Birdcage Walk

I couldn't possibly count the number of times I've been to London on business, in and around Whitehall, in my almost 20 years of mandarin-in-training.

It's not easy to find a quiet spot to breathe in the midst of people running the country. But I always find something quite magical about Birdcage Walk; stepping out of Parliament Square, into Great George Street (where I was speaking today) and then into Birdcage Walk is like going through the wardrobe to Narnia.

I thing it's a Mary Poppins thing - I read the book endlessly as a child and I'm sure Birdcage Walk featured. Today the birds were certainly out of their cages in St James Park - pigeons, ducks, geese, swans, herons, pelicans (pelicans!) and a bam of a squirrel. All under the disapproving eye of Her Majesty's Treasury.