Windsor

Queen Victoria surveying her Empire from the front of Windsor Castle.

I'm not supposed to be here; I'd planned to be in Yorkshire, seeing Haworth Parsonage and York Minster. But a case of appendicitis that turned out not to be appendicitis derailed everything.

I'm fine, but I was under doctor's orders to stay in Oxford just in case, and I couldn't have handled wrestling all of my luggage on and off of the three trains it takes to get to Haworth anyway. So I'm in Windsor and flying home tomorrow, and longer explanations will have to wait.

In the meantime, this statue is so well placed that wherever you are on Peascod Street, the pedestrian mall full of shops and restaurants heading downhill from the castle, the queen appears to be watching—and judging.

Maybe you really don't need that sultana scone after all.