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A beautiful sight!
Crazy weather on the way to Portsmouth, but was nice to get a beautiful full rainbow! Since my last blog entry James and I have been pretty much everywhere in London, down to the southeastern coast of England, back to London, and now on the move to France. We were supposed to leave last Thursday, but decided to stay on the weekend and this week to get some more business stuff done.
James has been working a lot, and I’ve been trying to help as best as I could for the last week, and not drive him totally crazy! So what have we been up to….well the highlights have been; James getting great tickets for us to see the play Wicked (the untold story of The Wizard of Oz). 8th row! It was really good!
By the end of the week, both James and I had had enough of the run around in London, (it just takes twice as long to do anything in London!), so we headed south…in the hope of some sun. We drove to Portsmouth on Friday night and stayed at a campsite that had its own bar…with a DJ and disco ball. Pretty funny I must say. It must have been a hot spot to go in the town, because
Our first meal in Ernie
We arrived in Portsmouth and cooked a gourmet meal in Ernie. James smoked up Ernie. there were some ladies who walked in all dressed up and looked like they were ready to dance…or there to pick up men! I’m not sure which one is worse. This was at a caravan/campsite park! We skipped the bar and had our first cooked meal in Ernie. James did very well..except for smoking up the van for a few minutes.
The next morning, we didn’t get lucky enough for a sunny day, but a very windy day. We had the intention of going to the Isle of Wight (recommended by my grandma), but the ferry ride was very expensive and it was really windy. So we walked down to the beach…hoping to find a sand beach, but it was a rocky, shelly beach. Being a rock collector(haha), I enjoyed the beach. I had a couple of pockets full of shells and rocks by the time we left. James actually got into it too, and ended up bringing a few home.
We decided that there wasn’t much to do in Portsmouth, so we drove about an hour east to Brighton. There we found another campsite to park Ernie, then walked down to the water to check out
Windy Beach
It was windy at the beach! the strip. Brighton is a very cool place! We found an awesome outdoor v-ball facility right on the water. Too bad it we didn’t know anyone to play with, but it was expensive to rent time! Next time we’re there we’ll have to take full advantage of it.
There is a full pier with a carnival and a pretty happening karaoke bar at the end. By this time it was getting dark so we wandered into the Lanes to find a restaurant. It was Sat night, so there were a lot of people out and about! A ton of pubs and bars, and I couldn’t believe the amount of women out for hen parties (that’s stagette parties)! Pretty funny too…they seem to go all out getting dressed up in all sorts of themes. There was one group of about 10 women each dressed up as Madonna from all different eras! The next day, I walked around Brighton and visited the beach while James got some business done. Oh and I drove Ernie for the first time…besides almost sideswiping a few cars, James says I did very well….hehe.
The last few days have been full of more running around London
and trying to get business wrapped up. It’s been a whirlwind of stuff, but we are finally on our way to France. We drove to Dover this evening, without a ferry reservation, and not really knowing if we were staying in the UK for one more night, or getting on a ferry. Well we pulled into Dover, and James spotted a sign for discount ferry tickets. So we stopped and he went to check it out, and I stayed with Ernie. He comes back about 10 min later saying he’s booked us tickets and we were getting on a ferry in about 35 min.
Well if you know James, he just seems to get things wherever he goes. The ticket place was closed, but there was an Indian restaurant next door, and so he went and asked if they knew anything about the ferries. The owner ended up giving James the ferry reservation phone number and let him use his personal office to call. He then asked if we wanted food, so James came back to the van to get me, and we had a nice Indian dinner rushed for us. Within a half hour we had our ferry
James posing with a Tall Ship
In Portsmouth..it was a big naval base with a few big tall ships in port. We saw a big naval ship go by too reservation booked, had dinner, and am now on the ferry to France. It’s about 9:20 now, and it’s about an hour and a half ferry ride. Let me just tell you that the ferries here are way nicer than the ones we have. They are like a floating hotel lounge….bar, restaurants and arcades. Very nice, but expensive too, one way was £70!
Look forward to the next entry from somewhere in France…wherever we end up. But now we sun seeking. We are both craving the sun and the beach and pulling out the v-balls.
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Barbara Peters
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Wish I were there
Love reading your blog - sounds like you left for France yesterday - we finally have some sunshine here in Langley so hope you find some soon. Looks like you are having a blast. look forward to hearing about the South of France to get ideas about my trip in the Fall. Mom