Today we got a late start because we are all beginning to feel so tired. We dragged ourselves out of the house at around 11.00am and took the tube into London (catching 4 different train lines in an effort to be as efficient as possible). We decided to alight at Whitechapel which turns out to be a Muslim area with interesting markets. We strolled through looking with interest at burkas for sale alongside exotic looking jewellery. Eventually we came to Auldgate, the old gate to the City of a London still guarded with a griffin. we had learnt earlier in the morning about the City of London’s unique status separate from the rest of England and how the city is still guarded by the griffins when you look around. As we strolled though the old city I was struck by the groovy juxtaposition of the very old sitting alongside the very new. Everything about London is funky.

We couldn’t resist lunch at an old English pub where we had an excellent meal in traditional English surroundings, before walking further to the (for me) the long anticipated Tower of London. I have read so much about what has happened here over the years that I was bursting with expectation. The outside of the Tower did not disappoint – a huge castle, with two walls guarded by lions alongside Tower Bridge.

Sadly for me, because my expectations were so high, the rest of the tour felt frustrating. There were a million tourists there and I really wanted to explore and get to grips with the “real” Tower of London – instead there were people constantly in the way of everything I wanted to look at and lots and lots of exhibitions on guns, cannons, armour blah, blah, blah. The great thing was that both boys fully engaged with the Tower and what it had to teach them. Nick was really inspired by the castle and the way it was designed and very impressed that his ancestor, William the Conqueror, had built the white tower in the centre. Michael loved the armoury. I of course, wanted to know all about King Henry VIII’s wives and what happened to them here.

At the end of the day we took another very hot, and very crowded tube home (God we are so lucky we don’t have to deal with that every day) and had another lovely evening chatting to John.