Portobello Road

Nice easy day in London town today she said, she'd be wrong!!! Into London, walk around Portobello Markets, home on the train, easy.......
We parked at the Woking shopping centre, beside the train station and got the fast train in to London, took about 25 minutes to get to Waterloo Station.
We looked at the maps and it was a 1.5 hour walk to the markets past Buckingham Palace, through Hyde Park to Portobello Road. We had walked for a bit over an hour and decided it was coffee time. Looked at the map - still had a 1.2 hour walk to go.....Pam told me I'd got lost, I told her she was a slow walker, looks like I won that argument!!! Of course on the way there we detoured past Westminster Abbey and there was about to be a Stevie Wonder concert in Hyde Park so the crowds there slowed us down.
Anyway, Pam walked a bit faster and we got to the markets, wonderful atmosphere, not sure how people can live along these roads, the markets are open all day, every day and for 24 hours on Sunday and the crowds are huge. Walked the length and breadth, had some lunch, a beer, a wine and decided it was time to go back to the centre of London to have a look around. Taxi seemed the sensible solution.
Spoke to a taxi driver, he said the roads were all closed around London central due to the Pride march. He offered to get us as close as possible to Trafalgar Square and away we went. Past Buckingham Palace and set down at the end of The Mall. We walked towards Trafalgar Square and there were people everywhere with rainbows galore!!! The crowd pushed us forward and across the route of the march to Trafalgar Square, there was no turning back (or turning left or right!!) as the security and the crowd got us across the road and we were inside the party of the decade!! It was a little scary because we really had no control over where we were going, managed to head straight up The Strand and decided we might as well find Waterloo Station and head for home.
More luck than good management got us over Waterloo Bridge to the station and our relaxing train ride home....phew!!
Dropped in to the Woking shops, Pam wandered around for a few minutes, I sat in an easy-chair and watched some tennis on the big screen, Pam rudely woke me about half an hour later and we made it home about 6.30.

Westminster Bridge, Big Ben (wrapped in scaffold and canvas), Parliament House, also partially wrapped in scaffold and canvas.

London Eye from Westminster Bridge

Parliament House. Word on the street this is not a renovation, with Brexit causing such a mess over here, apparently they are dismantling the whole of parliament, tying a pile of bricks to each member of parliament and dumping the whole lot in the North Sea?? An excellent solution?

Westminster Abbey

Through Hyde Park

Lady Di Fountain

On the way to Portobello Road

One of Londons crazies, wasn't even playing, it was just air guitar and he was singing some songs....didn't even know most of the words, good novelty value though.