"Four legs in the air means the sculptor was very, very clever."

Terry Pratchett on equestrian statues. As far Wikipedia is concerned (I'm pretty sure I first read it elsewhere) Hoof-position symbolism is an urban legend.

Not that it matters for the book. I've made it a point to have my protagonist wrong in many places. Often she catches herself. In the last scene I did, she thinks about how tourists go looking for "Big Ben." When asked where she is headed, she replies with a straight face, "Big Ben."

Yeah, the Trafalgar Square scene is done. 800 words and it only took me all morning.

She managed to get through the scene without "brightly" anything. I've decided that's her big "tell." When Penny says or smiles "brightly," it means she's angry, and if things don't improve there will be consequences.

***

Well, some of that time was in planning. As of this moment she's staying in Westminster, and will move to Kennington. With a side joke of Milton Keynes but I have to be careful about those, too. It's fine that she's a fish out of water, but so is the reader and after all I'm telling the joke, so I can be presumed to be in on it.

Had one bit of luck. The obvious way out of Trafalgar Square is the entrance to the Charing Cross underground station that's right there. Except there's no direct service to Lambeth North and it is quicker to walk down to Embankment. But if she does go into the station without knowing this in advance, she'll find notices -- and possibly a doorway, I'm having trouble telling -- for Jubilee platform, the discontinued platform now used to give tours when they aren't shooting films there.

And then if she does go down to Embankment she'll realize she can walk across one of the Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridges built in 2002 (locally and more normally known as the "Hungerford Footbridges") So I can show off the Thames briefly.

But I missed at the Imperial War Museum (London). I was sure I'd seen a cramped hanger-like space full of warbirds undergoing restoration, with wings on hoists and engines on stands and all that. But the more I research the more I think this might have been in Berlin.

Just as well. As much fun as warbird talk might be, I am better off keeping the conservation stuff in the background and not bending the reader's ear...eye...something...about all that.

Next book.