Wednesday 13th November 2024
In our “Relentless quest” to cover as as many tourist landmarks as possible, and today is no exception, our destination is the “Tower of London”, but first breakfast. Last night we had such a good time we lost trace of the time as well as the alcohol consumption, so today we feel a little jaded, still it was worth it!!!
Back on the underground, my my, we’re getting quite adept at finding our way and more importantly, direct routes to get to where we’re going to; living in Spain for 18-years, one forgets these things!!!
Arriving at Tower Hill, we headed to the ticket office then went into the tower. Firstly we joined a tour group with a “Beefeater” giving ua all a brief history of the tower; riveting but far too much to take in but he did point us in the right direction, where to go etc. Our first stop were the Crown Jewels, what an array of diamonds, gold and other precious stones and apart from high security cameras, steel doors, and other electronic devices, everything was safe, the Gurkhas were on guard duty outside, in fact as we arrived, we watched the “changing of the guard”!!!
There is far too much to write in our blog about this visit so here is the link if anyone wants to go deeper into the history of the ‘Tower of London”. www.hrp.org.uk needless to say we enjoyed our visit and the sun was shining, that was a bonus. We were impressed at the one-way “trail” linking the various perimeter towers and battlements, though at times there was the occasional “spiral staircase”, I have to say this part of the visit is certainly not wheelchair friendly!!! In one section the spiral staircase heading up to the top of the Bloody Tower was so steep and so narrow, that both Christine and I had to use hands an feet to get up!!!! Thank goodness I have my new knee, I could never have visited the Tower of London during the previous two years or so. Thank you Mr Lancaster and Yeovil hospital.
Most of these towers had an exhibition of a particular period in its history which was interesting, but the White Tower, the original one built by William the Conquerer (started in 1070 and completed in 1079) I thought was disappointing. Since 1825 the tower has been open as an exhibition and the custodian the royal Armouries through the centuries; I was a little disappointed.
Having walked our feet off it was time to leave as we had to be back to Marylebone, firstly for Christine to meet Elton from school, and secondly it was “street party time”; tonight the Christmas lights are being switched on and the local council close the streets and it fills with stalls and fairground rides etc., but first we needed some nourishment.
We headed to the local Gregg’s, our favoured “food-on-the-go” these days; fresh, quick and reasonably priced, besides I have their locality app!!! Back on the underground and back home in time for Christine to do the school run.
We all headed out around 5.00pm and joined the throng of people already gathered in Marylebone high street eagerly waiting the big “switch-on” at 6,00pm though we were couldn’t pass the various kiddies rides, Elton always made a “bee-line” for the drivers seat in the various modes of transport on the roundabouts.
Due to the timings it was “Little-one’s” dinner time so headed into a restaurant but the irony of this was we actually missed the big switch on!!!
Back home and after Elton was in bed we watched a film though very tired and quite pleased when it had finished so we could head off. Tonight was our last night, we head home tomorrow.
Thursday 14th November 2024
Up early to make sure we saw Elton leave for school, breakfast, pack and away, heading to Waterloo station.
Looking back over the last three days, wow we’ve covered some ground, did a number of touristy places and had a jolly good time. We were a little sceptical heading up to London as to what to expect now Andrew has full custody of Elton and more importantly what he had arranged for Elton’s “nana” to do. Our fears were un-founded, Andrew has a part-time helper Anna from Denmark, who does a fair amount of looking after Elton they are very good together thus giving us the opportunity to do all the touristy bits, thank you
Train left Waterloo a minute early!!!! Arrived at Crewcerne on time and we headed off to Weston s Mare, Christine has booked to have her nails done. For a change the traffic was light so arrived in plenty of time, in fact even had time for another visit to Greggs!!!
Nails done and we headed over to Jane’s to collect Tom-Tom and Rosie and my what a welcome, anybody would have thought we’d been away for six months!! After collecting Mia from the school bus we headed home, at last.
As is our way, after a break, on the night we get back we normally head out for a curry or something, tonight it was the “something”. For sometime I had fancied a Chinese but we haven’t found one around these parts so looked to see what’s in Yeovil. After reading the various comments, we picked the one with the most glowing reviews and booked a table.
We arrived on time and entered a completely empty restaurant, obviously I hadn’t needed to book, it’s not looking promising, still keeping an open mind we sat down to study the menu. Firstly we ordered 2-glasses of Chardonnay and waited, and waited, oh yes still waited but behind us there was a lot of activity and eventually they found a bottle and opened it and at that point we “clocked” it was a bottle of red!!!! No, no Chardonnay was what we ordered so of they went again and eventually came back with a couple of “whites”, neither were Chardonnay so I pointed it out on “their” menu. After a few mutters we were told it was upstairs but not cold. By now I had gone off the idea and ordered a beer and Christine had the glass of red they had already poured and still the restaurant was empty.
Ordering our food was the next challenge as the young lad who was the waiter hadn’t really got a clue about the various dishes. At this point we realised this wasn’t actually a Chinese, oriental yes but not what we were expected. Anyway moving forward, we eventually ordered one starter to share which was very tasty then the chef/owner/ whoever came out and informed us Christine had actually ordered a soup and asked if that was correct. Anyway after some discussions she offered her a prawn dish that sounded really nice but when it arrived was only about 6 out of 10. I ordered a beef dish that sounded really exciting but turned out to be no more than overcooked slices of a cheap cut of beef in a sort of gravy, 2 out of 10. We did go overboard with their chef’s special fried rice, it was full of all sorts of things from mixed meats to fish, plenty of it but bland in taste; it could do with some salt and or soy sauce to give it flavour, at this point we decided to leave “Fred Karno’s Circus” and still we were the only ones in there!!!!! This proves you can’t always trust reviews on line!!!
Back home for a good nights sleep