people that they are affecting by their actions.  Anyway - enough of that.


I'm still working on my July page for the Calendar Challenge - bit behind this month, but will get it posted soon.


Anyway thanks for sticking with this really long post - hope it wasn't too hard going.