Monumental

No prizes for guessing where my meeting was today! It went very well, finishing a little earlier than expected, so I had the bonus of a couple of hours wandering the city before catching my train back up north. I actually can't remember the last time I've been to the capital. It must be well over a year ago. I have to admit that in the past, despite having good intentions to make the most of the time and see some exhibition or other, I've usually ended up coming out of my meeting and getting on the first train back. But today, as a blipper, I felt rather differently and thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the streets with camera in hand.

When I was a more regular visitor to London I used to love just wandering the back streets and discovering places by chance. It's amazing what you stumble across. Today I did just that and found some delightful little public spaces which were incredibly quiet for being at the heart of the city. Each was like a little oasis of calm amidst all the chaos. Having secured a few potentially good blips I was looking for a tube station to get myself back to King's Cross when I ran into The Monument, the great Doric column built as a memorial to the Great Fire of London of 1666. I immediately realised that I had never actually been to the top. Well, I can never resist a good viewpoint so I duly paid my £3 entrance fee and climbed the 311 steps to the platform.

I tried to imagine what the view would have been like for those Londoners who climbed that same spiral staircase in 1677 when the monument was completed. The fire pretty much destroyed the entire city so presumably they would have been looking out upon a massive building site. And, to a considerable extent, that is the impression you still get today. Like every major city London remains a work in progress. Cranes dominate the skyline. London is becoming more monumental by the day. It's mighty impressive. I could see that The Shard is nearing completion. Earlier, I had passed by the site of The Pinnacle, which looks like being an incredibly beautiful addition to the London skyline. I get quite excited by the best of modern architecture!

It would have been appropriate to have blipped an example of all this construction work going on, but in the end I was drawn to a throwaway shot I took of the distant London Eye. It dawned on me that this is perhaps today's equivalent of The Monument, the best view in the house, the place where people go to get a panoramic look at this continuously evolving and ever more monumental city. I left feeling rather proud of my English heritage!