Water Works £150...

....'thou shall not pass, or you can but only when we want you to, we don't want making the financial centre over there in the background very wet, so behave yourself'

The Thames Flood Barrier is the world's second-largest movable flood barrier and is located downstream of the city of London. Its purpose is to prevent London from being flooded by exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the sea. It needs to be raised only during high tide; at ebb tide it can be lowered to release the water that backs up behind it.

London is vulnerable to flooding from the Atlantic Ocean into the North Sea and up from the Thames Estuary especially at spring tide, I should know, I have had my car flooded 3 times parking around Chiswick, I once came back to the car with the river level with the radio on the dashboard.

The Barrier was finished in 1982 and officially opened in May 1984. Built across a 520-metre wide stretch of the river, the barrier divides the river into four 61-metre and two, approximately 30 metre navigable spans.

To March 2010 there had been 119 flood defence closures due to either Tidal flooding (due to lunar or solar cycles, bloody full moons), or Fluvial flooding (due to increased volumes of water, less common). The only other closure occurred (1) after the Marchioness disaster to "assist diving and salvage" (2) in October 1997 when a dredger in thick fog collided with one of the piers.

Well we are coming to the end of things now and there are only a couple of squares to go, I'm taking the 'chance' of not blipping 'chance' because it means that I can finish on Sunday which is far more civilised lol. I'm glad that you enjoyed my puddled shot, thanks for all the favs I was quite surprised.

Have a good weekend all