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Published: November 8th 2005
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Heya!
Well, we haven't been up to too much recently as we have both been sick, but my birthday on October 31st went really well, & we have been able to stretch out several activities over time, so it's been quite exciting.
The weekend before my birthday (which was on a Monday), we went to Kensington Gardens, which is about a 50 minute walk from our place. We had the intention of going to Kensington Palace, but didn't think it looked that interesting when we got there. After walking around for a few minutes we realised we were surrounded (oh no!) by tame squirrels in the gardens, who were coming up to everyone & sometimes even sitting on your lap if you were on a park bench. They were very cute with big fluffy tails, & we spent ages trying to take heaps of photos of them. Predictably we named them all Cyril (Cyril the Squirrel) & had quite a nice time just following them around in the park. After a while I had a really bad migraine & had to go home by bus. I was almost sick on the bus, & was really disappointed, as we had
planned to got out for an Indian buffet meal, but I was too sick to go.
I felt much better the next day for my real birthday, which was a relief. Thank you to all of you for your birthday cards/emails/texts etc. Our flatmate Juanita had the day off work so we watched DVDs all day & ate chips & icecream. Vaughan was late home from work & I had to cook my own birthday dinner, but I got over it pretty quickly - Vaughan will still take me out for the birthday dinner we were meant to have when I was sick. I had to get dinner cooked early as we had to leave in time to get into the West End by about 7pm for the show (musical), 'Guys & Dolls', that Vaughan was taking me to see. It was awesome for a birthday present, as it was really different to go to something like that & I loved every second of it. It was a great time, & I can't complain about seeing Ewan McGregor sing & dance in real life either 😊 I was glad that even Vaughan enjoyed it heaps & was singing the
songs afterwards. Everytime I see a musical I'm reminded of how much I really like them. I really liked the guys songs (when the main male stars all sang together, especially a song called 'Luck Be A Lady'), & then one with all the cast except Ewan McGregor & the female lead, Jane Krakowski (from Seinfeld), called 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat'. Quite a lot of fun really. The theatre was really tall & narrow, & incredibly steep (we were upstairs), so you felt that if you lost your footing you would just keep rolling, & end up in someone's lap about 20 rows down. So the show experience was awesome for me & it was a great day - yay!
Last Saturday we went on a mini roadtrip to Windsor Castle. It's only 13 miles away but Vaughan managed to get us lost again & it took 2 hours to get there. I'm getting used to the delays now - nothing traffic-wise is as simple as it seems here. The castle is actually in a small town called Windsor, & it looks out over everything, so there was a nice little view. It was quite cold &
wet when we went, so we didn't stick around much, but it would be a really nice place to go to for the day, & sit outside for some lunch before visiting the castle, or something. The castle itself was quite massive, but because the Queen actually lives there (most of the time), you are only able to venture into a small part of it. She was there the day we went, as her 'personal standard' (flag) was flying (as opposed to the Union Jack flag which flies when she's not there). We had a look around the grounds that we were allowed in, & also got to venture through some fancy sections on the inside (the State Apartments), including St George's Hall, where they can have banquets for up to 160 people, the Crimson Drawing Room (my favourite), various eating/serving rooms which were smaller than St George's Hall, and many other impressive rooms. Many of these rooms were destroyed by a major fire in 1992 (a real shame, if you see how nice they are), & have only been open to the public again since 1997. Unfortunately, as with many such places, you aren't allowed to take photos inside,
but we have kept a lot of brochures & stuff of our trip.
So that's about it for us at the moment. Will post some more stuff again soon. Our Christmas trip is currently being planned, & I am sure we will get many good photos from that as well. Trust you are all safe. Please email anytime.
Love Toni & Vaughan xxxxx
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