A stroll around St Katherine Docks and Tower Bridge

Our house is in a bit of a mess at the moment and has been for the last three weeks. We are virtually confined to one room downstairs because we are having building work carried out. Our kitchen is being knocked through to the dining room to form one large kitchen-diner, which apparently, according to the home decor/interior design media, is all the vogue at the moment.

Both rooms have been emptied of furniture, ornaments, pictures and all other sorts of paraphernalia which are temporarily being stored in the study and spare bedrooms. Every surface has a thin layer of fine dust covering it, even though our builder is meticulously tidy; cleaning up each night before he leaves. Consequently I have been out and about with my camera rather a lot lately.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of visiting our son at his London office adjoining St Katherine Docks. I had to collect a computer hard drive from him that I had inadvertently left at his flat a week earlier. This visit gave me the opportunity to explore the Docks that I hadn't been to for over thirty years. In my youth, friends and I spent many a happy evening drinking in the Dickens Inn, a delightful pub situated in the heart of the dock, which was converted into a marina in the nineteen seventies. It would be great to see how the area has changed over the intervening years.

After collecting the hard drive I was treated to a coffee at 'Starbucks' next to Tower Bridge by the Young Master who insisted on taking a couple of 'Selfie' photo's (encouraged by me) on his phone of us both sitting in the warm sunshine with Tower Bridge in the background.

These pictures were immediately transferred through the ether to Mrs C who was diligently working away in her office in deepest darkest Kent. We got the result that we expected, a quick response expressing deep envy and accusations that I had deliberately forgotten the hard drive in order to visit the Young Master's totally cool and buzzing place of work. It saddened me to think that Mrs C could believe that I would be so duplicitous! (LOL).

The Young Master returned to work and I took a stroll around the dock and surrounding area taking numerous photographs as I went. The Dickens Inn is still standing and appears to be just as popular as it was in my dim distant past, however on this occasion I didn't go in for a beer. The marina is like a little piece of the West Country amongst the tower blocks and offices of the city.

There were some beautiful luxury yachts and traditional Thames barges moored alongside quays which housed designer craft shops and restaurants. Several market stalls had been set up, each selling hot food from all around the world which were proving to be very popular with both the tourists and office workers alike. Just like the Young Masters office there was a real vibrancy to the dock even better than when I hung around here in the early eighties. I think that I shall have to return here with Mrs C in the near future.