Rapunzel Diaries 6: The Shard

I have had a lovely summer of towers. A tower fest to be sure. And the Shard was the tallest, not the most impressive but pretty near. It's obvious to say it but it does indeed look like a shard of glass piercing the London skyline. It's a bit of a wonky shard if you look directly up from the bottom - probably an illusion as it's so high. It's the tallest building in Western Europe but interestingly the second tallest structure in the UK after Emley Moor transmitting station. It was designed by Renzo Piano, a rather cool name to have and a rather cool place to say is your vision.

We caught the lift to level 68 for our first glimpse of London below us. It is breath taking. You can then climb the stairs up to Level 72. There are observation scopes around one of the levels so you can zoom in on places to find out what they are. It is fascinating to identify all these myriad famous places before you.

Our friends, S and R, got married very quietly last Saturday and went up the Shard as apart of their celebration. Congratulations. May your lives be full of interesting towers!

The Build: Week 14

So near, yet so far. We are so close to finishing this build. The architect thinks about another week but there appears to be so much yet to do. Finish the kitchen, lay three floors, complete the electrics, fit a Juliette balcony and so on. Lots of things and people that need to come together to finish a job.

We are fed up. We are fed up of living in a dusty mess where we can't find anything. We want to cook a meal, sit down at a table to eat it and then plunge onto a sofa and watch TV like we used to 14 weeks ago. People are lovely though and tell us it will all be worth it in the end. And it will.

The builder has had another job on this week and we feel left in limbo with fingers and toes crossed he will give us his undivided attention next week. He hasn't let us down thus far but I have learnt quite slowly over this project that successful builders appear to be successful builders because they can spin a tale. I call it BSing.....being 'blooming silly' but perhaps you can think of another term that fits.

We do now have an oven that works. But even the promise of buns hasn't lured the builder back. There is always painting to do as we have elected to do the decorating. I have become an expert on the mist coat: the layer of paint that goes on new plaster to seal it. I fear I will be dreaming soon about brushes and paint and misquotes and amorphous overcoats.  Alas and woe is us but what we can do is have a hot luxurious bath and a refreshing power shower. Yes the bathroom is finished....hooray....oh apart from the fact it hasn't got a door nor skirting boards nor a radiator that works.

M25 smugness

I listen to Radio 2 now and then. Ergo I listen to endless national traffic reports. Ergo I hear a lot about the M25 and the stationary traffic thereon. Inevitably there is always a report about this motorway winding around London. Traffic isn't moving anti-clockwise, cars are at a standstill, there is very heavy congestion moving at a snail's pace clockwise. It's attained a kind of mythical status in my mind of a ribbon of cars encircling London that just don't move. You drive on to it at your peril as you'll be stuck there forever circling round and round such is its image in my mind.

This last weekend David and I travelled 520 miles to Kent and back. We had to travel on the M25. I don't mind confessing as we approached this legendary road, I was slightly nervous to be meeting it. Why would anyone join the M25 just to be stuck in a queue? Would we indeed have to sit on it as I anticipated? Would we be part of the slow moving snail travelling anti-clockwise?

Of course we had Radio 2 on in the car to keep us abreast of the current M25 situation as we approached this circular highway at 5.30pm on a Friday evening. Surely as M25 virgins we would meet heavy congestion during this last rush hour before the weekend. I drove on to it from the east, going in an anti-clockwise direction at about 6pm and we held our metaphorical breadths. About an hour and a half later - hallelujah - we had endured no tailbacks, no jams and were off it. We felt relieved, spilling over into smugness as we cheered when Junction 5 appeared with no queues having been endured.

We were very lucky. Our friends who tried to join the M25 to the north of London at the same time as us were not so happy. They ended up in a three hour standing queue. They could have set up camp at the side of the motorway and phoned for a take away (delivered perhaps by scooter driving madly down the hard shoulder). The motorway was closed with them on it due to a suspicious man and package. Oh dear such was their frustration and despondency that when they did get going again they just turned their backs on the M25 and went back home and did not rendezvous with us at our final destination.

We took on the legendary M25 and we won.....some of us anyway.

PS More about our final destination in Kent in a later post - suffice it to say it was a towering experience (a clue there).