Sunday: Two friends go off to the Garden Centre and bring back seeds of Onions, Cabbages, Carrots and radishes!

Monday: Meet up at the pub next to the station at 10:30am, realise its bank holiday and they ain't open for another 1 ½, so get on train and head down to Embankment. We arrive in Parliament Square at about 11:30am, to thousands of people milling around in all sorts of cloths, costumes and some, dare I say naked. People's ages ranging as much as their cloths, from the twins in the prams to the very old couple, who were not tourist. The atmosphere in the Square was very easy going, the Police presence at this point minimal only police in their yellow little jackets, and so no intimidation.

Things kind of stayed like this for an hour or so whilst we found our little spot to do our Gardening, by this time there were lots of people doing there own creative things on the grass. We found a patch where a few children were planting so decided this was a good place to lay our Radishes and other assorted veg.

Right breakfast, went off down an alley and found an off-licence and then a pub sat outside and enjoyed a pint. Came back into the Square and things had started to look slightly worrisome. Each of the exists out of the square was now blocked by an ever increasing number of riot police. When we asked to go back in it was made clear that we would not be allowed out, what ever? I presume now after seeing the news reports and newspapers this must have been sometime just after the MD's had been trashed. The riot police started to squeeze people in ever so slightly, there was still a lot of room to avoid them but if you stood up you could always see at least two or three different fractions.

This was now intimidating especially to people not use to this kind of policing, there were a lot of people with their children stuck with no way out and not knowing why they were being held. For me one of the issues about been surrounded by the he Police is that you know there are people in the crowd that will start throwing bricks/sticks/bottles/dustbins and when that happens the Police tend not to discriminate when they come charging in. It stayed like this for maybe an hour eventually an exit was given and we all started marching to the lovely sound of the drums.

We all marched down the road accompanied by the Riot Police, we then seem to get taken into an alley, near the oval tube, where one marcher though it would be funny to jump on some ones car. He did not last very long as he was pulled down and given a few words of wisdom from quite a few protestors. There were a few instances on the day like this where people were stopping idiots like this from vandalising property or getting themselves arrested for all manor of ridiculous things including:

Waving a stick in front on the riot polices heads
Jumping on the bonnets of cars
Trying to yank the door open of a riot van
Face to face with a copper with a brick in your hand - He eventually got bashed

To name a few, do you think that the police will watch you do this without taking action, cause they fucking won't, they will go in and go in hard. Brutal, but whose fault is it? Now I know that I'll probably get a rile of abuse from so called protestors but what would you rather have:

A: 100,000 protestors demonstrating peacefully, sitting in front of cars, planting seeds, marching, drumming, children playing

B: 1,000 protestors throwing bricks, bottles, no kids, no families, no middle age people, no old age people.

Which one of these choices will change government bills the quickest? If you have a mix of these the 100,000 protestors in a couple of years it will dwindle away because people don't want their children to be at risk, they don't want to be caught up in the indiscriment charging of the Police.

So after that rant. The march had come to a halt as a few people sat in front of a Police van so we took the time to pop in the conveniently located pub for an quick pint. Here we bummed into two people from Canada who were demonstrating, one was off to Kosovo as part of NATO, the next day. We got out of the pub and then went onto Kenington Park where a group of protestors were having it with the riot police, well they were throwing bricks and bottles whilst the police looked bored while easily bashing them away.

The riot police were on the roadside and we were inside the park with only a small gate to get through so it was difficult for the Riot police to come through. Every now and then they would make a small charge which scattered some of the protestors. Behind the riot police was a busy bus stop with people waiting or they were until they started been showered with bricks and glass. At this point a woman went between the protestors and riot police to try to stop people throwing things at the police, a brick landed next to her, this shows the mentality of some of them. These were bricks that would not even scratch a riot police with their entire American football outfit on, to someone with no protection it would split your head open. People kept asking for people to stop throwing things at the police so they could get on with enjoying the park, it fell on deaf ears. Eventually the police came into the park and there were a few scuffles a few arrests and then they left, they would have left a lot earlier if it were not for a few people.

This was my fill for the day for this kind of demonstrating so we left, the road littered with rubbish, due to someone throwing a trash can, well done give yourself a badge.

To sum up my experiences: Last year with the riot police, especially those on horse back were countered this year by the minority protestors who knew nothing about demonstrating and nothing about protecting the people around you. I felt this was a very good protest and in the whole very peaceful and friendly. Lots of well organised stuff that a lot of people should be congratulated for, the Organic Toilet in Parliament Square, a god send, seen as the Council/Government/Police had decided to close all the public toilets in the area. To all those people you should be proud of what you achieved, to the peaceful demonstrators you should be proud of what you achieved.