A Walk Through London in October Part 2

From the pasty stand I made my way past the astounding Heron Tower construction site at the corner of Bishopsgate and Houndsditch, boasting some of the biggest cranes that I have ever seen, big enough to have viewing platforms on them hundreds of feet in the air. Then it was into St Mary Axe, the awesowme space around the Gherkin where I sat and ate my pasty with the wind blowing. As usual people were hanging around this area, bending their necks up to get an eyeful of the building, attempting to take photos with their phones or digital cameras. I sat there for a while and read a bit of the book I had brought with, Sayings of the Buddha, a new translation of suttas from the Pali Nikayas. After sitting for a while I realised the weather was colder than I thought, and the light was darkening. Nothing beats the dark light of London afternoons in autumn, when you can almost taste the history, see the ghosts accumulated from a couple of thousand years of London living.

More or less empty when I walked down Leadenhall Street, through the market down Gracechurch Street and onto London Bridge. Not empty but not crowded which was what it soon became as I made my way down into Borough market. Crowds of people were still there although things were beginning to wind up a bit. Bought a couple of pieces of chocolate brownie which were being sold off cheap. Ate them both as I navigated my way through the crowds and then felt a little sick, especially after just having had the pasty not too long before as well. Regretted I didn't have any change on me to buy some water as my mouth was kind of dry but I didn't want to break into a tenner so I just carried on walking through the crowds and put up with that old dry throat feeling.

Escaped from Bankside at Southwark Bridge where I climbed the up the steps and headed back north across the river, the old man Thames. Simply too many people for me on the southside, too much monkey business, and I knew the numbers were only going to increase as the route progressed on to the Globe, the Millenium Bridge and the Tate Modern. Needed to cut my losses and get out of there.