Tower and St. Paul’s.

But I did catch a tantalizing glimpse of St. Paul’s as we swung past.

The Tower, of course, figures heavily in history and also in some of my favorite books. I have seen a map of it many times, with historical overlays and such, and wondered if it would feel “right-sized” when I got there. Not so much its height but its layout. It is, after all, nearly a tiny walled village. Would it feel as broad and wide, as compact and enclosed, as it did in my mind’s eye? Its walls as thick, its towers as stout?

Remarkably… it did! The books I read must have done a good job of evoking it, because I almost felt as if I knew my way around.

We took the Yeoman Warder’s tour. These fellows are showmen (and, presumably, show-women), with many prepared one-liners for the crowd.

“Any Australians here? There’s always some! Well, you all must feel right at home, here in an English prison!”

“Americans? Yes? Well, if you had been quicker about paying your taxes, all this history could be yours! How’s democracy working out for you these days?”

“Speaking of democracy, for this next part of the tour I’ll be taking a vote. Shall we hear about prisoners, death, and executions? Or shall we hear about unicorns and kittens?….. I’m always glad when the prisoners, death, and executions wins, because I only have one unicorn story. It’s about a unicorn trampling a kitten to death.”

The 7- and 11yo’s were quickly cured of their despair at having been roped into a guided tour. When it was over the 7yo was astonished to learn that it had lasted a whole hour.

Here is Traitor’s Gate, the trip through which was described in detail by our Yeoman:

And here the central fortress, stout and looming and impenetrable-looking at the time, meant to cow the City of London into submission:

I had to leave in the middle of the tour to take the 3yo to the toilets, and when I returned the family was seated in the middle of the chapel listening to the end of the tour. (I had to convince the Yeoman Warder keeping non-tour tourists out of the chapel to let me past the chain.) I decided not to try to take him back in and hung about just outside, looking at the private living quarters, some of them in literal (Tudor) row houses. I suppose this window is over somebody’s kitchen sink.

Afterwards we walked along the top of the north battlements, which takes you through a few towers that have been set up with exhibits of one kind or another (e.g. The Princes In The Tower, with a rather frightening short animated film being shown, in a style that reminded me of Fiver’s dream in the Watership Down movie). And we went through the Crown Jewels exhibit, which was relatively uncrowded (we walked right up to the moving sidewalk) and which I liked better than I expected.

I mean, you just have to be impressed when you find yourself in front of a beautifully crafted, gleaming golden spoon, looking brand new, and then you find that it’s well over eight hundred years old.

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The Tower, for me, is a good example of the sort of compromise you must make when you travel with smaller children. I could spend the whole day there. I would want to walk over the whole thing, with a good map (can you believe the maps they give you when you come in don’t even have the names of all the towers labeled on them? Only the famous ones) and really understand the distances, take it home in my head as something I have gotten to know a little bit. But you simply cannot do that with kids under 12, unless they happen to fall in love with the place right then and there.

We ate in the cafe so we wouldn’t be hungry, and then we left.

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It was a twenty-four-minute walk to St. Paul’s, and not much faster on the tube or bus, so to avoid the complications of transit we walked there. We did get a feel for the distances, and admired the big buildings in the City of London.

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I found Mark sitting in a chair in the middle, and passed the 3yo to him so I could climb the steps to the Whispering Gallery. The 13yo and 7yo went with me to show me.

This week, the path up to the gallery is by a different staircase from usual, for some reason (perhaps workis being done on the regular stairs?). The “Secret Stairs” were frighteningly narrow and steep, not to mention numerous, and I was very glad that I hadn’t attempted them with a child on my back. The muscles in my thighs trembled by the time I was up.

These stairs take you to a passage where you can see between the two roofs. I didn’t see any no-photos sign here, and we weren’t in the worship space, so I tried to snap one. Too dark for the photo. You could see the gray humps of vaulting through the gloom.

The Whispering Gallery is fun. It really works! A couple of rows of benches encircle the dome. I sat with the 7yo directly across from the 13yo. A handful of other people paced or sat. We waved at each other. At first I thought I couldn’t hear anything, just a strange, pinging echo, a general murmur, like being underwater: sound comes from far away, strange directions, distorted. Then I heard the 13yo’s voice, clear but still far away, and I thought at first he had shouted, or spoken sharply, to me across that wide space. And then I realized he hadn’t been shouting at all.

I tried it. “Hello?” My own voice came back to me an instant later, distorted and sharp, again like an underwater reflection. You couldn’t say where it was coming from, it was just there, as if inside your head.

Before leaving I walked swiftly all the way around, my eyes trained on the floor far below, on the upper-floor corners (full of church things like stacks of folding chairs and cardbord boxes) under the evangelists, watching them turn below me, and felt I was flying.

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To the store with the 11yo for groceries for dinner.

St. Paul’s may be a marvel of engineering. I am less impressed by the self-checkouts at Sainsbury’s. I cannot please them.

The assistants who have to bail me out five or six times per transaction are probably similarly unimpressed with me. It always climaxes with the trouble caused by a chip-and-signature card.

I made macaroni and cheese for dinner. I forgot both the garlic and the mustard, but the shredded English cheddar was so beautifully sharp that no one missed it.

I added broken-off bits of a slice of Red Leicester to the sauce so it would be ever so slightly orange for the sake of the youngest children’s expectations. I served it with steamed green beans, a can of Heinz baked beans, and fresh blackberries.

Mark and I went out, to a Puglian wine bar called Li Veli. My dinner was better than his. We split a grilled vegetable appetizer (eggplant, zucchini, asparagus, tomato, long slivered onions); he had the sea bass, with potatoes and bitter greens; I had an orecchiette-like pasta with turnip tips, anchovies, cherry tomatoes, and bread crumbs.

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