Sent to the Tower

It looks like late starts have become part of the routine. We finally got ourselves out to Tower Hill today by 11:30. At the Tower of London we picked up our tickets and headed inside to see the crown jewels.

 

Once again we experienced the joy of travelling in winter - there were no crowds in the crown jewels display, so we could go back and forth as we liked, each of us deciding which crown was 'our' crown and being very unimpressed by Victoria's fussy little crown which perched on top of her morning veils and frankly made her look a bit like a decorated pudding. 6 weeks in the UK can make you blase about time lines; the most impressive of the jewels was actually the anointing spoon, which dates from the reign of Edward the Confessor. The rest of the jewels are all impressively gem encrusted etc but are a mere 500 years old. Cromwell melted the old set down, so Charles II had a new set made. Hardly historic at all...
By this time it was well past midday and we had missed our traditional morning tea, so off to the cafe we went.

We joined a Beef Eater tour, during which Thomas impressed our Yeoman guide by knowing the date of Jane Grey's execution. Thomas explained that she had been executed on his birthday (600 years earlier). The guard blinked a bit and said, 'but that's my birthday' and an American woman on his left chimed in 'mine too!' and suddenly we had an execution / birthday club going on. It's a small and slightly gruesome world.

It was another chilly day and we ate our sandwiches in a pool of bright but oddly cold sunshine while watching the ravens and the hardier tourists stride about the grounds. Next was a tour of the armoury in the White Tower (LOTS of armour, swords and pikes and one chopping block and axe) and then some of the rooms in the walls built by Henry III, which have been restored to their medieval appearance.

   

Hours later we sat by the Thames and watched the boats cross under Tower Bridge.

On our way back to the tube, we stumbled across this statue of the general (later Emperor) Trajan in front of a stretch of the Roman wall which was the first to circle London. See what we mean about time frames? Makes 400 years look a bit weak.

At this point Robert started to crumble. Thomas was raring to go on, so we split up. Robert went home to cook risotto, while Helen and Thomas took the tube to Liverpool St Station to go skating next door at Broadgate, a square enclosed by shiny new towers in the financial district. The lit offices made the buildings look like huge dolls houses.

 Thomas had never skated before (except for the pretend skating at Alnwyk) and Helen hadn't skated for 25 years, so we had to help each other quite a lot. Thomas got to the point where he could skate half way around the rink without hanging on to anything and Helen seemed to pick it up again quite quickly.

All went well until Helen, paying more attention to Thomas than to her own feet, went over backwards and cracked her head on the ice, just as the session ended. Sore but pleased, we headed home for hot baths.