The Tower of London is always mentioned as a “must-do” so we hit that up this morning. I have to say, I thought the best part was the views of the city and especially of the Tower Bridge. The crown jewels were neat to see and I would highly encourage anyone attending to do the guided Yeoman Guard Tour. I didn’t realize the history behind those guys either. On the way to go work for the afternoon I stopped at Yoobi, a grab and go Sushi place and then landed back at the Timberyard to work. In the evening we grabbed some food at Shakespeare’s Head before heading back to perennial favorite, Scarfes Bar, to close out the evening.

Another round of tourist attractions today beginning with the Natural History Museum. We hit up the dinosaurs, of course, but the museum also has a special section dedicated to “treasures” that was really good and contains things like Darwin’s pigeons etc. After spending a few hours in there we went up the street to Burger & Lobster. This time I was smarter and went with the lobster roll in lieu of the burger. As usual, I had work to do in the afternoon so I had to take care of that for a while. In the evening we went to the British Library where they had a similar “treasures” exhibit to the one at the Natural History Museum (book oriented, of course). I thought this was even cooler than the one at the Museum, my personal favorites were the pages from DaVinci’s notes and the pieces of a bible copied in the year 300. After this we walked through Shoreditch and ended up at L’Anima for dinner before heading home.

Started the day unusually early and headed into town to get some work done at The Association. After a while I met Clarke there and we walked down past The Tower of London and across Tower Bridge to the Globe. I had more work to do so I headed back up to the Timberyard to work for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we met up again and had dinner at the Holborn Dining Room and then returned to my favorite place, Scarfes Bar, where we met another Remote and her Dad for drinks.

Today was another “must-do” tourist attraction with Stonehenge. This is about two hours from London but, thankfully, we didn’t have a hard time finding a tour to take us out there. I used to be quite interested in Stonehenge and it was interesting to see how much the thinking on the site has evolved since I was a pup. Certainly worth seeing. In the evening I went out to dinner with some fellow Remotes to Pergola on the Roof which is a neat concept. It’s the top of the old BBC garage and several restaurants from around town have set up on top and you can order from all of them.

We certainly covered some ground today. We began the day by taking the train up to Oxford to see what’s to be seen there. I did the tour of the Bodleian Library at Oxford and then embarked on the greatest quest of my life to reunite with Clarke. Once we had found each other we strolled around town and saw a lot of the other tourist attractions; Radcliffe Camera, The Covered Market, Exeter & Christchurch College etc. Then we trekked up to where Tolkein used to live. Interesting to see this little cottage that someone else now lives in. The only indication he lived there is the blue plaque on the front. Continuing in this vein we walked down to The Eagle & Child where “The Inklings” used to meet and stopped there for some refreshment. Then we headed up to the cemetery and saw where he was buried. Wrapped up the day with more strolling around to some of the earlier mentioned tourist sites and then took the train back to London. We had dinner in Soho at Cecconi’s and then I took Clarke over to introduce him to my favorite London hangout, Scarfes Bar.

Started working through some of the major London tourist attractions today and headed over to the heart of them with Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and Westminster Abbey. We did the audio tour of Westminster Abbey which was interesting but the coolest part for me was simply walking around and see the graves/tombs of so many significant people who are buried throughout. The Lady Chapel was another strong point. The other thing that’s frequently put to me as a must do is Churchill’s War Rooms and it is right across the way so we headed over there for that tour as well. I had to get to work so I rushed at some points and I wished I had a little more time. Overall, very interesting. I had to rush up to The Hoxton to do some work so I spent the afternoon doing that. After that I met back up with Clarke and we went to Barrafina in Soho. Everyone must have had the same idea because I ran into two other people I knew there. After having all of the tapas we turned in for the night.

Started the day early to try and get ahead on some work before the arrival of one of my oldest friends. Headed over to the Timberyard to work for most of the day to get caught up on work and then met my buddy in Oxford Circus. We walked a good ways around London just scoping things out and popped into Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and then, randomly, a place called The John Snow to get some refreshments before calling it a day.

A pretty uneventful day today spent catching up on work (almost successfully, I might add). Left early with the rush to get into London and packed myself like a sardine into the tube to make my way over to Department of Coffee and Social Affairs for some coffee, social affairs and work… mostly the last one. A nice spot but I couldn’t navigate the WiFi so I had to tether and I had no power! However, they had good filtered coffee which prompted me to forgive them. Around lunchtime I headed over to the Ace Hotel which is another spot that lets folks congregate in the lobby to work. I think the setup there was a little better than the Hoxton which also lets folks do this. However, the hipster levels were a little high at Ace for my likes. I spent a long time there before heading over to meet some folks for beers at the Draft House and we called it a night with some rousing political discussion.

Today began with horseback riding in Hyde Park. I had to book this well in advance so I was nervous about the London weather. It couldn’t have worked out better, though. Perfectly sunny and just a little bit cool. I headed over early to get some coffee and breakfast and make sure I could find the Hyde Park Stables. Things really came together on this one. I had booked a semi-private ride around the park which is you, another person and the guide from the stables but the other person who was supposed to go with us didn’t turn up. Since it was just me and the girl from the stables we got to have a little more fun with it and in stretches where the pedestrians thinned out we were able to get a bit of a trot up and play things a little more by ear.

I stopped for more coffee and then headed home to shower and change. I was hoping to find a nice outside spot to post up and work but by the time I was done the weather had turned so I just headed upstairs and worked for the remainder of the afternoon.

In the evening I went to the Holborn Dining Room for dinner and had a shrimp burger which was both novel and excellent. This is in the Rosewood Hotel and right across from the restaurant is Scarfes Bar which is just awesome. The setting is all dark wood, darker leather, candles and books everywhere and to top it all off they have great live music every night and killer (killer expensive too) cocktails. Unless something truly awesome pops up I think Scarfes is going to takeover for Vox (even though it’s a totally different vibe) as my haunt now that I’m in London.

A pretty uneventful day today. Early ride over to the little Islay airport and a quick hop to Glasgow before heading back down to Heathrow. Had to stop and tend to some time sensitive work at the airport so I had lunch there. Uber home and then just focused on catching up on work for the rest of the day.