Travelling

Today my sister and brother-in-law arrived from Texas. It's a long journey, as I know from when I've done it the other way - almost 24 hours door to door. I picked them up from the coach stop and delivered them safely to the place where they're staying, then had to hoof it to London for an appointment.

All good so far, but when I got there it went on a disastrously long time so I was very much later back than I intended. Still, Bliportunity Knocks and while I was hanging about I took this shot of Thames barges from just above Westminster Bridge, with behind them Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridges. If you could see as far as Chiswick, that was where I was born, right by the river.

I love the river - dirty old water that it is. I would have loved to see the Jubilee Pageant, but these old boats belong here more than almost anything I can think of. I wish I'd seen more of the Thames when it was a proper working port, but I didn't, that was so long ago. And even further back when there were masted sailing shops crammed from one bank to the other. I also wanted to look out that wonderful description at the beginning of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but of course my copy's gone missing - probably gave it away in a fit of stupidity.