Waterloo Sunrise

It's Monday, so it must be over-running engineering works.

Sure enough, we roll in to London a little over an hour late (actually "approximately fifty-eight minutes late" is how the announcer always puts it, as they have to pay compensation if it's an hour or more).
I don't mind. I'm having a Rosie Thomas morning on the iPod, so I'm nicely chilled out (Thanks, Robyn; it sure is a beautiful album).

It's actually a clear(ish) morning (we're between storms) so I amble my long walky route, figuring I'm late, so it won't matter if I'm a little later.
Watching the sun come up under Tower Bridge is always a treat, and seeing the sunlight light up the bridges ahead of me has me singing Waterloo Sunset, causing frightened looks on the faces of commuters walking the other way.

So here I am on another yummy monday. No more weekend chores to do; just a nice no-brainer day making stuff in 3D.

Walking across London, the thought comes to me that Ame and her hubby only need to learn one phrase when they come over here next month.
In fact all Americans should learn it as it will cause hostility to fade away in an instant and they will be greeted by helpful smiling Brits.
The phrase is: "Actually, we're Canadian."

I won't recommend lots of things for Ame to do or places to go as there are just too many and a lot of them wiill depend on the weather.
Besides which, Ame's tastes and mine (indeed everybody's tastes and mine) are unlikely to coincide.
For instance, one of my favourite places is the Hunterian Collection (part of the Royal College of Surgeons), a splendid, free and newly revamped cornucopia of medical curiosities, including a whole wall of diseased penises and the Bishop of Durham's anus in a jar (not the present Bishop, I hasten to add).

But two things I would recommend are:
- A go on the slides at the Tate Modern (Wheeee …);
- The London Eye (Spiffy).

Hints for Eye travellers: I'd usually recommend booking well in advance, but in February, the weather is likely to bugger this up.
What I normally do is book the combined Eye trip and river excursion. It's well cheap, and the trip down the Thames to Tower Bridge and back is great (I do love tooling up and down the Thames; it's a lovely way to see London).
The other hint is: The Eye officialy opens at 10:30. If you get there half an hour earlier, they are sometimes starting it up and they let people get on before the queues build up. If you're lucky, you can get a whole gondola to yourselves.
You can see my office from up there, so do wave.

The comments box welcomes suggestions for Ame's trip.
Real ones today, please. Any more silly suggestions can go in yesterday's comments box.