After the week from hell this week it was a really nice 'Friday Night' to go into the centre of London to meet Mat & Mand for dinner. We'd arranged to meet near Charing Cross, just across the river from Waterloo, where our train comes in from the 'burbs! You can easily travel between the two on the tube but a walk across Hungerford Bridge is just so much nicer.

In recent years, the bridge (really a rail bridge serving Charing Cross station) has had a facelift for pedestrians, with new walkways on both sides - when we were kids you could only walk on the opposite side of the bridge, where you get views of St Pauls and The Royal Festival Hall.

I always love Hungerford Bridge - moreso now you don't get rattled around every time a train goes past. It reminds me of when we used to go on family outings into London as kids. We'd drive in, park on the South Bank, cross the bridge and just wander around soaking up the atmosphere. On the way home, we'd stop at Johnnies Fish Bar, in the arches under the bridge, now sadly no longer, it's a Costa Coffee Shop these days (pah - big brands win again). We'd buy bags of chips, load them with salt and vinegar and eat them, steaming hot vinegary vapour into the cold night air, on our way back across the bridge to the car.

I like this composition because you have the big wheel of the London Eye - a thing of pleasure - the views from it are absolutely wonderful, directly opposite the Houses of Parliament, the comedy centre of the UK, where grown men and women get to behave like children and yet still get to make decisions that affect all of us.