Spanspek

The BA flight we boarded this morning took off 90 minutes late. The captain stated that all electronic systems would have to be shut down and rebooted. Sometimes, he said, "we have to control-alt-delete".

I really hope aeroplanes don't run on Windows. (That's not a joke.)

Today we visited Greenwich. Sue and Kiera made it to the meridian but we all visited the National Maritime Museum. Daniel was a bit ratty so we ended up eating there rather than finding a local pub to sink a soothing ale.

That's one of the ambitions I had for this trip: to sit in a pub and have a local ale. The other was to treat my mother to churros and hot chocolate (or coffee) in Spain. it didn't quite work out that way.

The major tour for today was the Tower of London. Like many sites in Spain, it's difficult to appreciate the immense history of the place.

The succession of British kings and occasional queen is a lot more straightforward than the Arab and Moorish conquests and the subsequent establishment and unification by the Spanish kingdoms.

The site was established by the Romans, used by William the Conqueror,and then much expanded by the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It comprises several palaces and armories. However, it's not been used as a palace for three centuries. The Crown Jewels have been on display for all of that time. It's now a marvellous museum.
The major exhibition at the moment is entitled Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill. Daniel really liked seeing all that armour.

There was a demonstration in the moat (now filled in) of siege machines used in the 13th and 14th centuries. The audience was invited to participate. Daniel, on my shoulders, was made Captain of the marauding French army and shouted "Havoc!" with great gusto. Other children volunteered to die horrible deaths as they "sacked the walls" and were repulsed by the Tower's defenders.

Two teams, men and women, operated the perrier. The men flung a pig's bladder (well, a water-filled balloon) a good distance. The women managed to drop one straight down. Much merriment was had but it emphasized the point that the machines were very dangerous.

I have a cousin in Canterbury whom I haven't seen since 1993. Despite recent illness, though, she's her usual chirpy self and it was lovely to see her today. Her Dad, whom I'd never met, came as well. He actually hopped on the same train carriage as us!

The plan was for Gillian, Mum and me to go, and probably Daniel and Lou too, but Kiera and Sue decided to as well. Canterbury is a very historic city, dominated by its famous Cathedral (Westminster's claims notwithstanding probably the seat of Anglicanism).

The Cathedral is truly astonishing and much expanded since St Augustine founded it in 597. Thanks to Henry VIII's being pissed off with Rome for not allowing the practice of serialized monogamy, it did not attract the garish and excessive decoration evident elsewhere in Europe. One suspects that the English would be less inclined toward that anyway, even if Catholicism had not been brutally suppressed for at least 200 of the last 500 years.

Today's was a short day—good for travelling children. We went to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Admission is free and the line moved quite quickly.

We didn't attempt to see everything, just the "earth" section and the dinosaurs. Both are very well done. I think the Melburne Museum has improved greatly since I was a child, especially in its new building, but it's rather pedestrian by comparison!

The earth section has a lot about volcanoes and earthquakes, including a simulation of an earthquake in Kobe, complete with shaking walls and floor. Daniel really liked that, and, disturbingly, was quite taken with the model of the wall collapsed on the car.

The dinosaurs are great: robotic velociraptors, psittacosaurus and a scale model of a T-Rex. Daniel, even though he knows it's not real, spent a lot of time taunting it—"you can't get me", roaring, and the like. Marvellous stuff!