There’s something very odd about going past the same place at the same time for hours on end.

We’d been talking for a while about doing the tourist thing and taking an open top bus trip around London and today, another unseasonally warm October day, we finally did it.

After some serious pidgeon chasing, column climbing and a late lunch in St Martin’s Lane, a few doors up from the English National Opera, we set off to see the sites from the top of a bus.

It was funny to watch the confused look on the tourist’s faces every time we passed Big Ben. The clock was set to 12:00 and stopped for maintenance, it’s longest period of silence for twenty two years.

I like to think that I know parts of London very well but the view from the top of a bus has changed all that. Roof gardens I’d never seen, shop signs from years ago and a trip around parts of the City I’d know only during the weekday bustle were all revealed.

With the night drawing in around us we sailed past Harrods before we stopped at Oxford Street for a little shopping and a first look at Father Christmas.

The odd thing was it was still 12:00 ….