The Tower of London

Thursday!

Somehow keeping track of the days when you're on a vacation is helpful. Today we get to sample the wonderful English breakfast at our hotel restaurant. An array of lovely cheeses, fruits, cereal and yogurt awaited us. However, the thing that was driving my appetite was...black pudding. BLACK PUDDING? YES! My husband, being of Scottish and Irish ancestry was served black pudding by his grandmother when he was a boy. Of course, when I was a new bride I wanted to enforce my love of him and went to the butcher shop in Canada where I shopped for blood pudding as they said and cooked it for him. Only once, though. I think he got the love message and we have remained married for forty-two years. However, the anticipation of black/blood pudding was mixed. I scanned the buffet and there it was! I filled my plate with healthy back bacon, coddled eggs, cheese and other delights. When I got back to the table my husband had already dug into the black pudding and eyed me to see what I would do. I sampled the black and what do you know? I liked it. I really really liked it. I guess we'll stay married for forty plus more years.. I hope. But enough of the culinary blather.

Today the chartered bus took us to the Tower of London. We had spectacular weather and took pictures. But what awaited inside could not be photographed. The CROWN JEWELS! No words could adequately sum up the impression of such splendor except maybe OOH, LA LA! But enough memories of Paris. The Tower has a barbaric history and not being a scholar of such details I dredged up some memories of the History tv channel. King Richard had supposedly held his nephews in the Tower and eventually they died. A lady on the tour said that "that's the way children should be punished!" I gasped and choked a giggle at her incredulous comment. An ambulance arrived in the middle of the afternoon. After much delay, someone was driven to a nearby hospital.

Ah, yes Cricket!

A spirited rivalry match was being held at the London Oval The Ashes tournament was at stake and Australia and England were in the throes of competition. Right now, I'm in the internet research mode to see if I can understand the rules of play of the game of Cricket. I'll keep you posted.

After the tour, we went to a local shopping center. We were near a tube station where commuters suddenly spilled out onto the sidewalk like ants on a mission. We made it to a McDonald's restaurant where we ordered combos..I, a chicken patty that was so delicious. The breading was light and the spread was creamy.

We went into a famous grocery store.."Tesco"s" where we picked up a few snacks and a pint of milk. We walked back to our hotel feeling good that we had experienced a little bit of the modern culture. We lolled around the hotel room after taking the challenging shower and I proceeded to click the remote until I found a discussion on Northern England vs London's culinary differences. Apparently the foodies thought that Fish and Chips were better as you moved north because they used lard vs cooking oil. I say when you're in Britian on vacation go for the lard! Off to sleep for tomorrow we pick up another bus and sightseeing tour of London.