Family blogs

Grandad's Birthday (July'13)

The 26th was my birthday! Nothing special about it, it wasn’t a ‘significant’ birthday, not a 40th or 60th or even 75th… it was my 72nd.

The day was a nice day… part sunny and warm with a cloud covering, so a nice day for a birthday.. It was a Friday.

The ‘present’ (no I don’t usually like presents unless they are red and come in a bottle ;-)) was a trip to London, not somewhere I’d normally go on my birthday but then it was my ‘present’ so I agreed.

I was going to the London Eye..!! seems most everyone else I know has been, not I? Caught the early fast train to Waterloo and although there were only 6 carriages found ourselves a seat, not together… but it was my ‘present’ so I sat down. My fellow passenger, of a similar age and from Andover, and I discussed the weather, agreed that the world was going to pot and that things weren’t like it was in our day! By which time we were at Waterloo.

I had enjoyed his company and bade him goodbye …

The walk took about 10mins or so when we came upon the Eye in the distance… it looked small against the skyline but as we got nearer got bigger.

Amazingly we saw long queues of mostly young people waiting.. we were glad we had pre-booked our tickets and made our way smugly to the beginning of the queue.. shock horror.. that was the queue for ticketed people and were told to join it… but this was my ‘present’ so I complied.

The queue seemed a long queue but 30 mins later we were being scanned, body searched and ushered into the slow moving air-conditioned cabin along with a bunch of other passengers and we were off…slowly….into the sky.

Essentially the cabin was a large egg like shape with clear perspex (?) all around except for the floor area… you could see for miles in all directions including downwards, truly an experience. We made our way up and over and there was no real feeling of movement at all, it felt safe ....it was my ‘present’ and I was rather enjoying it.

Pictures, many pictures were taken of everything out there as far as the eye could see.. the Shard, the old Post Office Tower and even the Crystal Palace TV tower in the far distance.

Old River Thames flowed past below with boats filled with tourists taking trips up and down in the glorious sunshine.

It seemed no time at all before we were approaching the bottom of the Eye and were ushered off, through the obligatory souvenir shop and out onto terra firma….

But it had been my ‘present’ and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it… thank you lots to my family for such a memorable birthday present…

So what’s for next year ;-)