Views around Southwark...

View from the News Building...

The view out of my window (towards the South and St Thomas' hospital) -

- and slightly to the right over towards the London Eye -

- down towards London Bridge Street (where I used to queue for the Number 17 bus) -

- and down towards London Bridge station...

Then river-side, the view this direction slightly marred by the number of vertical supports, not sure why we need them on that side of the building and not on the other, but there we go!  Once the observation deck opens we'll see what the real view is like... ;)

Welcome to the News Building...

...(or "Return to Southwark!")...tried to get my head around a better journey into town today (now having absolutely no onward journey to worry about from London Bridge), discovered that my later train is an express train (and thus was full and standing - *groan*)...so that is still a work in progress...anyway, had a nice cup of tea in St Thomas Street waiting for my free breakfast time to arrive - as I was quite early -

- when I got there we were already being asked to gather our things ready for our induction(!), so I grabbed a slightly warm (but very tasty) bacon sandwich (and a glug of water), and then we were on our way to reception...

- and up in the lifts after we had been pass upgraded (there are 6 lifts serving the core of the building, all with no buttons inside, so you choose your destination before you get in and the lifts tell you which letter you want to join - same as the last office, actually) -

- as you can see, there isn't a huge amount of choice at the moment, most of the office is still a building site, after all...

Anyway, up on the 13th floor (which is almost finished) - we have lots and lots of hot desks -

- collaborative spaces -

- (of all sorts of shapes and sizes) -

- and beautiful new kitchens (intermittently topped up with fresh fruit and pastries) -

- and a (somehow rather familiar) lighting decoration above one of the newspaper carousels (thank goodness it isn't right in front of any of the desks, or they might be a bit unpopular with migraine sufferers)...!

All in all - Amazing so far!  Guess I'll post some of the views from the windows later on (when the sun comes out)...but the office itself is very swish and everything smells, well, new! ;)

Sun re-branding...

- spotted on the newsagent right opposite the Shard in Bridge Walk... ;)

The News Building

...well, eleven weeks to go and goodbye Wapping...

Hello to a whole new world - no fixed desks (i.e. pick your view over London day by day), no fixed hours...the opportunity to meet and work with new people every single day - not just from our business, but across the group...frankly I'm rather excited!

Already practising the clear desk policy which will be required (you get a large locker each to keep your junk in), but I guess I'll have to put the pictures of the kids on my laptop desktop background from now on...!

Foggy Southwark

...this morning, it felt almost like being on a different planet...

Southwark at Twilight

Taken last night when I decided to walk it as the weather was nice (for a huge change)! ;)

Also found out yesterday that we are moving offices in the first week of June - ours will be the very first kit picked up and transported to "The Place" - and after that I really won't have much reason to return to Wapping (bar perhaps a few meetings as the rest of the staff slowly follow us pioneers over the river) nor take the stroll across the Thames via Tower Bridge - so actually not that many more "organic" opportunities to do this sort of thing await me, they will have to be deliberate excursions...I may as well make the most of it...! ;)

Up the Shard on a Rainy day

So, today was the day, what a shame the weather wasn't too good...(oh well - I guess the cool thing is that hardly anyone would normally do this sort of thing in bad weather, so my pics might actually be somewhat unusual)... ;)

...so I got to London Bridge quite early (had to cab it to Redhill and get on a super early Luton train in order to make it on time) -

- found the Shard Arcade (which I has spied on previously during construction) now open, but it's still a bit shy in the way of actual shops - anyway - at the appointed time, I walked to the main entrance of the Shard itself - was directed to a lift -

- honestly, it felt a bit like playing a tutorial level on a run and gun game ("This way, Sir", "Yes, just up there") there must have been ten people employed to this end (which was the 22nd floor) -


- we had a couple of hours of (very informative) presentations after taking a couple of snaps from this (comparatively low level) -



...and then...it was back down to the ground floor to take a trip up to the top of the world (London-style)...

Ghostly Twin Shard

Wow, amazing light this morning, the reflection of the sun off the shard is creating a sort of ethereal, ghost "twin tower"!


As the cloud moves so you are getting a constantly shifting picture... ;)

Stop Sign Squeeze...

Spotted in Southwark the other day... ;)

Southwark Cathedral Carol Concert