Tuesday 1 January 2008

New Year's Eve 2008 Waterloo Bridge

There have been many disappointments in my life, many serious and agonising, not just for me, but for my family. Last night, New Year's Eve, has to go down in history as one of the most disappointing nights of my life, noone got hurt, noone will suffer.. However at 9pm last night I arrived on waterloo bridge, shivering, damp, squashed on Waterloo bridge. The London Evening Standard reccomended Waterloo Bridge as an ideal viewpoint for the annual fireworks, and I was full of anticipation. As the countdown started (as in the forst photo) I felt a suge of excitement.. For years I had been envious of the people who had seen the amazing displays on teh River Thames as midnight struck, now it was my turn...... Sadly 2008 did not start as well as I or many thousands had hoped.....


and it's January 1st 2008, Happy New Year everyone, no time for pleasantries on the bridge though, this is the moment we have been waiting for....... and the fireworks start well, there are even one or two oooohs and ahs


It's harder than I imagined to take the photos because there is such an explosion of light that the night vision is muddling things....



you can see the smoke is starting to impede...... and it only gets worse. . .


By now you can barely see the Eye and the Houses of Parliament are in complete darkness . . . the smoke is coming, it's coming, its here.



This was the last credible shot that I took, and I mean that in the loosest of terms. After that we were enveloped in smoke.... we could hear the firework display, but did not see a single other one. At the end, we all trudged off immediately, we did not cheer or sing Auld Lang Syne as the news reports suggest. Instead we made our weary, damp and disheartened way to Waterloo station. Only to discover that the Police had set up blockades, sent us on a diversion of about a mile, and it took me an hour and a half off queuing, pushing,being pushed, tripping, being crushed, being sworn at, being stamped on to get into Waterloo station (from 200 yards away!!) Thanks Ken, that's five hours of my life I'll never get back.


However my year started, I hope you all have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008.
With love
Anyaxx




7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with you. We were on Embankment and there was smoke everywhere. Even watching the TV coverage afterwards it was all a mess of smoke and bursts of light. Too much too quickly and (so I'm told) too much cheap gunpowder!

Also - why was anyone allowed to bring glass bottles to watch the fireworks? Walking back was like some sort of assault course - dodging the drunkards who had fallen over, the well-meaning idiots who were trying to shake hands with every passer-by, all the time you're trying not to tread on broken glass.

And - why didn't they turn the streetlights off?

Who else had a great view until the people in front put their umbrellas up?

Apart from that it was marvellous. Happy New Year y'all.

jennyberrypix.blogspot.com said...

Well I think the 1st 5 photos are spectacular but having read your blog and the comment (shame the person felt they had to be anonymous!)it does somewhat put me off - Give me the swans any day!! J xx

Velophile said...

I agree - and why wasn't there at least any nice music or distractions leading up to the smoke? I felt like we were in the middle of some military disaster area. It was gloomy and miserable and we were treated like scum, not hopeful, happy council tax payers.

Who was to blame?!

Unknown said...

Thanks for putting the pictures up! Nobody believed me! It indeed wasn't very good.
Why those guttlets at the end of the bridge too? Surely this is the last thing you need when you have crowds of thousands walking around.
Anyway, thanks to the smoke, we left early and didnt wait long to get on a train at Holborn.

Anonymous said...

Keep up (Cough, Cough) the good work Anya. But don't blame it all on our dear Ken.

debbie said...

your photos are good Anya but its a shame there was a lot of smoke saw it on TV and yes way too much smoke, but was it not rainy too,,surely that does not help but sorry the view was spoilt by smoke but I bet the atmosphere was great..

Posh Totty said...

Happy New Year Anya, the pics are fab :o) xxx