And being raised among the dams of the Tennessee Valley, I can't miss a good dam. But for all these years, I've never been to the Thames Barrier, London's flood defense. I had meant to go for my birthday this year, but a bout of food poisoning from one of soft serve ice cream machines put paid to that.
But finally, finally we went out there taking with us a visitor from Belfast, who probably couldn't give a stuff about dams. It took us a couple of hours to get there after having been stuck in a traffic snarl in Catford - and which only let up just at the point where we got to the giant cat, so we didn't even get a great look at that.
The delights of Catford*
But once we got there, did it live up to hours, weeks, months, years of anticipation?
Well, it's just a tidal barrier. I mean, how good could it be?
But yes, I'm glad I went. The light was good, so I got a couple of good pictures. There was a playground, so Buddy could let off a little steam. Alongside the barrier are giant berms (actually bunds, we were told)and in the play area - they built a giant slide the whole height of the bund. Buddy was fascinated, but sensibly decided not to go down.
We even paid the £2 it costs to go to the visitor centre - to see a film about the construction of the barrier and to watch a little working model of the barrier. I was asked mid-filming if it was for personal use. Ummm, yeah. I guess. I would upload, just out of some kind of lame maverick notion, just to thumb my nose at the Environment Agency - but it's so bad and that's 23 seconds of your life you'll never get back.
Raise the barrier! London's at flood risk
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* Photo credit: Catford Kitty on Flickr by ljcybergal
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