Cycling in London for my brother's 50th birthday

 Today is my brother's 50th birthday.  He organised a party in London for friends and family, and I, of course, attended with my own family.  

My brother, Mark, planned the party long ago, and long before Network Rail decided upon their maintenance schedule.  It turned out that the train line serving the nearest train station (Forest Hill) was closed for the day and so the most obvious route for travelling was not possible.  We decided to take our bikes on the train and cycle from Waterloo to Forest Hill.  Any time we have tried cycling in London before has always been a lot more pleasurable than doing so around Guildford, with London offering much better cycling infrastructure.  

In the end it was a nice ride, and cycling across London is a great way to see different parts of the city.  I'm not sure I've ever been to Walworth before, but we rode through a most beautiful estate of houses that looked like a film set for a Victorian period piece. Here's the route we took (click for (a bit) more detail):

For my brother's birthday I tried racking my brains for a while to think of a good present - maybe taking him to a concert or other event, but I couldn't really find the right thing.  In the end, I decided to buy every single that had been number one in the charts on his birthday since 1972.  In the end, it was quite easy to get hold of physical media for them all up until about 10 years ago.  It was fun collecting them, and then fun handing them over today.  He seemed impressed and grateful.  

We were the first to arrive at the party, and people steadily arrived during the couple of hours we were there.  There were people from different parts of my brother's life, including a group of schoolfriends he keeps in touch with, and whom I remember from my own schooldays.  He asked guests to bring a cake each, and so there was lots of nice cake to be had which was definitely fine with me, and most of my kids.  One of my children does not much like cake, but he has, on the other hand, been caused to memorise the announcements on the train through frequent listening.  He spontaneously came out with the following on the train, which we then asked him to repeat from posterity: