The Germans, beach towels and Wembley

Thursday 30th April 2015 to Friday 1st May 2015

Despite my previous statements, I let Diane loose again on an unsuspecting London, whilst I got on with more work.
 

ready to go

So off she went again on the train, on a new line (Central), and once in the centre decided that she would see more miles above ground by simply taking the bus and view everything from the elevated space of upstairs.

She was unable to take her preferred seat at the front upstairs, it had been taken by some other tourists whom she identified as being of German origin - just the two of them but they had laid their beach towels (coats and bags) out on the other seat next to them rather than sharing the same side.
 

Firstly the musical venues - research for later

Then the department stores - Debenhams

..then Selfridge's...

...another view...

...finally, a rather drab exterior for John Lewis

The views from a seat back were still quite good and she managed also to find quite a few interesting shots - she is now almost qualified to be a London guide.

Then some general London scenes
 

Trafalgar Square

St.Paul's (r) and the Shard (c)

The welsh dragon

just the tip of the 'Gherkin' - just looks a bit phallic

St.Paul's up a bit closer

Courts of Justice

more of the courts

Looks like the remains of the cloisters of an old church, but is in fact at the side
of the Courts of Justice

Not quite Parisienne but certainly better than some of the other architecture

A modernistic building of concrete exterior, but an oddly appealing look

She also found Hamley's toy store - the store of Tom's boyhood

Later on, when she was on foot, she came across these -

Marble Arch

A real bonus finding this small church 

a memory of where it all started

Up close and gherkinish

Shaun the sheep - American style

We have been on the Monoploy trail and Diane visited
King's Cross Station...

...for shots outside and inside

Friday being Friday, I got through my work early - my theory is that I have the weekend to finish anything still to be done; so we decided that we would take a visit to Wembley to enquire how we would go about buying tickets to any of the upcoming play-off matches.

So it was two trains to get there, but with the usual waiting times that occur it did take a little while to eventually arrive.
 

from the train station - still quite impressive

a bit closer 

Diane, of course, had eyes on the other venue(s) around

The stadium does look magnificent close up - a tribute to Australian design and building.

Our main thoughts were simply to find out how to purchase tickets, but the only entrance open was the one dedicated to Bobby Moore where the stadium tours started.

Larger than life, in real life and after

These 2 stone tablets were part of the Wembley Stadium before this new one
was built, but have been painstakingly restored...

...and list the gold medal winners of the 1948 Olympics

Fortunately, I was able to ask one of the assistants who advised me that really you have to contact the clubs that will be involved.
If it was an FA cup match then it is on-line.

We opted not to do the tour whilst there, Diane fore-saw that we would probably come back again and she was quite quick (just a little too quick, mind you) to point out that next year I will get a discounted price based on me being a lot older than her.

Seems that Diane's attention had been taken with the Outlet stores in the complex along side the stadium and so we were off to look at lots of things that she couldn't buy - remember, she has said she is not buying any new clothes this year (4 months down and only 8  to go).

She did however want to buy a pair of shoes for me - seems that I do not have enough shoes - just boots.
 

What a lovely pair of shoes that I bought - problem was that they
were not my size but luckily they fitted Diane really well.

Lunch beckoned and so a visit to Frankie and Benny's where we had just finished when the phone rang - "Can you work tonight?" - I can't afford not to from a demonstration of willingness to work aspect, so that necessitated our return back to the boat to move a mile back to Alperton and some rest - Diane had used a new app to find the best and quickest way to work from around where we were - it ended that Alperton was the best place to be.

Frankie and Benny's selfie

Look what else she found - we left a sizeable donation

In moving up to Alperton, just where Sainsburys is, there was a boat about to leave the moorings, and just about where we would have moored, but disaster struck. As they were moving away the prop picked up a push chair and there was considerable difficulty in getting it off - sometimes the luck is with you (well with us at least, for now).

So later that night it was off to work by bus and train - continuing to learn about the public transport system - it is all good.
Interestingly, where it took us quite sometime to get Wembley via 2 trains earlier in the day, if we had already been at Alperton and took the No.83 bus we could have got there in about 15 minutes - knowledge for next time


1 Mile
YTD: 313 Miles, 180 Locks, 6 Tunnels, 2 Lift Bridges, 11 Swing Bridges
Totals: 3207 Miles, 2301 Locks, 104 Tunnels, 36 Lift Bridges, 162 Swing Bridges