London - the good and the bad

To London with Simon Jones this week to meet up with some influential Old Mancs to discuss events and fundraising in the build-up to our big 500th birthday celebration for the school in 2015.

As someone who loves to walk the streets of London by day and night, I am ridiculously lucky with the weather on my visits.  I can't remember the last time I needed an umbrella.  Cool December days produce a great light in the capital, as seen here from the terrace of Somerset House:

A few brave tourists were enjoying a winter visit but they were outnumbered, I think, by Home Counties shoppers getting ahead with their Christmas present lists (note to self!)

London always seems to provide the unexpected - as a motorcyclist I was much taken with this TV-broadcasting-enabled Honda Pan European parked up outside the Royal Courts of Justice, complete with transmission aerial:

Of course, there are downsides to London, whether you visit or work there.  For me, and doubtless many others, it's the press of bodies and, even more, vehicles on the streets.  We had a sharp experience of this when rushing back by taxi to Euston to catch the last off-peak service out of town.  Our taxi got blocked in, we bailed out in Bloomsbury and only just caught the train after a frantic, undignified scramble to the station.

But memories are predominantly good ones.  And if you do have to work in London, how about having the office view of one of the old boys we visited, looking past HMS Belfast to Tower Bridge: