To the Tower With Him....

Hello my friends....I am sorry we have not blogged in a while....we have been busy with other things I am afraid...but I am happy to be able to catch up with you now....

....as many of you know, its the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War this year and all over the world people have been commemorating and remembering...here in London there has been a special display of poppies at the Tower Of London....the poppy is the symbol we use to remember the fallen of the Great War....

.....I am wearing my poppy in honour os the typist's grandad who fought for four years on the Western Front in the 12th Heavy Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery...he was there on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and at Passchendaele....but we are happy to report that he survived the war and returned home to England...and if you notice, I am at a train station on my way to London with typist to visit the Tower...

....this is the view from his office....as you can see, the weather looked reasonably good for our visit.....

....at lunchtime we went down into the tube system to catch a train to Tower Hill....we thought we could sneak away from work for an hour or so...

.....I think we can catch this one.....

....gosh, these trains are wobbly if you are standing up....

....so I made sure I was safe and secure in a seat of my own....making sure my poppy was on display....the train was full of visitors on their way to Tower Hill to see the poppies with us....

.....here I am at the Tower of London....can you see the enormous crowds?.....it's quite windy at the Tower too as we are down by the River Thames....my fur is a bit windswept...I was smartly groomed when we left home this morning as a mark of respect to the brave boys and girls who went off to serve their country...

......look at all the poppies down in the moat of the Tower.....I don't know if you can see but just above my left ear is the river of poppies flowing out of the tower through a window in the wall....it was a little gloomy at lunchtime but I shall try and use some camera trickery to brighten up the rest of our photos....

....the poppies flow in an uninterrupted river round the side of the Tower heading for the river.....we viewed them from the open public spaces but its possible to queue up to get a walking tour a little bit closer to the moat....and also to go into the Tower itself to see all the historic exhibits, including the Crown Jewels...

.....the poppies are all made of porcelain and I believe that each one of the millions that are there have been bought by members of the public for delivery when the display comes to an end shortly....the display is actually an "evolving installation" called  Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.... created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will progressively fill the Tower’s famous moat....I think its full now....you can read all about it at the Tower's website HERE...

...the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have been to visit....(photo courtesy of the Evening Standard)

.....people have been adding their own small tributes to their relatives who served in the War to the railings....

....the Tower is open to visitors as usual during the display...but we did not have time to take a full tour...and I did not want to run the risk of the typist being recognised and escorted to a cell...

...you can see the river of poppies better from here....(photo courtesy of the Evening Standard)...can you see them pouring over the wall into the moat at the front of the Tower?...

....here they are doing just that.....

....aren't they beautiful?.....

....and although we did not have much time to spare we did manage to see Tower Bridge.....

...and the Shard, Europe's tallest building, as they were right on the doorstep.....

 
...you can read more about the display and see lots more professional photos of the poppies HERE....there is growing pressure to extend the life of the display.....and I am posting a video here about the making of the poppies themselves...



I hope many of you will have a chance to visit the Tower of London to see the poppies or to enjoy the millions of pictures of them on the web....and that all of you can spare a moment on 11th November to remember the fallen....

Clapton, London Correspondent for the Border terrier Posse....