Pas de souris, pas de problèmes

One of the things I'm loving about London is the fact that I don't have mice in my flat.  

I had been living in an infestation for so long I had started to think it was normal to wake up to cold, dead furry bodies scattered about the kitchen.  Mind you, I knew when I had moved in to the apartment in Paris that this was the case- the landlord gave me a box of rat poison when upon move-in (which I never used as snap traps are much more humane).  Old buildings are filled with holes, and despite the fact that I filled everything I could get to with steel wool and tin foil, the little bastards still got in.  

They were brazen, too- I'd have a few friends over and we'd be chatting it up and dining, and suddenly a loud snap would alert us to the fact that a mouse had been prowling around just a few feet from us.   I had the traps set  around the kitchen constantly, baited with nutella and a sunflower seed wedged in so they couldn't just lick the bait off and run off.  Some days, I would be dumping the bodies five or six times a day.  It just became normal routine....Wake up, dump the bodies, reset the traps.  Come home, dump the bodies, reset the traps.  They never got into food as everything was put away where they couldn't get, and I am clean as all get-out in the kitchen.  Still, all the crumbs of so many baguettes sustained them.  

My life is just easier without this morbid ritual.  

But somehow, it is more difficult for me here because I still don't have internet installed in the flat.  Seriously!  I moved in almost a month ago, and the tech isn't showing up for another two weeks now.  It's making life a bit aggravating, but at least I have a portable little laptop and a cafe across the street that has free, slow-as-hell, unsecured wifi.  They will probably miss me there once the tech finally shows up. 

Anyway....

Here are some pictures.  I took a chilly walk along the Thames, across the Tower Bridge and past the Tower of London.  I haven't done too much touristy yet aside from a few museums, as I'm saving that for when guests come to town so I don't end up with 18 ticket stubs to the same attraction in my collection.