Friday night on the South Bank

I spent yesterday evening in town. When I was working in central London I sometimes really used to hate it. There are so many people, so much traffic and as my job often involved heading across town to go and meet clients, I was always rather stressed that all these people, cars, buses, tubes were working against me.

These days, as I am not working, if I head into the centre of town, it is usually a much better experience. I took the bus across Waterloo Bridge up to St Paul's. As it is getting dark just after 5 now, it's actually pretty darn cool. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are all lit up and the views along the river are great. This time last year I was on this Bridge learning about night time photography as part of a 10 week evening class I took. As part of that very same course I did a project on St Paul's too - it was a bit dirty then - but they have now finally finished cleaning it up and it looks amazing actually. It's one of those ironies of life, that when you live in any city, you rarely make the most of everything it has to offer because life is just too busy. Jonny has been working next to St Paul's for about 6 years now, and has still yet to go inside.

Anyway, it is a clear and still evening. We wander from St Paul's across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate. I try to take a few photos on my digital compact that don't work very well at all. It makes me appreciate that I did learn quite a bit on my course and I need my SLR and a tripod to get a decent shot of St Paul's in all it's glory.

We've had membership of the Tate for a few years now, but again, so rarely use it. We are not meeting our friends for a couple of hours so head up to the members bar there. Jonny is too tired after a mammoth week at work for checking out any of the art. I've not been in here before. It is very understated, with it's main winning card being the views out across the Thames. Obviously all the seats by the window are taken but we relax and on the couches and catch up on what is going on. I've hardly seen him all week and even though he is tired, this is better than vegging in front of the TV as we talk more. I enjoy it. I think the Tate have got the market just right here. They offer drinks and tapas, which is kind of perfect if you have just been looking at art. Or like most of the people in there, are using it as a pit stop after work.

We then wander along the South Bank to the Royal Festival Hall to meet our friends. The South bank has improved massively. I can remember coming up here years ago and it being pretty run down and depressing actually. Nowadays, there are all sort of cafes and restaurants which maximise the outlook across the Thames and give for a nice understated buzz about the place.

We eat at Skylon, which is the fairly new restaurant at the top of the Royal Festival Hall. It seems we are not to get a view this evening, as our table is far from the prime river view ones at the front. Still the high ceilings and general setting still make for a really pleasant place to eat. The waiter is maybe too eager to take our orders. You can tell this is a really popular place these days, and you get the sense that someone else is booked onto our table in a couple of hours. Anyway, my fishcakes were nice and my apple tart tartin delicious, and the prices not too bad for a London restaurant in such a prime position. As an aside I think this is not the case with the Oxo Tower down the road - ok food at a high price.

The big bonus for us is this is a few minutes walk from the train back to Richmond from Waterloo, and fortunately one of us wakes up just in time for us not to miss our stop. It's chucking it down with rain when we get back. I think the South Bank would be less pleasant in the rain so am grateful that even though we didn't get a table with a view, it was clear and still when we were there. Note to self: should do this more.