Europe and the 5 stans

We arrived in London from Edinburgh. At this stage, I'd had a sore throat for a couple of days but was otherwise well.

On the following day, we had high tea on an original routemaster bus. I was a little more unwell that day, but we still enjoyed our high tea (except for the frozen cream!!!)

After going out for dinner and eating a bucket load of hot sauce and not being able to taste or smell it, I suspected I had covid. I had one test in my bag, and covid was confirmed.

Thank god it was a place I'd been to before (so I didn't feel I missed anything). We also stayed in the same place for 5 days, and it was an apartment. Unfortunately, I slept on a couch the whole time.

I still managed to do everything we had planned and showed Margaret around. And, I still averaged 25000-30,000 steps per day throughout this time.

We attended the Ceremony of the Keys, ABBA Voyage, and the Sky Garden. Plus, we went to most of the main areas. But, I wasn't flash and wasn't able to do my usual sunrise jaunts. I have very few photos (thankfully, I got amazing ones last time I was there).

So, this post doesn't include the usual London sites.

Ceremony of the keys (Tower of London)

Firstly, these are hard tickets to get, and involved getting tickets in the middle of the night at home on 1 May. They go the day they're released. So I was going to this event, even if I had to crawl there!

The Ceremony of the Keys is the process of locking up the Tower of London every night - and has been going for about 700 years. The sentry cries out, 'Halt, who comes there?' The Yeoman Warder replies, 'The keys.' 'Whose keys?' 'King Charles' keys.' 'Pass then, all's well.'

Aside from the monarch's name, this is the exact exchange that has been spoken for centuries and forms part of the traditional 'locking up' of the Tower of London. They also still wear the same outfits.

Previously, the monarch lived there, but now they're just locking up the crown jewels. This has happened every day without fail (even through the wars) and was only late once when they were bombed in WWII.

You can't photo or video the ceremony. But we were able to take a couple of photos in a courtyard afterwards. It's pretty cool being in the Tower of London at night! I thought it may have been a bit dry, but it was actually both interesting and enjoyable. We had a beefeater explaining it all the way through, and he was a hoot! I highly recommend this if you're going to London. It's a very minimal cost but you need to be organised with the tickets as they go really quickly.

We also went up to the Sky Garden, which is a 3 storey glass dome on a skyscraper. If you've been to London before, it's in the building known as the walkie-talkie. It's basically a garden in the sky with 360-degree views of London.

There is a restaurant and bar that you can book. You can also get free tickets in advance. They become available 3 weeks before, but they go very quickly. It's worth it for a quick look at the view. We saw people take picnics, which is pretty cool to do in the sky.

The photos in this post are the few I could get from the Sky Garden and the Tower of London when doing the Ceremony of the Keys.Read more