My holiday break in London number 5!

🙂 Go’s without saying these shared photographs were taken by me during my July holiday break to London, obviously in 2020 because why else would I be standing in Parliament Square wearing a face mask?………. After a while I stopped removing them (feeling slightly stupid) and kept them on all day……….will ‘wear a face covering’ be remembered as the buzz phrase of the year? I think so, wander around a tourist attraction and the tannoy bellows instructions on how to keep me safe, ride London’s Underground and I’m reading warning signs instructing me to keep 2 metres distance from other passengers really?……. But we human’s are stoic creatures, we’ll adapt and survive 🙂 .

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  Me (Andrew) standing covid secure beside an empty Parliament Square

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(Above) Me enjoying a Mint Tea (cup sitting on the table) outside ‘Costa Coffee’ and very close to Kew Gardens Underground Station……… you won’t be interested to know but the photo to the right is my favourite of all the London pictures and others viewable in four previous postings, and deep down I think we all realise obligatory face masks are and will be a common sight for years to come…………. who’d have imagined this way back in January as we were welcoming in a New Year.

Btw I have a serious mint infusion addiction.

(Below) Me standing in an empty Victoria Underground Station, a quite unnerving and truly incredible photograph for London in summertime. July 2019 and these open spaces would be packed full of commuters and foreign tourists……….. I’ve not seen the like of this desolation before and until my dying day I doubt I ever will again.

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(Below) Empty city streets around central London, again quite eerie photos as if a great plague had struck London the consequence all its inhabitants were locked inside their homes………… oh that’s actually happened! Previously I have actually ridden inside a capsule on The Millennium Wheel, if you ask me this vastly overpriced attraction was a disappointment, you slowly rise then dwell 6 seconds of skyline viewing at top dead centre only drop to the ground again…………. over-rated but that’s just my opinion.

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(Below) Notable statues standing in Parliament Square, both Winston Churchill also Oliver Cromwell are ear-marked for removal if the black lives matters campaigners have their way. Churchill a hero who’s destiny was to win the second world war, so loved by white Londoners is contentious because as a young man he served as a soldier in the South African Colony, Oliver Cromwell will topple because he chose to colonize Northern Ireland………… political correctness or the blackwashing of Britain’s Imperial History? You decide because lol I’m saying nothing.

(Black Lives of course DO matter however America’s and Britain’s racial histories couldn’t be more different, on the one hand African men and women were captured enslaved and transported to America working in concentration camps, living pitiful horrific lives and of course making many white folks very wealthy………on the other, Pakistani, Indian, West Indian….. citizens CHOSE of their own free will to travel to Britain seeking a better life, whether that be paid jobs or educating their children at University oh and not forgetting many sought sanctuary (and welcomed) here as political refugees, so please don’t try and tell me America’s racial problems have any connection to Britain’s multicultural history………… A great proportion of ‘foreign nationals’ made better more prosperous lives for their families and a credit to Britain’s welcoming immigration policy and good luck to them but ffs research your history and show some gratitude 😀 )

For what it’s worth, keep all the statues or topple them ALL down I don’t much care either way, and I absolutely refuse to apologise for my colonial history………. lol not my problem, nothing to do with me, not in my name! Enough Politics.

Incidentally Millicent holds a banner displaying the words ‘Courage Call To Courage Everywhere’, without Googling I guess this lady was a suffragette campaigning for equal voting rights for women…………. brave pioneering ladies one and all 🙂 and again without Googling I’m sensing Lincoln has notable British connections?

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  Winston Churchill

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  Abraham Lincoln

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  Millicent Garrett Fawcett

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  Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside the Houses of Parliament, when black lives matters have their way this will be removed….. ‘it is what it is’

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  Parliament Green in July!

Parliament Square and I AM THE ONLY PERSON HERE (near unbelievable) and you are looking at a BIG BEN shrouded in scaffolding…………… a shame, would have made a fabulous picture

(Below) More photographs taken of empty city streets, at times I genuinely couldn’t believe I was walking around London but July was the first loosening of lockdown and I chose to risk my life lol, but still at times I did wonder if I was the only person in London! That sense of freedom was fabulous and quite intoxicating…………… AND I DIDN’T CATCH ANY VIRUS, just sayin.

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(Above) A Fun Fact for you. A pair of iconic red telephone boxes standing on a pavement close to my Hotel, but don’t be deceived for you cannot make a phone call from here, no the doors are locked shut and they’re here strictly for visiting tourists to take photos of with their mobile phone cameras.

(Below) Picture to the left Saint Paul’s Cathedral ‘peeking’ in the background and again yet another Tube Station empty of passengers…… quite incredible.

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(Below) Covid secure Victoria Railway Station…….. 2 pretty ladies wearing their face masks (I think they are twins), also covid secure passengers standing within a virtually empty concourse oh and 2 ladies handing out helpful ‘how to be’ covid secure literature.

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  Covid secure Victoria Railway Station

Virus screen wearing helpful young ladies, cheerful and enjoyable to chat with

(Below) One final photograph of Victoria Station, last year I wouldn’t have been able to move for the sheer volume of passengers.

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London Underground signs, wash your hands and always wear face masks or be fined thousands of pounds

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  London Underground

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  Tube train

I know I keep saying these images are incredible but they are, I glanced both directions and could look through carriage after carriage empty of people, images I know I’ll not experience the like of which again which is very sad.

(Below) Me wearing the obligatory covid secure face mask, stops the virus from spreading…….. really? Did you notice I had three different ones but I sew my own these days.

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  Me covid secure: Standing by the Great Fire of London monument

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  Me covid secure: Victoria Station

I am actually enjoying myself and feeling quite happy though face coverings have robbed our personalities of smiling faces…………………… for the foreseeable

(Below) The Great Fire of London started at ‘The Monument’.

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The Monument denotes where The Great Fire of London started

The Monument, designed by Robert Hooke in consultation with Sir Christopher Wren, was built 1671-1677 on the site of St Margaret Fish Street Hill to commemorate the Great Fire of London1666. The fire burnt from 2nd to 5th September, devastating two-thirds of the city and destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches and 52 livery Company Halls.

Standing 61M/202FT is equal to the distance westward from the site of the bakery in Pudding Lane where the fire broke out, with the central shaft housing lenses for a zenith telescope, with a balcony that is reached by an internal staircase of 311 steps.

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‘The Great 1665 Plague’ painted by Rita Greer

The Great Plague, lasted from 1665 to 1666 and the last major epidemic of bubonic plague to sweep England, centuries-long Pandemics of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics followed ALL which originated from Central Asia in 1331……………… why are we so SO surprised?

The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people, almost a quarter of London’s population in 18 months infected by Yersinia petis bacterium transmitted through the bite of an infected rat flea.

The 1665–66 epidemic was on a far smaller scale than the earlier Black Death and remembered afterwards as the “great” plague and the last widespread outbreak of bubonic plague in England during the 400-year Second Pandemic. 400 frigging years! We’re only into a six month pandemic and cannot take the mental strain any longer.

Looking on the bright side, whilst wandering around the Grounds of Kew Gardens two young ladies happened to be in front of me, with a strong breeze rustling and lifting the hem of their skirts, when near unbelievably and I still cannot now, every time the wind caught the lady to the left’s skirt she revealed two pink naked ass cheeks (shapely as well)………. she glanced behind several times, didn’t care, smoothed the dangerous fabric down against her thigh and carried on, I guess by the sheer law of average I’d be flashed at some point but imagine her self confidence having the nerve to wear NO panties on a windy day! Truly mind blowing, perhaps they were ‘off duty prostitutes’ enjoying a stroll in the sun? HOWEVER lol perverts will get 5 years in jail for taking ‘upskirt ass/vulva photos’ on their mobile phones and quite correct to……. a woman’s violation if ever there was one 🙂 .

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Our very own HRH Kate Middleton ‘showin some ass’ on a windy day, ahh but is she wearing knickers?

(Below) Photos taken at Kew Gardens, more may follow.

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  Kew Gardens

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  Street close to Hotel

A. Shepherdson 2020