We slept until 9:30 and rushed over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. But the guards did not change today so we mostly just saw hoards of other tourists. The adults didn’t even see _a_ guard. Millie spotted one from the viewpoint of Nick’s shoulders, and that was good enough for her so we moved on.

We spent a bit of time at a playground in St. James’s park. Then we fed some ducks before seeing the sign warning against feeding ducks because of avian flu. Oops!

Millie has started asking to take our photo after every time we take hers. She art directs by saying things like “cuddle up close and hide your coffee cup”. So now we have 30 photos of us from the day. Here is one for posterity.

Our next mission was to walk to the London Eye. We herded ourselves through the masses of people. I’m not sure if London is always this packed or if it’s because we were being filtered by the barricades for the upcoming Marathon, but whew lord were there a lot of people.

When we arrived at the eye we (mostly me, the cheap one) decided it wasn’t worth the 100-plus pounds and long line so we settled for a cheaper move-around-in-a-circle ride: the carousel. Millie was terrified and then shrieked with joy.

We walked a while along the river and got to the Tate Modern, which Millie protested from the moment we entered until the moment we left. At one point we were walking down a long hallway into a special exhibit. An Italian man with a small dog stopped us to say “this room? It’s not for children” which of course meant we had to soldier on to see what he was talking about. We walked in to what can only be described as a hall of dicks and I couldn’t stop laughing. Millie didn’t notice.

After the museum we walked to Borough Market where we bought cheese, salami, and a single rainbow bagel. We are trying to curb (kerb if you’re British) her snacking and needed to get some protein in her. She gladly ate it and we washed it down with the chocolate covered strawberries that seemingly everyone in line was making TikTok’s of.

Two out of three of us were conscious on the way home so we’re trending in the right direction.

She rallied for a second dinner with the family friends we are staying with. And protested bedtime despite another 15k step day.