On Thursday, after an early breakfast in the hotel, Jo and I caught the tube to Charing Cross Station and then a train to Orpington and took a taxi to Jo’s house. Jo then drove us to Jean and Ron’s, where Christine (my other cousin) and Frank joined us for a few hours. We left about 2pm and came back into town, stopping for an early dinner in China Town. At 7pm, we met Jess at Kings Cross Station for a drink and then caught the tube back to Russell Square and our hotel. Yesterday (Friday), we walked around to see the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street first, then carried on to the Museum of London. After lunch at the Museum, we walked down to St Pauls Cathedral and joined a tour of the Cathedral ... read more

On Thursday, after a slow start with a late breakfast, Jean, Ron and I went out to do some grocery shopping. After Jo finished work at 1:30, she came over to pick up Jean and I to take us out for dumplings at Wing Yip in Purley. This is a very big restaurant, with a grocery store beside it. It specialises in dumplings like our yum cha, which they sell until 3pm, and they also have an a la carte menu. As it was a very late lunch, we bought a soup home for our tea that night. Friday morning was spent in the house, playing with Oscar the one-eyed cat and watching birds in the garden and squirrel outside the conservatory. As it was my final day on Friday, we decided to go out for ... read more

After cooked breakfasts (Eggs Benedict for me), we decided a nice walk along the seafront was in order. The road is downhill so it was an easy walk down and we walked along the beach, looking at the changing cabins and the bay and boats. Along the rock wall, the water was crystal clear and there were large fish floating in a couple of feet of water below. The irony was that there were fisherman fishing along the pier when these big fish were right under your nose on the promenade…. Probably mullet though and not as appealing to eat. We came to the pier and had a cup of tea at the café at the start of it and then continued along the pier to the end, where we chatted to a few fisherman. They ... read more

Jean and I were up early to get packed for our 8:30am departure with Christine. We drove for a few hours until we got to the New Forest, a national park where wild horses roam around. We saw several standing in the middle of the road holding up traffic and standing on the front nature strips of people living in the villages around the New Forest. Our first stop was Buckler’s Hard, a historic maritime village west of Southampton. Hard was used to identify a hard surface on the shore, perfect for pulling boats up on. This was where several of Admiral Nelson’s ships were built and repaired at the end of the 1700s/early 1800s. We also went on a 40 minute cruise around the Beaulieu River estuary, which is privately owned and a breeding ground ... read more

This morning Benny and I got a taxi into town to visit the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire. We were dropped off beside the Cathedral, in the Place de la Revolutione which had a lovely fountain and café. Inside was a huge organ and an amazing ceiling. There was a mass underway so we sat down to listen to it for about 15 minutes whilst we looked around the interior from our seats. After quietly leaving, we walked around the outside of the Cathedral, around the Cloistures courtyard and through a pretty garden. The Cathedral sits on a hill and from the top you have views to the south towards the Fonseranne Staircase and the aqueduct that the Canal du Midi goes over before Beziers. As it was 12pm and everything shuts, we sat down at an outdoor ... read more