We’re in for a rainy few days before I leave for Ireland. At night, the rain lashes against the window at times so hard, it wakes me.
Brenda gives me some travel tips for Ireland. She recommends going to the Cliffs of Moher, which she says is her absolute favorite. “It’s brilliant,” she says.
But I have one more trip to London before I go to Ireland.
I manage to avoid getting soaked walking to my office. Shortly after I arrive, a woman pops her head in and asks if I am the person from Maine? She says her husband—a New Yorker—went to Bates College and they still have friends in Lewiston! I cannot believe it and she is equally astounded when I say I grew up there. She promises to have me over for dinner to meet her husband.
With no checkbook yet, I have to break into my traveler’s checks. While I am at the bank, I order some Irish punts to pick up when I get back from London. “Punt” is the Gaelic word for the Irish pound.
I take an afternoon train to London. Once again I find that it is not easy getting from Euston station to Paddington, which is where my hotel is. I get on the Victoria line to Kings Cross and wander around for what seems like forever before finding the right train. Finally I get to Paddington. I am a nearby but a different hotel than the one Mom, Brian, and I stayed at. The lobby is nicer, but otherwise, it is the same small room, small bed, and small bathroom. I eat pizza at a restaurant around the corner and go to bed early.
I wake relatively early and have breakfast—the ubiquitous bacon, fried egg, and toast. The waitress asks me if I want tomato or brown sauce with my eggs. Thinking it might be a grilled tomato that sometimes comes with breakfast, I say, “Tomato, please.” She brings me a bottle of Heinz ketchup.
After my morning meeting, I take a hop on/hop off tour bus, which departs from Paddington. This seems like a scenic way to get to the Tower of London; the destination I have in mind. I enjoy the ride. At Trafalgar Square, we get a new guide; a rather cheeky chap named Martin. He is a great guide, but tells really bad jokes. We pass Somerset House, the government office where Diana and Charles signed their final divorce papers. Martin says that after the divorce, Diana had a blood test. She was found to be HRH negative. Groan.
From the top of the bus, for just a few quick seconds, I can see the splendid dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral framed by the church’s two towering steeples. I feel like I can reach out and touch them. It is a spectacular view, but fleeting and I don’t get a picture.
We ride through the posh Mayfair neighborhood where the likes of Sean Connery and Margaret Thatcher live. Baroness Thatcher’s residence has a posted guard. Our guide tells us to wave to him. The guard does not wave back. Martin says there are two kinds of guards—wavers and non-wavers. He says it runs about 50-50.
I hop off the bus at the Tower of London and catch the last guided tour of the day. A ruddy Scotsman Yeoman Warder leads the tour. Martin told us that it is a misnomer that the Yeoman Guards are called Beefeaters; this is simply not so, he says. Our Yeoman Warder, David, gives a bloody account of the Tower’s history.
The Tower of London is perhaps my favorite landmark in London. It sits right on the Thames, adjacent to the Victorian engineering marvel, Tower Bridge.
Like most of the massive fortresses in the UK, the conquering William built it to proclaim his royal power and to fortify that claim. The tourist brochure says:
William intended his mighty castle keep not only to dominate the skyline, but also the hearts and minds of the defeated Londoners. Nothing like it had ever been seen in England before.
If its haunted walls could talk they would tell of the most perverse events in the world’s history—most notoriously the beheading of two of his queens by an egomaniacal Henry VIII.
We learn about the Tower’s ravens; seven of them. Legend has it that should the ravens leave the Tower, both it and the kingdom will fall. The Royal Ravenmasters are taking no chances and trim their wings so the birds cannot fly away.
Not all ravens are cut out for the job. Just three years ago, two of the ravens were banished for “conduct unbecoming Tower residents.” This makes me laugh and I can only imagine what they did that caused their eviction!
Recently, I read The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London. It is a fascinating account of Yeomen Warder Christopher Skaife, the Tower’s Ravenmaster, and the birds that he cares for. All of the birds have names and individual personalities. They are smart and have remarkable memories. They are also sneaky. They have been known to steal children’s crisps, popping off the lids of Pringles’ tubes and cramming as many into their mouths as possible before getting caught.
Photo: Christopher Skaife’s Facebook Page
While legend has it that the ravens have been here for more than 300 years, it really has only been since Victorian times. Chris speculates that the Warders first brought in ravens because of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, which was popular at the time. I laugh to read that past ravenmasters taught the birds to say, “Nevermore.”
As old as the Tower is, just outside of it are the remains of a 35-foot-high wall that once encircled London built by the conquering Romans more than a millennium before William invaded from France. There is a bronze statue of the Emperor Trajan on the grassy knoll in front of the stone Roman wall. As far as I can tell Emperor Trajan had no particular association with Britain, except perhaps as cousin and predecessor to Hadrian of Hadrian’s wall fame in northern England.
Back on the bus, we head down Whitehall, past Westminster Abbey, toward Buckingham Palace. The guide says we can’t actually pass in front of the palace because the Queen decided she didn’t like the tour buses passing that way. Apparently, the Queen also doesn’t like the smell of fried onions, so she has forbidden hot dog vendors around Buckingham Palace. The guide tells us all of this with an amused air. She seems to take the Monarch’s idiosyncrasies in stride.
Past Kensington Palace, up Notting Hill, and the bus returns to Paddington station. I have fish and chips at a pub called The Dickens. This pub doesn’t claim that Dickens drank here, but many pubs in London do. If he drank in as many places as publicans claim, he would not have had any time to write his novels.
The next morning, I take the 10:15 from London Euston to Birmingham and arrive back just before noon. I grab a sandwich at the Student’s Guild—tuna with cucumber and sweet corn. I stop by my office to answer a few emails and go to the bank to pick up my Irish punts.
My checkbook has arrived! But alas no ATM card. They say that will be a few more days still.
- In today’s news: USA Today: Boston to greet year 2000 a tad early. Bostonians might want to begin chilling their champagne a bit earlier than usual on December 31. They city plans to pop the corks at 7:00 PM. Rejecting customary Eastern Standard Time, the city announced it will ring in the New Year when it arrives in Greenwich, England. “We’ll be marking the millennium when it’s midnight in Greenwich, according to Greenwich Mean Time, which is the universally accepted standard of time for the world,” Mayor Tome Menino said.
Brian and I could be celebrating New Year’s at the same time!
I finish packing for my trip to Ireland tomorrow.
Jody’s UK Memories 