Tower of London from Tower Bridge

Yet to see the Crown Jewels, but a visit to the Tower is definitely on the list. Just waiting for the crowds to die down a bit, time is a luxury we're fortunate to have. August is the height of the tourist season and summer school holidays in London, so if you don't get there early don't bother going, unless you enjoy queues. The queue outside the nearby London Dungeon was over 100m long, imagine how it'd be if you were in one of those queues with your kids, nightmarish.

Yesterday was spent looking for a self-contained apartment, once we'd walked across the Tower Bridge, after MDR was told his boss' flat in Westminster wouldn't be available. Self-catering holiday flats are as rare as hen's teeth in London, found a few on the web and decided to inspect two properties, one did not seem to have any on-site manager (still waiting for them to return our call too). The other in Southwark was fine, 150 quid per night, but didn't commit to anything and after some more concerted web surfing found a website that let out privately owned apartments in various locations for short terms. Luckily we found one apartment in a street close to Rotherhithe. It's a larger apartment on the Thames, cheaper too and we've been able to book it from next week, hallelujah brudder!

One of our stops in the quest for the SC flat was a visit to the official London Tourist Information Centre in Regent Street, after fighting the wall to wall crowds we finally made it to this centre, which has an accommodation booking service. When we asked for an SC flat, the Lazy Harridan at the counter asserted that London doesn't have this sort of accommodation, as most folks are only here for short stays and hotel rooms are much better. After some prodding she made a phone call and managed to get a quote for a property in Kensington, which surprised her no end. As this was out of the way for us we asked for other options, but that was it, no other SC holiday flats exist. Complete waste of time going there.

On another note London is gearing up for the 10 year anniversary of the death of Princess Di on 31 August. The media are having a field day, newspapers printing 10 page supplements and getting their knickers in a knot over Camilla's decision not attend the memorial service, she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.