God Save A Mercurial Queen

Today started with another early morning run - we were going to take a longer route than yesterday but unfortunately my brother's back started playing up again and we had to turn back sooner than expected.
After breakfast and a suitable period of rest for my brother's back to unknot itself I decided to take him on a nostalgia based mini road trip to show him the old offices where I used to work before I was made redundant two years ago (bit of an odd reason for a road trip but hey why not!).
So we headed out towards Sevenoaks past Bessels Green and Sundridge - where along a 2 mile stretch of road I moved offices four times in a 10 year period - and on to the village of Westerham where we stopped for a walk around and to get today's images.
Westerham is a rather posh quintessentially English village based around a magnificent triangular green with a statue of Winston Churchill (see extra), he lived at nearby Chartwell, a plethora of stylish shops (my main image is of one of the shop fronts with what appeared to be a bust of Freddie Mercury in the window - a cheeky take on the Jubilee celebrations), cafes, restaurants and pubs and it was already thronging with people when we got there even though it was before midday.
After our photographic meander around Westerham, and as it was now past the yardarm, we decided to stop at Sundridge on the way back for a pint at The White Horse, which is literally just across the road from the office where I used to work. When I worked there my favourite thing to do on a Friday lunchtime was to stroll across for a bottle of beer, sit in the pub garden, read my paper and then return to the office knowing I only had the afternoon's work to get through before it was the weekend!
When we got to the pub it seemed to be empty but as soon as we went inside the barmaid asked if we wanted food and immediately seemed relieved when we said we just wanted a drink. The poor girl had had to turn a lot of people away who wanted a table for Sunday lunch as the kitchen was closed due to a lack of staff - she said that since Covid they have been unable to get a chef and that there is a huge amount of job vacancies across the hospitality industry as a whole.
Our pints consumed we crossed the road for a quick look at my old office. It's now empty and looks rather neglected with dusty windows and weeds growing in the car park. It suddenly felt like such a long time since I'd worked there. I must admit it made me feel rather wistful - for the majority of the time I was happy there. I don't miss the work, certainly not my employers or the commuting but I do still miss the people.