May 9: Tower of London and Lulworth

Today was the final day in London before we head down to Lulworth for the festivities. For the morning and part of the afternoon we visited the infamous London tower. There we saw the Tower Ravens, birds that if they were to leave legend says that the tower will fall down. They even have a Ravenmaster to keep them happy, damn big buggers they were too, the birds not the Ravenmaster. The tower has a rather large collection of antique weaponry some of which date back to Henry VIII’s era. Rather than doing a boring blow by blow account of what went on, I’ll post a few pics with a description and upload the rest for you all to appreciate.


This here is the White Tower, i actually used to get whitened, hence the name.








I guess keeping the Raven's caged would definitely prevent them from leaving and the tower from falling down. Isn't it odd that the old song goes

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down....













One of the stunning arrays of weapons from the days of the musket. This is the sort of weapons display this section of the Tower of London used to have when it was used as a weapons store.











Another weapons display.














These two swords are ceremonial swords. They're longer than I am tall. I estimate their length to be about 2.2 metres from pommel to TIP.















As this part of the Tower used to be a weapons store, there are endless displays of weapons and armour from the 15th through to the 19th centuries. If you really want to look through all the pics I took, click on the link to the album.





We also visited the museum dedicated to the members of the Fusiliers of HM army. Many a moving tale of heroism and all that, but that was to be expected. I doubt there is any unit in any army that hasn’t got its own share of tales of heroism and tragedy.



This here is a bottle of 1914 Moet & Chandon champagne. This is of particular note as it was presented to the Fusiliers by the owners of taht famous vineyard. Bottles of this vintage commemorate the death of large numbers of workers at the vineyard, mostly children. This vintage is only opened on anniversaries

(This one's for Fred, if you ever read this)

One of a number of Imperial Eagles captured from Napoleon. This one was captured by the Fusiliers.


















We finally had the ubiquitous English creation, fish and chips. We got some from a little take away stand outside the tower and there was quite a huge crowd of people lining up for them too. I must say that it wasn’t too bad either, for 5 quid, although it was a bit on the oily side.

On the whole London had been a thoroughly enjoyable stay. Admittedly, we had been fortunate with the weather which had been a lot like Sydney in summer time. I’m sure winter will be a lot less clement. There’s a certain dignity to London, a quiet understated dignity. Sydney has a certain feel of raucous youth, Hong Kong smacks of insanity, Beijing has the feel of centuries of history drawn into the present, a sense of agelessness despite the rapid progress of the nation, and Tokyo has a sense of the clinical precision, but London exudes a strange sense of dignity and grace. I find I leave it with some regret.










The train down to Lulworth took about 3 hours time well spent dozing and listening to music. The English countryside in spring time is incredibly green and peaceful looking. Fields of golden flowers (probably canola) swaying in the breeze, rolling hillsides swept by spring grass. It’s a thoroughly romantic looking countryside. Forgive the rather blurred images, I hadn't fully figured out how to use get decent images while travelling at over 100kph.











The first impression of Wool, our stop, was distinctly of sleepy town with very few people. An impression reinforced by the presence of only 2 taxis at the station. Said taxis were quickly snapped up forcing us to wait almost half an hour before another showed up, when I was right on the verge of calling the local cab company to summon one. Our garrulous drive-cum-guide took us on a 15min journey to the even sleepier seaside village of Lulworth. Sleepy though it was, it was one of the most peaceful places I’d been to, a truly relaxing place. There had been some confusion with the accommodation with Auntie Gloria getting Lulworth Cove Inn, where we were staying, with Cromwell House, where we weren’t. So naturally there was no booking there for us and ended up with her going to another place for accommodation and then of course we worked it out

*chuckles*

The room was definitely a good one. The bathroom was huge! I could have slept on the floor fully stretched out and people would still have enough room to step around me without stepping ON me. The view of the sea, from the bedroom, was blocked by some cliffs. Shortly after settling in, it was dinner time where we got to meet the newest member of our family and also a reunion with our elder cousin, Philip, his wife Jayne (who I hadn’t met before) and his mother, our aunt. There was much rejoicing as I really do like Philip, he’s one of those rare fellows who you can’t help but like. I took to his wife as well, who I believe he is lucky to have. His mother though, well that’s another story and I’d rather not go into any details. Those who know her will know what I mean.





So here we have Jayne, Philip, Joel, Erica and Pat











And me and Philip (look at me I'm enormous!)




















You know, I'm not quite sure what was going on here...









Our newest family member, Brian Beaumont, is a rare fellow; thoroughly likable, easy going, nice, caring and generous. I thought Pat was quite fortunate to find someone like him.

After some pleasantries where I got to meet the bridesmaid Erica, who in an odd twist was already married, as well as another of Pat’s friends, Yan. Both of them were delightful people too. Dinner passed by pleasantly, although Bink may have reason to complain since I ate the roast veges that she had ordered. I had thought it was quite strange when the lady came out told me that the roast veges were to go with the apple faggot roast pork, which had exactly the same veges.

Yep, that’s right

Apple

Faggot

Roast pork

Lots of jokes that night about the faggots, which looked like a pair of balls, as you can see

Anyway, moving along… One thing that the brits do which I heartily disapprove of is the way they serve beer. Beer should be kept so chilled that the serving tap is covered with a layer of frost and then served in an ice cold schooner. The Brits keep it at quite a few of degrees above zero and then serve it in a room temperature pint glass. Of course the beer goes flat and warm in a real hurry, yech. If I end up staying in the UK for any extended period of time, I’m going to have to lay in a stock of beer stored and served in the correct fashion to keep from going mad.

And thus the night ended. All in all it had been one of the nicer days of this trip.