Thursday 26 August 2010

Were Horses Yellow in Those Days?

I went to the Tower of London yesterday with my Dad and Joan, for her birthday. It should be called the Towers of London, as there are 22 of them-not all remaining, but the memory of them is there. My favourite tower names are Bloody Tower (appropriate), Brick Tower (literal) and Cradle Tower (sounds fairy-tale-like). The exhibition of armour is interesting-I love seeing actual things that actual historical figures wore-it helps me to believe it is all real! We saw an exhibition about Napolean and Nelson a few years ago and they were both tiny! Enery the Eighth was average height. I don't know how they got on a horse with all that weight.
A member of the Queen's Guard guarding away.
His one and a half pound hat is a doddle compared to the armour.
In the armour exhibition there are a group of carved horses belonging to kings. Three of them are shades of yellow-this one being the brightest. The title of this post is what we overheard a little boy asking his Dad. A very good question I thought! Joan started talking to him and we also found out that he thinks he will be clever when he is eleven, but isn't yet!

When I downloaded the photos this ghostly face appeared!!!!!
Enery the Eighth looking at his armour and that of his horse.

Here he is again-in a case of wooden carved Kings.

All the pretty horses.
This is the book I am reading at the moment-
another Cormac McCarthy-and very enjoyable so far.


The best thing about the day, we all agreed, was the boat trip on the Thames Clipper. I don't know why my film has come out this small, but it will give you an idea of how fast it was! If you are ever here, or live here and have not been on it, go on it! It was very exciting. 30 knots. This is about 35 miles an hour. We were beaten by a cormorant flying past low to the water at one point!

The worst thing about the day was the shocking cost of a flapjack. £2.50! How can that be? Needless to say we didn't have lunch there. We went to a subway-which I have never been to before and was quite fun. I didn't realise you chose all your fillings and got big wodges of salad with it too. Oh-and if you want to see the crown jewels, get there early before a huge queue builds up. We didn't see them!

7 comments:

BonnyBadger said...

It was mum's birthday yesterday! we spent most of it in the car coming back down. I haven't been to the tower since I was a teenager and i'm always mening to go back. Great pics. Henry the eighth was apparently considered very tall indeed by the tiny tudor people. He was really pissed off when he heard that Francis first of France was the same height, as he was quite proud of the fact!

Leenie said...

I thought Ann Boleyn's ghost walked The Bloody Tower not Enery the Eighth's. That is a spooky photo! Fun to see all those historical things and places through your camera instead of some dry documentary with an even more dry narration. So, WERE all the horses yellow back then?

jabblog said...

Henry VIII was about 6' - a giant in his time when most men were about 5'7".
The Thames Clipper is wonderful, isn't it? Susannah took me to Canary Wharf where her brother works (and now her) and we had lunch together. Then we went on another Clipper to Greenwich. I'm sure I'd be happy to travel to work on that each day :-)
Glad you had a good day - I've only been to the Tower of London once. I would go again but the queues . . .
Happy birthday to Joan :-)

Linda Sue said...

To be clever at age eleven is quite a goal! The entire time i lived in London I never went to the towers- there were a lot of things I did not do- must remedy that...loved you day out and about, wish i could have been along with. Enry was an icky man...

Anonymous said...

Looks like you guys had a really fun trip!

We like Subway too!

kendalee said...

It's years since I last went to the Towers and don't remember the yellow horses, although I do recall a lot of Henry stuff. Never done the boat trip on the Clipper though and that sounds like fun! Hope you have a good long weekend in store xx

Mary S. Hunt said...

y'all have way cool stuff in your shops!!!
that was a really awesome armour...