Tourists and Truffles

We started today's tourist trip in Trafalgar Square with Nelson's Column,

the Lions

and Gift Horse, the skeletal equine bronze sculpture which is the latest occupant of the Fourth Plinth in the square. It carries an electronic ribbon round one of it's front legs, displaying the latest share prices from London Stock Exchange.

We caught a brief glimpse of Big Ben but we weren't interested in the Houses of Parliament today

Today we were going window shopping, starting at the M&M store. 5 floors absolutely crammed full of mum's with buggies and little children all buying M&M merchandise as if it were going out of fashion.

This was followed by a little car lust. Mine was this pretty but very impractical Lotus

The staff were very obliging when I asked if I could take a photo and actually insisted I sat in it.

Roger's was slightly more expensive and I doubt the staff would have insisted he sat in the McLaren for a photo

I've always wanted to go in Fortnum & Mason as I've seen and heard about it many times on TV

It wasn't as big as I expected but you could buy any flavour of jam you could wish for

or maybe you fancy some caviar for your tea?

Caviar seemed to be very popular around Piccadilly and Knightsbridge and we saw a couple of caviar restaurants. They seemed to be doing a brisk trade too...........ladies wot lunch were knocking it back with glasses of champagne

It was a bit more upmarket than the Hard Rock Cafe

We've been to Harrods before but always at weekend when it was too busy to have a really good look round. It was fairly quiet today though, except for all the Arabs flashing their cash about.

The food halls are really beautiful if you can manage to drag your eyes away from the goodies and look at the ceilings

It's all beautifully laid out but SO expensive

We got chatting to the salesman on the truffle counter. I asked him how much it would cost to buy all the truffles on the plate in the counter display and instead of just answering me he brought the plate out and insisted that I take photographs.  He even offered us samples which Roger really enjoyed.

Roger is holding £3500 worth of black truffles. When the white ones come into store in a couple of months that plateful will cost £10,000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Harrods are just starting to put out their Christmas displays and I was informed that "it's only 19 weeks till Christmas"

Once we'd had our fill of food porn we had a look around the higher floors.

This hall table and mirror caught my eye. It's gold plated and price is available on application but I think it may just be a tad too big for the boat.............

I tried to take a photograph of a baby's jumper in the childrenswear department but an assistant said it wasn't allowed. I just couldn't believe my eyes and wanted to share it with my crafting friends. It was hand knitted to fit age 3 months, nothing special about it except a designer label and was £395. Just who buys this stuff and would they like any making for them?

The last thing we saw before we left Harrods was the Diana and Dodi memorial statue. There's also a shrine and a book of condolences you can sign if you're that way inclined.