We "Northerners" (well, temporary) had a sunny, if cold, day today, the first in weeks if not months. Perfect weather, in fact, for an early morning walk 'round Regent's Park, so I was up and out the door shortly after breakfast. I must admit, I felt bad for the birds swimming in the near-frozen lake but they didn't seem to mind.Dee and I have put together a list of 101 things to do in London before we leave, and so yesterday (Saturday) we had a "Sherlock Holmes"-themed day out. We tubed to Baker Street from London Bridge, then walked along the street until we found number 221b - Sherlock's address, although apparently when (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the mystery stories Baker Street only went up to 100! These days it is a tiny museum (and gift shop) to the fictional detective; I even had a chance to sit with Dr. Watson himself!Afterwards we headed to an "indy" cinema on Baker Street for the new Sherlock Holmes movie (starring the inimitable Robert Downey Jr., who I'm quite sure I saw shopping in a little specialist food market in North London last year). Not the greatest cinema, as it turned out, but appropriately located nevertheless - and they served wine and popcorn, so by the time the movie was over I was feeling rather jolly indeed. We stopped briefly at The Globe - the pub rather than the Shakespearean theatre, because I've been past it a bunch of times but never entered - before walking through Soho to meet Dayna and Bruce for dinner at Wagamama.After some so-so Japanese food (not bad, but not something to write home about - oh, sorry, guess I shouldn't have mentioned it then) we went searching for London's last and only street lamp that is powered by burning sewer gas. We eventually found the "poppy lamp" in a little laneway off The Strand, and were disappointed to find that it had been converted to electricity after a hapless motorist knocked the original over with his car!So disappointed by this were we that we had to retire to the local "Coal House" for commiserations over a glass of bubbly. Our spirit suitably lightened, we walked along The Strand, over Waterloo Bridge, and towards home.We are very much looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

We've been thinking about a new site design for far too long now -- something steampunk-y, something travel-y, photos, whatever. Unfortunately we haven't come up with anything we really like, but sooner or later I'm just going to snap and put anything here.(This is a test-post, using the "Bilbo" blog-editor interface.)

I wandered down to the Tower Of London from work one lunch-time last week, planning to mingle with the tourists and pretend/imagine I was one of them. Instead, I stumbled upon a demonstration of archaic weaponry! (Hopefully you can see the video above?)

Last night we had a nice, grown-up wine-tasting session at Vinopolis, a massive wine centre near Borough Market. We started with a "How To" session, where the most patronising (matronising?) woman I've ever seen outside of a kindergarten children's show taught us the basics of wine-tasting (hint: don't just knock it back in a single gulp, then belch loudly and ask for another). *Slurp-slurp-slurp* "Can you hear the noise I'm making, children? Can YOU make a slurping noise too? Big slurps for Madame Winey, that's riiight."

When M. Winey had finished our lessons we were let out to play with the other kids. We walked from table to table, exchanging tokens for tiny glasses of champagne, chardonnay, pinot noir, then onto reds: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, rioja. The tables were arranged by theme -- usually location, but there was a "premium" table all by itself -- and our tokens gave us 3 champagne tastes, 5 wines, 2 premium wines. To round out the reds, and because 9:30pm was approaching, I swapped two of my tokens for a tiny glass of madeira -- a bit like port, and delicious! Sweet and honeyed, with hints of burnt timber... or so I deluded myself!

It's not the amount of wine (as each glass was a mouthful at most) but the fact that you're sucking air through your teeth and coating your tongue with the stuff. So we were all feeling pretty "mellow" by the time we walked into the Bombay Sapphire Bar for a complimentary gin cocktail (I had a delicious one made with pear-juice ... but I like gin. Dee had a different one and didn't like it!)

So after all that you might think we were done for the night. You'd be right, but we still had two free tastings of rum to get through! Actually, that's not quite right -- we had two rums each ... but as you might imagine, some people (*cough*Tina*cough*) didn't actually want their rum, so it was more for meeeee!

(I think the major enjoyment I get from drinking rum is pretending I'm a pirate. Considering all the wine, gin and champagne I'd already consumed, it was just lucky for everyone that I didn't actually start singing a sea-shanty and hopping around on a wooden leg. "Yo-ho-ho an' a bottle o' rum!")

Anyway, I've just uploaded the pictures from this, and the weapons demonstration, to the ever-entertaining Life In London photoset!