At Last!!! Final Days in England. London Adventure.

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Sorry! I have been so busy doing nothing that I didn't get around to completing my story of our travels to Norway and England. As we have been home for 4 months I will try to remember what where and when we did things. After spending our 4 weeks with Pete and Helen in Corsham we traveled by bus up to London where we took up residence in the St Giles Hotel situated close to the world famous London shopping street, Oxford St.

We were joined at the Hotel by our friends, Lydia and Michael, from NZ and were very lucky to have their company for our 4 days in London. Lydia and Michael were in London to visit their daughter and her new twin daughters. Great excitement for them as they had been hanging out to meet these two little cuties since their birth 10 months before.

All the famous shops and infamous shops are here and in the surrounding streets. You could spend days just investigating, walking and eating and mixing with the thousands of other shoppers. A half day spent in Covent Gardens, an area we love to spend time in, watching the street performers who are always so very entertaining. Our friends, Stephanie and Robin, arranged a magic visit to Buckingham Palace. We spent a couple of hours touring the great palace, walking through the various grand rooms, inspecting the decor and the amazing art work. Such opulence. Truely worth doing if visiting London. So much history and I found it truely awesome.

In the few years that we haven't been able to leave New Zealand shores we found that places we have become familiar with have changed a bit. When we visited Bath and London we were surprised at how many vacant shops there were. So much was the same as when we last visited, but some stores that we relied on to give us the product that we wanted had disappeared or down sized. In some areas we found that the presentation of how a store or a park or display had been presented was not as good as we had found it before. In saying this I must stress that our visits to everything still had the capability to make us realise how lucky we are to be able to visit these places. They are awesome and our visits will always remain highlights in our lives.

In London we found a queue, which is not unusual, but this was a queue to get into a store based solely on the humble M&M candy button. We were amazed that this small coloured sweet could warrant a store that covered 4 floors of a large building. Millions of candy buttons in hundreds of different colours are offered in various guises of what the original M&Ms were. Merchandise such as M&M shirts, pants, teddy bears, hats, books, drink bottles, oh, the list goes on and on. If you wish you can get you child's name and birthday printed on these small sweets. Or perhaps a love poem. Truely amazing. So, so popular. The store is so crowded that you have to queue for at least 10 minutes, sometimes a lot more, while they let in only the amount of people leaving. We were truely amazed. Of course London did not fail us in giving us the big city fix that we needed after such a long absence. Shopping and culture, history and some good dining. It is a magic city.

So after 10 weeks away we reluctently boarded our flight out of Heathrow, though to Singapore and onto Auckland, then onward to Taupo. Always pleased to get home but for possibly the first time in years we felt that we would like to stay on for a little longer.

We hope that we will be able to return to this side of the world next year, to catch up with family, and to get our fix of the history and culture of the northern hemisphere. Pip/Rod

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Photos

Beautiful Tvindefossen Waterfall At Voss.
Di and I at Tvindefossen waterfall in Voss, Norway, where we always have a photo taken with the family so we can see the changes over the years.

Canal Boats.
The Kennet and Avon Canal at Monkton Combe.
A lovely day walking.

Di With Her Cousin Chris.
Cousin Chris and his sons Joe and Dan towering over Di at a county cricket match we watched. Joe is a very promising young batsman who has made it into the Gloucestershire cricket ranks.

An Evening Walk.
A Deer watches my progress.

Off To London.
Waiting for the bus to take us to London from Corsham.

Di and Lydia.
Exciting times walking the streets of London. This pic taken at Covent Gardens

Join The Queue.
Michael, Di and Lydia in the queue to enter the M&M Store in Trafalgar Square

Inside M&M Store.
Four large floors of M&M. It truely is amazing.
Lydia and Michael trying to make a choice of what would be pleasing.

A London Pub.
Always nice to come across a pub with a bit of atmosphere to enjoy a quite drink.

A Lovely Taupo Trout.
Returning from overseas I was immediately into a little fishing in the rivers around home.

Amy, Jeremy and Tony.
Aboard Corrado's boat and heading out onto Lake Taupo.

Bergen
Diane, Stella, Lillian. Rune and Pip walking in Bergen.
Spring time at Lille Lungegaardsvannet. The lake is surrounded by a park in the heart of the city.

Walking The Hills.
On the way up the mountains in Voss. We were on our way to Voss Gondol, a gondola which takes you to the top of Mount Hanguren with beautiful views over Voss

Always A Waterfall.
Chris and I stop for a breather.

Comments

[Home and Away]

I hope you can also visit Norway and the UK next year...
Now is not the time to stop your traditional travels!