London Icons

The red London bus crossing Westminster Bridge gives the London Eye scale, this is the view from Victoria Tower Gardens under the avenue of plane trees that lines the walk along the Thames embankment.

I stayed overnight in Vauxhall which makes for a good walk in along the Albert Embankment as I headed for the Government Buildings close to Westminster. Too often trips to London are dashes from Euston to meetings and back, but this morning was a bit more leisurely under a milky morning sky.

It was a bit of a dash back to Euston, but I walked part of it. There was a full scale police operation going on where I crossed Victoria Street. This was reminiscent of last week when we were on the edge of Trafalgar Square and the police descended in numbers from all directions, evacuating and taping off the Square. Were these actual bomb scares, or were they pre-Olympics police exercises? The press has coined the phrase Fortress London to describe current levels of security. Last week in one tube station we saw heavily armed police sauntering through the crowds, something I have never seen before.

Then it was through St James's Park onto the Mall, past Clarence House and along Green Park to the tube where I took the Victoria Line to Euston arriving only just in time for the 1630 train home. It was a shame to rush as it was a beautiful afternoon, the light was perfect and the Parks were full of people walking and unwinding. I wasn't expecting to add to the bird list for the year, but I did in St James's Park as there were several ring-necked parakeets squawking away (number 107 for the year).