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Published: August 6th 2007
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Monday 16th April Feel'n dodgy. Must have been cursed by a Docker fan. Walked to "The Gherkin" and past the Leadenhall Market in my lunch break for a bo-peep.
Wednesday 18th April Met Em in Bank after work to show her around my hood. After a Red Guinness at the local O'Neill's we walked along the Thames before coming to the Tower of London. A bit of info on the Tower (which we still haven't toured but will do soon) - The Tower's primary function was a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison (particularly for high status and royal prisoners, such as the Princes in the Tower and the future Queen Elizabeth I). This last use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower" (meaning "imprisoned"). It has also served as a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, a mint, a public records office, an observatory, and since 1303, the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.
After passing the Tower we crossed over Tower Bridge (which most people who first see it, think is London Bridge. London Bridge is actually quite boring) to the tube station
and home.
Thursday 19th April Met Em again today after work and we headed westward towards Soho via the tube. Just over from Tottenham Court Station was the biggest music shop in the world - The Virgin Megastore, so I took advantage and grabbed the new Muse release "Invincible" on cd, dvd and vinyl to add to my collection. It was a bit weird buying it from a real shop for a change instead of online. Sign of the times perhaps? The store was indeed worthy of the title, with 5 levels of cd's, dvd's, posters, vinyls, instruments and more. Across the street I grabbed the new Tolkein book "The Children of Hurin" and reserved the soon to be released Harry Potter book for Nephew Thomas. A bit of a window shop down Oxford Street (which always seems to be crazily busy) and that was enough for today.
Friday 20th April Can't believe after a 12hr day I had to wait 8 minutes for a tube! Unheard of.....really....
Saturday 21st April After a slow start we decided to check out Kew Gardens. The neighbourhood itself is very green as well and
there's a nice relaxed feel to the place, compared to Clapham. Unfortunately we ended up getting there at around 4pm and even though they didn't close until 7.30pm, at £12 for entry we couldn't really aim to see everything as it was way too big. We jumped on the shuttle tour to get a quick overview of the Gardens and were overwhelmed with the amazing sights and smells. It was great to see all sorts of trees and flowers that I've never seen before, or at least only on TV.
With several huge greenhouses, Japanese rock gardens, trees of all shapes and sizes, intricate flower gardens from all over the world, you could easily spend the whole day or even weekend out here. And I don't even have a green thumb! In the end we could only see about 1/3 of it before closing time but we had a very nice taster. Speaking of tasters, we were quite thirsty so a couple of ales were warranted at a nice pub near the station before jumping on the (wrong) train. Instead of taking us to Fulham to see a movie, the train decided to go to Islington on the other
Kew Gardens Wildlife
It's official, I'm a dork. side of town. Never mind, we had a nice pub dinner and then caught the correct train home.
Sunday 22nd April Today was the day of the famous annual London Marathon so once again the bikes were loaded up with our asses and our feet pedalled us to Tower Bridge. We wanted to base ourselves at the Mint on the other side of the river as the runners were to pass this point twice as they looped back around. The first of the 50,000 runners came through just as we were crossing, and the encouragement from the crowd was huge as people waved banners and screamed out. It was quite a warm day at about 26C, and we would later learn that it had been the hottest London Marathon ever.
After the elite runners passed, the faster amateurs came through and with increasing numbers, a lot of costumed runners. These guys made the marathon in my opinion. We saw Supermen, Spidermen, rhinocerus' (they would have been boiling!), Ballerina's, trees, Darth Vader, and many more. One guy was even doing it with prosthetic legs, all 26 miles!! Watching all these people had inspired me to pull my
finger out and start riding to work, and perhaps plan a big tour somewhere....London to Paris.....London to Amsterdam....there are a few big rides on the calendar. Got home and hopped into a fine 12% Belgian beer.
All over the news the next day was that one young bloke had collapsed after the finish line and died .
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