Building work, and everything dusty and noisy...

...in the kitchen at home, but also and on a vast scale, in London. A bright, golden day with crisp fresh  wintry air combined with Spring sunshine...but as I walk  along by the Thames the whole of London's skyline  is dominated by cranes, and every loved landmark is about to be hidden, if it isn't already, by a vast monstrous slab of glittering steel and harsh white concrete. Ugly, ugly, ugly...

Crossing Blackfriars Bridge all is noise and dust and dirt.  I used to walk this route so often, from my father's office (which had been his father's before him) in Hopton Street across the river to where the plane trees and the gardens of the Middle Temple made a green welcome, and then along the Embankment  with its busy traffic and sudden bits of history...Joseph Bazlegette's monument, and Cleopatra's needle and more...

I know, I know... many of London's changes have been for the better.   No one needs to tell me that. A few years back,  we had an unforgettable and  talkative dinner with the architect of the superb Battle of Britain monument where the young pilots rush out towards you from the dramatic wall - a magnificent piece of work.  I relish the new walkways along the Thames where once  warehouses blocked the way. Docklands is a success-story with shops and cafes fronting marinas. Crossrail will be a most useful addition to London's transport...

But... vast crude  anonymous slabs, out of proportion to every human thing, and ugly in their distorted shapes...horrible, horrible...and the noise and the dirt...