29^th February, the extra day every Leap Year when people paid monthly are working for nothing, isn’t that a con by the bosses! It’s also the last day of winter, according to the meteorologists’ calendar. Looks like spring to me for the crocuses (croci) at the bus stop at Brook Green on Hammersmith Road in West London. Of course that’s the bus stop for red buses at Brook Green, the green buses go from down the road at Hammersmith bus station.

A hint of the urban spring in Hammersmith: sports motorbikes parked outside workplaces, rowing eights training on the river and the squirrels posing amongst the crocuses in Margravine cemetery, they are the most attractive of the urban beggars!

Three piers on the Bristol Channel on a fine day out. Clevedon’s graceful ironwork pier (1869) has been bringing steamer passengers ashore since Victorian times. Weston super Mare’s Grand pier (1904) suffered a fire in 2008 and has been rebuilt with a modern pavilion. Also at Weston, Birmbeck pier (1848) has not been so lucky and is now in disrepair.

Striking doctors on picket line outside St Mary’s, Paddington. Support from passing vehicles and pedestrians was acknowledged with waves and shouted thanks. A model of a peaceful protest with support from their public: us, the users of the NHS. A huge contrast with the blockade by the taxi drivers of Marseille on Mardi Noir last month.
Many outpatients clinics were cancelled so the patient area was uncannily quiet. This is the second strike by junior hospital doctors in protest about major changes to their working hours and contracts. We haven’t experienced doctors strikes since 1975. St Mary’s has been more often in the news as one of the hospitals favoured by the royal family: Princess Charlotte was born here in May 2015, Prince George in July 2013.