#TouristForTheDay : Royal Mews

I enjoyed writing that post about the Tower of London so much I thought I’d go back a few weeks and write a post about the Royal Mews. I was lucky enough to visit as part of my job -Royal Collection Trust generously hosted a group of our tour hosts to improve their knowledge of London which is by the way phenomenal already!

As part of the Royal Collection Trust, the Royal Mews is one of the sections of Buckingham Palace open to the public, along with the Queen’s Gallery (both open all year round) and the state rooms (only open in the summer).

Just to be able to say you’ve been inside part of the Queens house is pretty cool and if you’re into that Downton upstairs/downstairs sort of history, this is a must do! It’s where the carriages are kept, the horses are maintained and all the staff live as well!

You get to see approx 6-7 of the 80 odd carriages they have in storage plus the AMAZING Golden Carriage used for the coronations. I can’t describe quite how ridiculously impressive this is – it’s almost gaudy but somehow manages to pull it off! It’s also bloody huge!! 

Check out the detail on this back section! They have to take an entire wall off the stables to get the thing out – a feat which takes a good couple of days once they’ve removed the priceless artwork from the walls, disconnected the electrics, removed the windows and finally opened up the barn doors! There’s no taking this beast for a joy ride around the courtyard!

Here’s a few more photos so you get an idea of the scale – all I can say is it’s worth the money simply to see this. The rest of the visit is very interesting, but nothing beats the grandeur of the carriage that carried the HRH the Queen on her coronation day!

All in, I’d reckon the visit takes just over an hour (there are audio guides and also info boards) which is a perfect little taster of royal life – especially if you visit outside of the summer season. If you do want to visit the State Rooms, make sure you book in advance. It gets booked up so you don’t want to be dissapointed 🙂

#TouristForTheDay : Tower of London

I haven’t done it for ages, so I had forgotten how much fun it is to play at being a tourist in your own town! Working in the London tourist industry often means I don’t really want to take my work home, but there’s still places I want to visit and things I want to see…things that you could class as ‘tourist attractions’!

The Tower of London is most definitely not just a ‘tourist attraction’ – it’s a blooming 1000 year old fortress, prison, palace, zoo, royal mint and museum! Right in the centre of London! With a moat! And the Crown Jewels! And even a bit where you can try on chain mail (for children, not the kinky ones!)

I dragged the boy along too and used Tesco Clubcard points to swap for entry vouchers. If you pay cash it’s £24.80 per adult but you can also get 2for1 with the Days Out guide if you’re travelling into London by train. 

We visited the last Sunday of February half term so it was quite busy (& don’t get caught out by it closing at 4.30pm). We arrived at 1.30pm and thought we would have more than enough time, but we could have definitely spent another 30-45mins as we missed the zoo and the raised walk around the walls.

There’s loads to see and do but the highlight for me was definitely the Yeoman Warden tour (we had Simon who was an excellent blend of humour, history and insight into life as a Beefeater – and no, they don’t know why they’re called that ok!?) and the Crown Jewels. 

They also dress impeccably – it’s not just for the tourists, that is truly their official uniform as they are all still members of the armed forces (they have to have served 22 years in the army and then do a couple of years of training and pass exams to become a warder – it’s not an easy gig to get!)

You can’t take photos of the Crown Jewels but I also don’t think my photos would have done them justice; they are simply stunning! The huge sparkling diamonds dust the crowns and sceptres, along with other precious gemstones and copious amounts of gold – the gold punch bowl is insane!!

It’s definitely on all the top lists of things to do in London for a reason – it provides great insight into the history of the city and how it changed and evolved over the years. And the bloody gore and gruesome tales keep everybody engrossed. It’s not pretty, it’s not romanticised but it’s damn interesting!

I was slightly worried about the number of children in the torture tower exhibition but I don’t pretend to know anything about bringing up children and what is suitable for what ages, so no judgements from here. Kids might not be so interested in the Crown Jewels (or the queues to see them!) but the Line of Kings (pic below) showing all the armour and weaponry will delight instead. 

The White Tower is certainly majestic – standing tall in the middle of the inner courtyard or ‘village green’. You can’t see this from the outside of the Tower grounds which makes it all the more impressive when you come into the courtyard and the building is rising up in front of you.

30 before 30 – Progress Report

1. See the pyramids – Egypt in October booked! DONE What an experience! See my blog post here for more information on this one!
2. WILD swim (in the Hampstead Ponds) DONE Next stop, Kings Cross Lido this summer.
3. Read 30 books (I’m midway through no 20 now and it’s the middle of April!) Not 100% sure I’m going to finish this one, but I can only try.
4. Visit the Sky Garden (it’s free!) Date night plan for this one sometime soon, or date night with my sister as I know she wants to go too.
5. Sky dive (in Brazil in June?!) This is definitely happening in Rio.
6. Catch up with ALL the #Bordeladies This happened (minus Gale, but that would have been too difficult!) at Fanny’s wedding last weekend in Long Eaton. So much fun, check out my blog on local eatery, The Harrington Arms.
7. Make Aligot (amazing cheesy, garlicky French mashed potato) The blooming recipe card is STILL on my pinboard! This will be done!
8. Visit St Pauls cathedral – DONE! This was amazing! Yet to write a blog post on it yet, but will be done soon.
9. Eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. Turns out i already did this a few years back when i ate at Arbutus in Soho – their pre-theatre menu is great value and really yummy!
10. Do a centurion (drinking a shot every minute for a 100 minutes) Trying to get a date in the diary for this one…when I have a lot of sleep time the next day!
11. Eat at Duck and Waffle – Bday brunch I think!
12. Get a new phone, this one is pissing me off! Still P-ing me off, still no new phone!
13. Be more creative – this one needs some specifics! I’m thinking an actual project?? I did do melty Crayon-Art like this but I’m thinking something in the garden now that the weather is heating up a little bit. More Pallet furniture maybe? Lee does have a power-drill!
14. Learn to needle felt – Hazel was going to teach me this, still not happened!
15. Learn a song with both hands on the piano. Again this was a Hazel one, still not happened.
16. New! Visit the Tower of London
17. New! Write a poem I’m proud of
18. New! Write a new blog post everyday until I turn 30 –  could be a lot of random ones…but I can try. It could be my new lunch time activity at work. Better than reading the Daily Mail…
19. New! Go on a brewery tour in London
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25. These need filling in…!
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

If you have any suggestions let me know!

The Harrington Arms, Long Eaton

“When one is at a wedding, one must ensure one eats adequate carbs so as to be able to drink unsociably acceptable levels of bubbles”

The Harrington Arms in Long Eaton did just that yesterday between ceremony and evening event! With a (almost ridiculously) huge menu of options, we were spoilt for choice but elected for sharing an antipasti platter to start and then I had the fish finger sandwich for mains. Home made fish fingers, amazing rosemary and sea salt fries and a salad on the side – ridiculously good value too!

The only gripe was the slightly slow service but considering we were a last minute booking of 8 and happily gossiped our way through the wait, I can’t complain too much.

Book 19 of 30 – The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks

Bit worried I’m not going to finish this challenge with only a month and a half to go til I turn 30! Theres also a lot of other things on the list I don’t think I’m going to do but I can have fun trying, maybe after this post I’ll dig out the list and see where I’m up to, it’s always fun making new lists 🙂

This book is the sequel to The Notebook, written when Allie and XXXs kids have grown up and have kids of their own. It’s a nice way of doing a sequel as it’s far enough into the future that the original story provides backdrop but doesn’t over power the story, it only links back when the author wants to make a character point or provide some insight into behaviour.

Compared with THE original love story turned into weep inducing film, this book is a lot more slow in its brewing, but boy, once it reaches its boiling point, the kettle overflows!

Book 18 of 30 – Belle by Paula Byrne

Picked up this book at the Kenwood House gift shop Bank Holiday Sunday, finished it 5 days later! Really interesting ‘investigation’ into the life and times of Dido Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of the Earl of Mansfields nephew and how she came to live in the grand house at Hampstead that is Kenwood.
The fascination with her history stems from an interesting portrait she features in (displayed at Kenwood) where despite her ethnicity she is dressed in an ornate gown, unusual for the era.

Definitely worth a read, the history is fascinating, especially the ‘swept under the carpet’ history of Britain’s past in slave trading and the Caribbean sugar plantations…and if you’re in the area, do go explore Kenwood House – it’s free entry and an English Heritage property!

Book 17 of 30 – The American by Martin Booth

Slow going at the beginning but ultimately a very good character portrait and thriller. Set in the beautiful setting of Southern Italy, I want to watch the movie now as the descriptions were so detailed I feel like I know what they look like already!

Book 16 of 30 – Maid of the Mist by Colin Bateman

I did not have high expectations for this book – take a gander at the front cover and take a guess why! Yes I realise that that is the worst example of judging a book by its cover ever…actually judging a book by its cover!

The book was surprisingly good really, light hearted, somewhat interesting and a pretty good little adventure story – as long as you suspend your disbelief for a moment or two!

Set in Niagara, mostly on the Canadian side of the border the story includes aspects of the Irish Troubles, international drug trafficking, native American Indians, the fascination we have with super stars and even delves into a bit of police corruption!

Book 15 of 30 – A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

One of those books that even now writing about it I can’t decide whether I enjoyed or not…it wasn’t a difficult read, I’m just not sure I got the point of it all! It follows a family and a house in particular through the generations (with a bit of skipping back and forth) but not a whole lot really happens…