The Second Part Of Our Day Out,

started with us walking to the jetty,

luckily for us the river taxi could not berth straight away as another vessel was unloading its passengers,

which gave us time to buy our tickets,

the other boat a sight seeing cruise,

a quick selfie,

and we were onboard looking at the south entrance to the pedestrian tunnel,

the Cutty Sark in the distance,

we were soon under way,

Diana making a video,

surprisingly few people on board, we now decided to change to the other side of the boat as the sun was straight into the camera,

a quick pose,

there always seems to be work going on here,

we over took a tug and barges,

and a pleasure craft,

past the river police station,

in the distance Tower Bridge,

we had been passing a flotilla of craft like this one,

we also passed a few moored vessels,

what stories they could tell!

these are a few more from the flotilla,

there were about 4 or 5,

of each of two different styles of yacht,

friends joining up for a cruise I guess,

not quite what I have in mind for a boat, for myself something that does not need a bit of stick and rags to make it go,

we continued up river stopping every now and then for passengers to leave or board, 

under Tower Bridge,

we were soon going past the tower itself,

pity about the tree in the way,

but,

we soon had a clear view of the tower,

and of course Traitors Gate,

passing the Walkie Talkie,

a strange design, hence the name,

another slightly odd building, I have no idea what it is,

one of the sight seeing boats going down river,

the famous London Bridge,

we started coming to bridges,

rapidly as we neared the centre of town,

St. Pauls in the distance,

the footbridge leading to it,

approaching Blackfriars Bridge,

if you have ever wondered what these pillars are next to Blackfriars Bridge were for, they used to have a railway bridge on them that served St. Paul's Station, but were replaced with the new bridge, there were 3 pillars but one was used for the new bridge, so you can now only see two,

more works going on in the river,

one of the many permanently moored vessels,

many are floating bars or restaurants,

Cleopatra's Needle,

the Tattershall Castle, 

the R.A.F. memorial,

and here we are just arrived at Westminster,

as our boat speeds upstream to its next stop,

the London eye,

I would quite like to try one of these trips, but Diana is not so sure,

and here she is,

the bridge was packed,

as was the jetty for sight seeing tours, 

a quick pose,

or two,

it really had developed into a glorious day,

but unfortunally the tower of Big Ben was still under wraps,

this part of the Palace of Westminster is still uncovered,

 a shame for us and other tourists, but there it is,

I try to keep our blog politically free, but when I see the mindless action of a few tree huggers it really does beg belief, for the next two weeks these animals want to bring London to its knees by blocking traffic, causing gridlock and making more pollution than ever as drivers of every vehicle keep cool with their air conditioning going at full blast, what a load of fools these activist really are,

we walked past the Cenotaph,

and one of the two Horse Guards,

seeing the muppets we just passed I did not think that human beings could sink any lower, 

but I was so wrong as this load shuffled into view, now do not get me wrong on this one, have a protest by all means, but to have an agenda to lockdown London and bring it to its knees for 2 weeks, or any other city, is in my opinion below contempt,

and it did not stop there, Trafalgar Square was out of bounds,

still there was some good news,

I could just about zoom in on the cherry on the top of the ice cream!

I remember the Green Cross Code, where kids are told 'wait for the green man before you cross the road' so what the hell is that all about?

this is your mission if you want it,

find all 27 of these lions in London,

well we found 2 only 25 to go!

I found this an interesting corner, looking at the top of the building,

 a cooper at work,

and I have no idea what this is all about,

time for lunch, so into the Salisbury it is then,

inside beautiful cut glass screens,

and a well stocked bar,

'Cheers!',

macaroni cheese with bacon for Diana,

bangers and mash for myself,

delicious meal over we made our way to Leicester Square,

which was a bit busy,

no queue at Jollibee's, but Diana was not hungry,

we then moved up into China Town,

the lanterns gently swinging,

a quick pose,

and we were on our way, to join a queue,

well two queues, one to place the order,

the other queue to pick the order up,

Diana was thirsty,

so what better place to stop,

than the Happy Lemon,

you might remember the muppets I was talking of earlier, this is their doing, streets blocked,

they hail this as a success, I sincerely hope that many of them will need an ambulance,

the 5 or 6 buses that are here are not moving, 3 or 4 of their drivers are chatting together on the pavement, no car, van, taxi, bus, delivery driver, ambulance or fire truck can get through, and these clowns want me, other Londoners and business people they are trying to destroy, to give money by crowdfunding them to continue the terrorism? I am guessing they need the money as they do not work, madness!

I knew this photograph would not work!

we were soon walking past the sweet stand in Victoria station,

and here we were in sunny Beckenham,

into the park and home, I spent some time typing the blog before a Midsomer Murder, and a New Tricks, we will be back at the weekend so I will post our few days in Hastings then, and with that we were off to bed.