Tubes, Flutes, Boats and Pain

If you saw my post about the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret you know we headed down to Lambeth last week.
Nobody else felt that way inclined.

 It was an expensive event that involved spending a lot of time in a small room with smaller tubes that cost inordinate amounts of money.

 Cog attempted to find the tube (that would be a flute head joint) that pleased her most and my bank account least.

Whilst I entertained myself with her unbeknownst ombromanie.

 We had a decent lunch at a cafe in Lambeth for £10 for two of us all in.  And a nice walk through Southwalk down to London Bridge.

We went to the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garratt and then walked through Borough Market past the Golden Hinde, a quick pit stop at the Anchor and on to the Bankside pier.

We caught a clipper (another 2 for 1 voucher with my railcard) down to Vauxhall Bridge and back again.

The RB2 was a nice, small, quiet boat and really rather relaxing.

It was a grey day and we were feeling lazy, so we hopped onto a bigger clipper and went all the way down to the O2 and back.

I have to say it was loud, busy and hellish down to the Tower and then it emptied out, quietened off and we settled into front row seats with a hot chocolate and watched the world go by.

Buses no longer turn up in twos, there were 14 going across this bridge all at the same time!

We went under Tower bridge which I have never done before.

If the weather had been nicer we would have got off at Greenwich and had a walk around.  Another day we definitely will.

So having considered the pain of the patients at the Old Operating Theatre and felt the pain of a clipper in school holidays when a large proportion of the populous are also on it, I had the chance to be grateful it was not this weekend we had planned for Paris.  There would have been 2000+ people queueing for the Eurostar at St Pancras. There had been no trains all day, the police were doing the crowd control, it was hellish beyond belief.  I felt so sorry for the poor people, especially those with small children.

We decided against the planned Kath Kidson visit and hopped straight onto our train home.  17:30 out of London on the day before the bank holiday weekend starts with only 4 carriages on it .  Seriously!

Could have been worse, as I write this those people are still waiting for a Eurostar to turn up!