Westminster Chimes

Now I'm reluctantly back at work, it's as good a time as any to look back over the last week of being a tourist and driving Dune crazy.

In my last post, I touched on how I had shown my charming antipodean guest the delights that my small home counties commuter town had to offer -- then on Wednesday we headed into directly into the city of London itself.

We had discussed various tourist ideas, including visiting Buckingham Palace -- but unfortunately it seems that tours of the state rooms are limited to the summer, and that in the winter the world-famous changing of the guards happens only every other day, and even then the guards might not be wearing the traditional red uniform. So that was scratched off the list. Instead, we settled on the idea of seeing Westminster first in the morning -- including the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Then, after meeting my Mum for lunch, I promised Dune I would show her Old Spitalfields Market before her meeting with a recruitment consultant in the area. After this we said if there was time we would go to Tower Hill and see the Tower of London.

It was probably early on Wednesday that Dune first started to realise how completely incompetent with directions I am, and how vaguely I knew where a lot of things were in London. I had to look up that Westminster Abbey was best reached from Westminster tube station, but had a very sketchy idea at best as to how to find it. We found our way to the Westminster tube station without too much trouble, followed the exits for Big Ben and Parliament, and emerged from the Underground alongside the spectacular Houses of Parliament. I might not have much time for the people inside the building, but the architecture itself is amazing -- and you don't quite appreciate the sheer size of it until you see it in person.

"Where's Big Ben?" Dune asked me. "Umm, pass? It's around here somewhere...". We were standing directly underneath it which was why I couldn't see it -- and it was only when walking along Westminster bridge did we realise this. My camera's USB cable is currently MIA, so I have no pictures to offer -- which is all the more reason to visit Dune's blog.

Westminster Abbey was found, after a fashion and it would have been spotted sooner, I am sure, if we had seen it from the front to begin with. Although I've visited it before I can't say when that was -- it certainly wasn't remotely recently. This is my excuse for why I didn't know how to get there, whenever it was I last visited I wouldn't have had to know or pay much attention -- it also seems that I didn't pay much attention the inside of it before either, as I was humbled by the final resting places of so many monarchs and historical figures. If we hadn't been on a time constraint and the place hadn't been so busy, I might have really taken the time to linger among the poets. Places like that always make me want to reach out and touch the walls and the tombs -- to see if I can feel any sort of psychic connection to earlier times.

I think I might have managed to not look like a complete idiot when I successfully navigated us from Liverpool Street Station to Old Spitalfields Market. This makes a lot more sense -- it's somewhere that I go semi-regularly (or daily when I worked by there) and visited much more recently. Unfortunately, the renovations that were going on in the place last time I visited -- back in December with China Blue -- were still going on, so there was nothing much to see, aside from a few market stalls outside. Dune was lucky enough to find a bag she liked on one of these stalls, so it wasn't a completely wasted trip.

Dune's appointment with her recruitment consultant was slightly disappointing for her -- but I guess these people come in all shapes, sizes and competencies and despite being pleasant her recruiter did seem to have some odd ideas about finding work and a decent wage.

The Tower of London we decided could wait for another day -- it's not going anywhere -- and it was still very cold out, but we did manage to find Dune a cute-looking winter coat from M&S which is going some way to protecting her from these harsh climates.

And there I guess I can leave it for now -- this post will get far too long if I start writing about Camden and watching the Gutter Twins, or about Friday's trip to the British Museum. At least it's something to keep you coming back for.