Seeing London from the highest point

  I had intended for this post to be a crafty one but I couldn't let this Bank Holiday week go by without sharing some photos of our trip to London and the visit to the Shard.

If you are not familiar with the building know as The Shard, it's that tall glass building near London Bridge and it looks like, well a shard of glass, hence the name I suppose :-)

The Shard is the tallest building in London, at about 1017 feet (310 meters) to the tip and has 95 floors which houses offices, the Shangri-La Hotel, a retail arcade, and various bars and restaurants.  It also has a viewing gallery on floors 68, 69, and 72, where you can get 360 degree views for up t 40 miles.  This trip was one of the gifts that the girls bought us at Christmas and I was so excited when I opened the envelope with this ticket in and I've been so looking forward to going :-)

The Tower of London

St. Pauls, shame about the red cranes

You can see the arc of Wembley Stadium in the distance

HMS Belfast

And closer

The Monument used to be the tallest structure in London once upon a time, now it seems so small.
Built 300 years ago to commemorate the Great Fire of London.
(Can you spot it?)

There it is with the gold top

We climbed The Monument last year I think it was, all 311 steps!!

I should have looked to see what this building was (below) It looks like there is a little garden are on top of the building.  I zoomed in on the photo and there are workmen up there, you can just make out their reflective jackets if you look close.

I hope you enjoyed looking down on some of the sights of London.
It was a great experience and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, I would really like to do it again some day but at night fall.  It's strange because even though I don't like heights I always seem to want to go to the top of the tallest buildings, I suppose my want of the experience out-ways my fear, although you wouldn't be able to get me to climb a ladder if you asked me to!

Here's a useless bit of information for you to end with.  The company I work for designed and installed the fire protection system for The Shard and for several of the individual units within the building too, including the Shangri-La Hotel so I get to talk to people calling from the building quite often.

Just a quick update on Mum as a lot of you were so kind in hoping she was feeling better.  The dressing was changed again last Thursday, there was a little improvement although most of it is still open wound and the nail which is growing back looks quite nasty.  They are still waiting for results to come back but the ones that have come back are inconclusive, i.e. they still don't know what has caused it.  We haven't got to go back now until June 12th when hopefully all the results will be in and we might know more.
Thank you for your well wishes.

Until Next time
-X-