And The Winner Is...

I know you're all dying to know what I ended up doing on the weekend....

Saturday I slept in and had a lazy morning - wasn't feeling particularly great. Got the lead out at about noon and headed down to . . . . . the Tower of London!! I got off one stop early, at "Monument", where the monument to the Great Fire of London in 1666 was. The height of the tower is equal to the distance from the tower to the place where the fire started, in a bakery. It was surrounded by large modern buildings, and was cool to see this monument from the last half of the 1600s still standing with the original inscriptions on it. For a couple of quid, you could climb up inside it and look out over the city from the top, but I wanted to get to the Tower.

There were a lot of people and kids there; I had forgotten about half-term. But it was fun and interesting. Looking forward to going again (I have a yearly membership to Historic Royal Palaces). The crown jewels were amazing, and so was the White Tower, which is the armouries and had a lot of other displays. Very historic and interesting stuff. I think my favourite place was the Beauchamp Tower, where most of the prisoners were held. There were carvings in the walls that were done by the prisoners, some of them famous like Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen for 12 days and then beheaded. It was very cool to see this "graffiti" from hundreds of years ago! Also cool was the Bloody Tower, where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for something like 16 years, before he was eventually beheaded. So many of these people were imprisoned for crimes no more heinous than following the "wrong" church (Catholic instead of Anglican), or being born into or marrying into the wrong family, in the case of Lady Jane Grey. There were even two young boys, the eldest being 12 years, that were imprisoned and eventually "disappeared" (read "murdered") simply because they were the offspring of a king that was defeated by an aspirant to the throne. How sad is that - those poor boys being murdered simply because their dad was defeated in a coup. It was ever thus.

Anyway, enough depressing stuff. So, after the Tower, I grabbed a quick bite, because I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and headed out to St. Paul's Cathedral. I got there about 4:30, when it was just closing to tourists, and getting ready for the Evensong service. I decided to stay for that, and was very glad. It was gorgeous. We were seated under the famous dome and the choir was all in the choir stalls. The singing echoing through to huge vaulted ceilings was an amazing sound, very ethereal. I closed my eyes and felt like I was listening to angels singing in heaven. What an experience - evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. I wouldn't be surprised if I go again.

On Sunday, I went to church in the morning, and met some more people and went to the "community" lunch, which was at the house of one of the deacons, Nigel. There were a few other people there, all quite young, and we had a nice afternoon. I was also invited for Sunday lunch on the 19th of November by the woman who runs the sound with her husband. It is really a very friendly church!

Anyway, must go. Have a fantabulous day!!