Traffic on Westminster Bridge

I left home at 8am this morning and got home after 7pm, which is unusual for me and it's consequently been a long day. An early start this morning to get to the Department of Works and Pensions to sort my NI number - it was going to take trains, tubes and buses to get there directly from home so it was easier to get a train in to London and then a few tubes back out again to Tooting. That, and my time there took all morning. It was an exercise in patience for me!

I then took a few tubes back to Charing Cross as it was such a beautiful day I felt like walking - which I did, through Trafalgar Square, along Horse Guards Parade, past St James Park and finally came to Parliament Square because - yes, you guessed it, I had arranged another tour of the Houses of Parliament. The event last week was so oversubscribed that I was asked to run it again. We had a different guide this time, a blue badge guide who I know very well and she was excellent so it was not boring for me as she has such a thorough knowledge of British history that I learnt even more today.

The traffic on Westminster Bridge is particularly bad these days as they have added new cycle lanes, achieving this by taking away part of the road for cars. The other day I was in a taxi on this exact bridge and the taxi driver felt inclined to share his views, rather vehemently I may add, on how stupid the government is for adding cycle lanes as they have now caused such problems for the cars, particularly the taxis. He was concerned about the constant weight of all those vehicles on the bridge for an extended period (we sat there for 10 minutes) and he said he hoped the fumes from the vehicles drifted across in to parliament and choked the politicians!! I did say he was rather heated in his views! All those red buses looked very colourful in the beautiful sunshine. It felt like a summer's day today, certainly not autumnal.