Up Early And Away!

but first a quick cup of tea at Steve's place,

just at the edge of his balcony this bush has come into flower,

a view across the lawn with one of Steve's flower boxes on the right, this year the flowers have a blue theme,

Steve had two 'directors' chairs, well the bad news was that Mr. Gravity was not kind to Steve, as he sat on one he fell to the ground as the canvas gave way, as I was due in the next couple of days he borrowed two more from a friend of his, Mick, well they say lighting never strikes in the same place twice, Mr. Gravity had evidently not heard of that one as yet again Steve went crashing to the ground when he sat on Micks chair! lack of glue in the joints you see, I went down to the shop to say Hi to the guys, we had bought a new van, but after just one week from new the driver, Lee, had a bit of a mishap, it does not look much but the bill will be about £950.00,

then just as I was taking a picture of it a garbage disposal truck reversed down the road and scraped the side of the van!

not much to look at but with a metallic finish and the fact that it had gone down to bare metal means another job to be done, strange thing was that no one was going to say anything until I mentioned I was the owner and had it all on film,

into the shop and things are looking well, in the past year Lee has put in some new marine tanks,

this is part of the fresh water section,

one corner of the dry goods room,

not sure if I like this ornament or not, you decide,

I took a decision after seeing my financial adviser to see if my next door neighbour was in, I had a flat battery in my phone so I could not call, so figuring the walk would do me good I was off on my toes, on the way I spotted this, something you do not see very often in outer London, or any where else for that matter,

a post box set in the boundary wall of two properties, I wonder how long it will last before the bean counters in the post office realise it is there and take it away? it is from another less hectic age, I guess from just after the times Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870), what stories it could tell of well mannered gentle folk of the area, by the way if you want to buy one look here,

this is the road I used to live in before I moved to Thailand,

turn to the right and there is the house,

the front door,

I must admit I do like the mature trees in the front garden,

part of the front, unfortunately my neighbour was out, but at least I like to think the walk did me some good!

then back to Steve's and it was shower, shave and time for our evening meal,

this time to the Mogul Brasserie opposite my shop,

next morning up for the 9.30 to London Bridge,

then the tube to Charing Cross, now that looks a bit handy, win a 100,000,000. have I put enough zeroes in that? is there a catch?

the reason I was going there was to pick up a magic book for Joe,the magic shop Davenports is in the tube stain concourse, first established in 1898 by Lewis Davenport, it is the oldest family run magic business in the world, the book Joe wanted was The Davenport Story Vol 2 - Lost Legends, last year I picked up volume one for him, in a strange happenstance the editor of the book was in the store so he signed it for Joe,

it is incredible the number of books that have been printed dealing with magic, I just thought a few hundred titles had been produce over the years, not so - the figure is in the thousands,

the shop widow display has so many tricks in it,

I regret I did not ask the assistants name, but I watched fascinated as he demonstrated the steel ring trick to a customer, who, it has to be said was not a magician, but wanted to learn do a few tricks for his children's party, the advice was first class, although I had already paid I waited in the shop spell bound by this young mans expertise,

one thing I like about London is the number of things that you can do if you have the time, all of these on billboards in the tube station,

and a new billboard for me, although common over here in Thailand this is the first public LED screen I have seen in the UK,

then to Waterloo, for the next stage of my journey,

to the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, why go there? well it was the only place I could find a new Sony Blu-Ray player, it was the BDP S370, what an amazing piece of kit and it was only £129.00 with a trade in the store, it sounds a lot till you compare it to it's predecessor at twice the price with only half the functions, Richer Sounds is the place I found it, nice clean looking store, also they very kindly held it for me so I did not have a wasted trip, then back to Beckenham to drop off the book and the Blu-Ray, walk to the station, next stop Rainham,

there I was greeted by another life long friend, Duncan,

so a quick walk to the Harvesters at the top of the road to chat about we had been doing for the past year,

Alan called in for a quick one as we were going to have a meal later, by now we had moved to the Chricketers after a wash and brush up,

Rani's Indian resturaunt just oppisite the Crickters,

we have eaten there many times before, ths food as usual was excelent, not a scrap left!

we were joined by Tony who I had not seen since last year, a great night for all of us then home to Duncans for a feet up and relax, speaking of feet they were killing me, I am just not used to walking as I take my motorbike evey where in Thailand, then to bed.