Today I am grateful for The Tower of London, Camden Markets and Kensington Palace.
Just as an aside – we are totally unprepared for London weather. We all looked at the forecast before we came away and we were expecting temperatures ranging from 10 degrees to 20 degrees Celsius. It has not been these temperatures – we have had about 30 degree average since we got here and not one spot of rain.
Now back to what we did on Tuesday.
On Tuesday we spent the day at the Tower of London. Wow! We had bought our tickets online so luckily didn’t have to line up for hours in the sun.
The Tower of London has been a fortress, palace, barracks, zoo, prison and a museum.It is now a leading tourist attraction and a world heritage site. Today the Crown Jewels are one of the most popular attractions at The Tower of London. One of the most remarkable facts about The Crown Jewels is that it is a working collection. The Imperial State Crown is usually worn by the monarch for the State Opening of Parliament. When the next coronation comes around, key items will be taken to Westminster in readiness for the ceremony. Today parts of it will be removed to be used in the christening of Prince Louis.
On Wednesday we made our way to Camden Markets. Around 200 stalls jostle for space in the narrow alleyways off Camden High Street/Chalk Farm Road. This market was originally known as Buck Street Market. Many of the stallholders sell their own jewellery and clothes designs. It was a great morning filled with interesting and alternative market stalls and has great market food.
Here is a link to all the types of people you are likely to see at the Camden Markets: 10 types of people you will see at the Camden Markets. I think we saw them all!
After finishing our delicious market food lunch we opted for a different pace for the afternoon. We caught an Uber to Kensington Palace. We have used the tube just about every day but moving six of us around it sometimes works out to be cheaper to jump in an Uber.
Kensington Palace is the official residence of many members of the royal family including William and Kate and Harry and Meaghan. When we got there someone had just arrived by helicopter.
The two exhibitions that are on at the Palace at the moment are Victoria Revealed, which is about Queen Victoria’s long and extraordinary life, and Diana:Her Fashion Story. I enjoyed both but was in heaven looking at all the most famous outfits that Diana, Princess of Wales wore.
The whole Exhibition of Diana’s clothes made me cry. She was such an extraordinary woman who was lost too soon from this world. She was not only one of the most stylish women in the world but she also did extraordinary things like walking in an area where land mines had been ( in the outfit above) to raise awareness about land mine fields and she shook the hands of AIDS sufferers which started to convince people that they wouldn’t die by touching AIDS victims.
After I had gathered myself together we again went out into the sunshine. Kensington Palace has another beautiful garden which we were able to appreciate .
Once we left Kensington Palace David and I tormented the children by recreating the photo we took of ourselves on the day we got engaged. We got engaged at 10am on the 10th October in 1992 in Hyde Park. Here we are 25 years later still loving each other’s company and now being able to share our lives with our beautiful children. We are so blessed.
As Princess Diana said:
“I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.”
Until next time
