Wee Snippets

 

Musicians can get licenses to perform for tips in the Underground. The license is free--it just takes an audition "to prove you're mad enough to play all day in a tube station," according to this guy. His saxophone is a 1959 Selmer Mark VI alto--almost identical to the 1962 horn that has been played by my daughter, my mother, and me.
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Our flat did not come equipped with paper towels, dish detergent ("washing up liquid" in the local parlance), or soap. So I bought one of the cheapest bars I could find. Just 65p and it was transparent! (How posh!) Pears Soap turns out to be a true London original, first produced and sold in 1789. In fact, Pears Soap was the world's first registered brand and is therefore the world's oldest continuously existing brand. Cool, right? Also, you should know that it does not smell like pears.
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Tower Bridge, NOT London Bridge

You would think a girl from Bridgetown would be able to keep her river crossings straight, wouldn't you? But I've been calling the Tower Bridge by the wrong name all along. The London Bridge is one span up (or down?) the Thames. The famous rhyme is thought to have been inspired by an episode in 1014: "Tradition states that the bridge was pulled down by the Norwegian prince Olaf in 1014, to assist the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelred to divide the forces of the Danes who held the walled City of London and Southwark, on either side of the river; thus regaining London." Thanks Wikipedia.
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I didn't go inside the Tower of London, but I did walk all the way around it today.

Study in contrasts: the Tower of London and the Gherkin.

Everything you need to play knight and princess dress-up.

Need to escape from the Tower?

There's an app for that.

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 Maternity dress in the window of Harrods

I need to remember the sunscreen!