sam and the city

Night time in London

Good day faithful readers and a happy new year to each and every one of you. If today is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to progress, then I'm going to spend the next 12 months falling asleep! The reason that I'm so tired is that I had to work yet again at the world famous Blue Anchor Pub. Although it may sound bad, it was actually one of the better new years eves that I've had. When I first started work the pub was sparsely populated compared to what I had expected, however it soon started to fill up, particularly when the DJ fired up his music. Despite warnings the previous day from the manager about how new years celebrations often turn violent in the UK, from what I saw the crowd was very well behaved and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Apparently the new years celebrations in central London were quite good, so I would have liked to have gone in there if I had not had to work. Because of the difficulty of catching trains (as well as general coldness after the sun goes down), I haven't spent that may nights in London since I moved to Byfleet, but generally I do like wandering around cities when it gets dark. It makes for some good photos. Just prior to Christmas I was in there and had the chance to take some photos with all the Christmas lights up. The top photo is the lights along Regent St, while the second photo is of the famous Norfolk Pine that they light up every year in Trafalga Square. Of course, there are also the non-Christmas things which look quite spectacular when they're lit up at night too. One of the most difficult things about taking photos at night is keeping the camera still while you take the shot. Normally a tri-pod solves this problem, but I took the photo of the Millenium Eye and the houses of parliament from one of the bridges that crosses the Thames and the problem was made a little more difficult by the fact that the bridge kept moving when trains went by.

Prior to Christmas the streets of the city were absolutely packed with people (even more than normal) doing their last minute shopping. During my wanders I stumbled across Hamley's, which is a very popular toy shop. I tried to go in and have a look, but a got a few meters inside the door and discovered that I could barely move, so I decided to move on.

One of the other places that went wandering was along Oxford St, famous for all its clothing stores. I can tell you that it was quite difficult to tear myself out of some of the stores without purchasing something. Thankfully the fact that some of the clothes would have consumed my entire weekly wage in one hit, and also that my storage space is already somewhat limited helped drag me out of the stores. As much as I would like it, it's not as if I need a new wardrobe at the moment anyway. For five days a week all I dress in is black shirt and pants purchased from Tesco (cheap supermarket) for 4 pounds a piece.

posted by sam @ 6:25 pm