Here's some things that have caught our eyes; we think your eyes might like them too.
Palace to Palace London 2013
The Prince's Trust - Palace to Palace cycle
If you would like to sponsor Bryan, you can find his page here: Bryan's Palace to Palace sponsor page
If you would like to sponsor Bryan, you can find his page here: Bryan's Palace to Palace sponsor page
Support our troops at Christmas
Operation Santa for our Canadian troops overseas www.cfpsa.com/en/SupportOurTroops/Programs/OPSantaClaus/Pages/default.aspx
The Square Stocking for our UK troops overseas www.uk4u.org
The Square Stocking for our UK troops overseas www.uk4u.org
Santa's way into the flat...
Our stockings hang upon the wall.
We have no fireplace at all!
You see the problem is quite clear.
Santa, how will you get in here?
We heard a legend. Is it true?
Of magic only you can do.
We'll leave out any plain old key,
and mark it Santa so you can see.
Your magic makes the key fit right,
so you can get inside that night.
Thank you Santa, here's our key.
The milk and cookies are on me!
We have no fireplace at all!
You see the problem is quite clear.
Santa, how will you get in here?
We heard a legend. Is it true?
Of magic only you can do.
We'll leave out any plain old key,
and mark it Santa so you can see.
Your magic makes the key fit right,
so you can get inside that night.
Thank you Santa, here's our key.
The milk and cookies are on me!
"The Keys" from H.V. Morton's The Spell of London
It was a quarter to ten on a fine evening. A taxicab cruising along Piccadilly pulled to the kerb beside me.
"The Tower of London," I said.
I suppose that he had often been ordered to strange places at strange hours, but this seems to surprise him, and it is a great achievement to surprise a London taxicab driver! He looked interested.
"Right up to the gate, sir?" he asked doubtfully.
"Right up to the gate," I replied.
We sped down crowded, glowing Piccadilly, into Trafalgar Square, along the dark Embankment, and into the deserted City of London. We rattled over Tower Hill and drew up with, on our left, the grey, shrouded fortress piled behind its moat, faintly white, grim, ghostly. In the shadows of the barrier gate a figure moved; lamplight shone a second on a bayonet and picked out a sentry's scarlet tunic.
"I have permission to see 'the Keys,'" I said.
A warder stepped out. "Follow me"; and I went on to the most ghostly scene in London - the Tower, at night.
* * * *
Imagine those great gates leaning against the stars, with here and there a little casement window gold against the black; lamplight flinging the shadow of walls over the stones - sharp black and faint grey - and through the wide arch of the Byward Tower a luminous vista of turrets and battlements lying silent like a dream of Camelot.
The centuries fall away every night when darkness comes to the Tower of London. If an spot on earth is haunted here it is. From those eerie gateways, those unexpected postern gates, from those shadowy, machiolated walks what might not come in the silence of the night . . . what white woman wringing her hands; what sad favourite of kings . . . .
The head warder, wearing a long scarlet cloak, and a black-ribboned Tudor bonnet, came from the Byward Tower carrying a bunch of keys and an old lantern in which burned a tallow candle. He stood waiting, a splendid touch of colour in the dark frame of a gate spiked across by the bars of the old portcullis. He looked at his watch. It was not quite ten o'clock.
* * * *
Evert night for centuries the head warder of the Tower has waited like this to parade the King's Keys, with curious ceremony, to lock the vast oak gates, and turn the Tower again into a moated mediaeval stronghold barred against the perils of the night. Few people have seen this ceremony, and when it began and by whom no one knows. The ritual is lost in history. It may be as old as the Tower of London.
The head warder strode off towards the Wakefield Tower, his boots ringing on the stones, the lantern bobbing at his side making a yellow moon on his scarlet cloak. Through the gate of the Bloody Tower is the guardroom. Outside this he paused and cried in a loud voice:
"Escort for the keys!"
There was a clatter of military boots and a thud of rifle butts as a sergeant and four men fell in. With the Keys and the swaying lantern in the middle they moved off.
As the sentries saw the approach of the little procession with its dancing lantern they shouldered their rifles and - ferlick-crack! - they saluted. So the King's Key's passed on into the outer ward.
* * * *
Each sentry on the march to the barrier gate saluted as the Keys went by.
At the wicket gate the escort halted. The warder closed the gates, the escort turned about and . . . once more the ringing of feet on the stones and the glitter of the lantern. I stood by Traitors' Gate - jet black bars and water steps in a pool of lamplight - and watched them come back towards the Bloody Tower the way they had gone; only this time they paused at the Middle Tower, and the two huge walls of oak were slowly moved and the great gate locked. The same at the Byward Tower. Now they approached the Bloody Tower, returning to the guardroom. In the darkness of the great arch the sentry stamped on the ground with his foot and cried:
"Halt! Who comes there?"
The head warder with the Keys and the escort stood still.
"The Keys!" the warder answered.
"Whose keys?" demanded the sentry.
"King George's Keys!"
"Advance, King George's Keys - all's well!"
Tramp, tramp went the men with the King's Keys up the slop through the pitch black gate of the Bloody Tower to the guardroom. Here on the terrace was drawn up the guard in charge of an officer with a drawn sword. The lamps shone over the uniforms, glittered on scarlet tunics, buttons, naked steel, and high bearskins.
The men with the King's Keys stood at the foot of the steps facing the guard. The officer cried:
"Guard and escort, present arms!"
Up went his sword hilt to his mouth, and down it flashed in salute as the rifles went flick-flock-crack in a cloud of pipeclay. So they stood a second. The head warder then took two paces forward, removed his Tudor bonnet, and cried:
"God preserve King George!"
The guard, from the officer to the drummer boy, answered:
"Amen!"
The guard dismissed; the warder mounted a flight of dim steps with the Keys, which he took to the house of the Governor of the Tower for safe custody through the night. A bell-like clock among the grey turrets . . . a sentry paced in the darkness of the gate . . . clear on the air sounded a bugle playing "The Last Post."
The Tower of London was locked up!
No man could now move without the countersign. Each gate meant detention if you did not know it. From the outside world of London no man could enter unless he knew that secret password, changed each night and sent to the King each day.
As it was a thousand years ago, so it is every night when the King's Keys go by . . . .
Out into the empty gauntness of Tower Hill I went, feeling that I had fallen for a little while into some ancient dream.
We're both eagerly awaiting the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations on June 3! Check it out:
http://www.thamesdiamondjubileepageant.org/
http://www.diamondjubileebeacons.co.uk/
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Features/DG_WP200687
http://www.thamesdiamondjubileepageant.org/
http://www.diamondjubileebeacons.co.uk/
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Features/DG_WP200687
A great big Easter egg hunt! We're going to participate and hopefully get a few great shots with giant Easter eggs!
http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/
Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message:
Her Majesty's 2011 Christmas message (video). Text here.
http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/
Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message:
Her Majesty's 2011 Christmas message (video). Text here.
This time we have a video for you ... something to whet your appetite for the full show.
It happened again! T-Mobile went ahead and played with the citizens of Britain once again. We missed this one, but are still keen to get in on the action!
http://youtu.be/c5-i5DqbmdI
The iTunes festival is going on right now. 60 bands over 31 nights. Performers that have already graced the stage include Beady Eye, Adele, Arctic Monkeys, and Linkin Park. More to come from the likes of Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Friendly Fires. It's amazing and I've already tried to win a bunch of tickets, to no avail. I don't know how to link directly into iTunes, but they are playing the shows live through there, so check them out! What an awesome way to go to a concert!
So many sporting events coming this summer ... and a newborn at the same time! Well, he'll get to take them in with mom and dad next summer I guess.
http://www.ascot.co.uk/
http://www.wimbledon.com/
http://www.hrr.co.uk/
http://www.opengolf.com/
I gotta say I love the Rick Mercer Show, and his rants are usually spot on.
http://www.rickmercer.com/Rick-s-Rant.aspx
I don't remember how I came across these, but I did and I think they are absolutely AWESOME. I am really hoping, seeing as they all happen to take place in London, that I can be there whenever the next one of these happens, whenever that might be! Imagine the experience! (Arranged below by date in the order they occurred.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orukqxeWmM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3NPNM4xgo
C'mon, who doesn't like a good party! And the whole nation gets the day off work, so let's celebrate with Will & Kate!
www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/
A historic competition between to titans of academia.
http://www.theboatrace.org/