London Town day out

From about a year ago, we in Kent, have been preparing ourselves for the arrival of the future, in that we were to get Britain's first 'High Speed' railway service.

High speed being in quotation marks because it's all a bit of a con. A con because in everyday use, the trains will only travel 125mph. I say only, it's pretty quick I'll grant to. But, a steam locomotive, Mallard did 126 mph in 1938, and the HST, introduced in 1976, and initially called 125s because of their top speed.

The class 395 'Javelin' travel from Kent towns, and at various points join the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, (CTRL) nnow called HS1, to head via Ebbsfleet and Stratford to St Pancras. Using these services, we save something like 20 minutes in getting into London, but arrive on the Euston Road rather than on the banks of the Thames, and so a trip on the Tube may be needed.

And, we have to pay a premium for this, and lose 'fast' services to both Charing Cross and Victoria, and so we get less choice.

I am not trying to rubbish these trains, they look fabulous and are quick and do the job. But, north and west of London, people living in towns equal distance from us have had such a speedy service into London with no premium to pay.

So, we in Dover have an hourly service into London with these; we travel by normal lines through Folkestone Central and Folkestone West and onto Ashford non stop before arriving at Ashford and then whizzing up HS1.

A ticket costs something like £4 more at the moment, and even on a bank holiday, the train was quite empty when we left Dover, and had a carriage to ourselves. We picked up a few more passengers at the two Folkestone stations, and more at Ashford. And then, whoosh, we zoomed up through the Kentish countryside, cars on the M20 beside us trailing in our wake.

We looked at Ebbsfleet where a friend of ours now works helping people getting on Eurostars, but did not see him. At Stratford, we stopped at Britain's newest station, which in two and a half years will be the main arrival point for people going to see the Olympics. It is a plain modern station, fifty feet under the ground in a concrete box; it does the job, and is modern functionality personified.

At St Pancras we headed straight for the underground station, and another problem with St Pancras became clear, the tube station a full five minute walk from Southeastern's platforms. This adds on time to a journey which is not the case at either Victoria or Charing Cross.

A quick ride on the Piccadilly Line to South Kensington at to the museums. I had seen a shot from inside the Natural History Museum, and the great hall was majestic, yes, it was for purely selfish photographic reasons.

There were long lines outside, which gave us time to look at the skaters on the rink below us, most were quite poor with just the occasional person able to glide over the ice.
After a 5 minute week, we were inside and heading up an escalator heading into a model of the centre of the earth. It was amazing, but half of London were in there as well. The crowds were huge and there were people jams round some of the more interesting things. We struggled to find our way, but after going through a nondescript door we found our way into the fossil hall, past the shop and there was the hall. Like the inside of a cathedral, high windows cast light onto the crowded floor with just one exhibit, a diplodicus gazes out the main door.



We went round snapping away, up a grand flight of stairs, past, in pride of place, a statue of Charles Darwin, through the primate gallery and up more stairs, and right under the roof, wonderful views all the way down.

Snap!

Snap!

Went the camera as I saw shot after shot after shot.

I had the shots I wanted, and the museum was filling up quickly, and so we chose to leave and head out into the winter sunshine.

We headed over the road and found a small place to eat in a backstreet; I had a salt beet panini with mustard and pickles; it was glorious. Jools had a ricotta and spinach tart and she said that was excellent too.



We headed back down the Tube and a couple of stops away was Green Park and where Betty lives, sometimes, in Buck House. It was great to stride across the park, with locals and tourists alike heading down towards The Mall. The Queen is not in, she is in Norfolk celebrating Christmas with her family and other Germans.



There was no traffic on The Mall, people were just walking along; I took pictures of people, and headed towards Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square beyond. It was cold, but walking kept us warm. The Square was crowded, but room enough once we made it to the base of the column, tourists were climbing all over the lions, but in good spirits. I snapped more shots of people.



We walked through to Leicester Square and marvelled at the small fair there; more pictures, of course. And then on to Soho, through narrow streets, past dodgy shops and strange and exotic people. Chinatown was crowded as usual, and apparently full of Chinese tourists, which seems odd to come this far and wander round London's Chinatown.



And then onto Regent Street, so we could wait for the sun to go down and I to take pictures; lots of pictures. The pavements were crowded, the roads were full of angry taxi drivers, I found a small traffic island and waited, and waited. After I got some shots we wandered down to Piccadilly Circus, through theatre-land, through Leicester Square, all with more shots taken, and then down into the Tube and back to the station to get the Javelin back to Dover. And we were home by half six.



I put the steak and Ale pie in the oven, boiled and fried spuds for sautéed potatoes, and steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. And we sat down for a wonderful dinner at twenty past seven.



Another one of them great days.