July 2nd; London is older than it ever has been, yet it does not seem so old to me. It is newer than it ever has been, too. We took a cruise up and down the Thames today. I hoped to make it to the Tower of London, dragging the others with me.
First stop was by the Globe – we’d checked it out the day before but Kate was in the Parliament building so we opted to see it again. This time there was no crowd there so we had a bit of a look around. There was a huge school group inside. We head-butted our way through and went to book some tickets. Five pound standing tickets for the midnight matinée of The Merry Wives of Winsdor on the 4th. Not bad! Next up we checked out St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s quite big. Westminster and St. Paul’s are both big and churchy, but a bit different. Consider the Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus. Both large, both fundamentally built for crushing you in interesting ways, but with different decorations and a bit of a different shape. It cost money to go into St. Paul’s, so you know, we skipped one of the biggest centres of Religion and architecture of the modern world so we could afford lunch instead.
It started raining quite hard. We waited for our boat to come and jumped on to get to the Tower of London. I like the Tower of London. It’s bloodthirsty history that you and your kids can really get your teeth into. Plenty of beheading, lots of castles, lots of nasty weapons and a few dates plastered around the place to validate it all. We followed a Yeoman (previously guards and caretakers of the tower, but now largely tour guides and better known as beef-eaters) around the grounds as he yelled at us and made jokes about Australian’s. Including one about Kangaroos. It was bound to happen. I had done the Tower last time I was in London but it was fun to do it all again. Four years is a long time to forget about things.
Four years sounds like a short time, yet it is a truly long one for me. My mind was much smaller then. I was much smaller. When you are older, perhaps time does go faster – perhaps you change less over time. Things seem more familiar since you have seen more of everything, know more of things. When you are young the world is huge, you rely on your imagination, you ask questions, and you make up or ignore the rest. You gradually learn, gradually learn the answers to the questions you have asked. The world becomes more enjoyable and open, but at the same time it becomes much smaller, somewhat less awe-inspiring, less foreign. Do your best to keep a balance. Learn about the vastness of the world as you find out how small it can be. Try to keep it an awe-inspiring place.
We took the last ferry back down the Thames and jumped on the Tube home. Sleep.
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