Blogs from Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 4

Woke to glorious sunshine, so so lovely...... Melanie and I went to The Vine Church, which was literally 3 minutes walk around the corner from Catherine's cottage, I was a lovely place with such lovely people, they made us feel very welcome indeed. Afterwards we hung around for a bit chatting and drinking tea. We then headed back to Catherines where she was a busy little bee making an amazing Sunday roast dinner, her friend Catherine came too and the best bit was getting to see Rachel again and have a good catch up. When Rachel arrived and we hugged we both just welled up, was an emotional time. So jumping back a bit, last night on Facebook a lady called Anne got in touch, an old friend of Mels that she hasn't seen for over ... read more

Princess Cruises provided a transfer from our London hotel to the cruise terminal in Southampton. Once again, a private driver and car picked us up. It was quite interesting to converse with the driver, an immigrant from Afghanistan, about the current world situation. He had a brother located in New York state and a sister in Germany. His brother operates an Afghan restaurant while he is a professional driver using his own car. I must note that I found it interesting that highway distances are still indicated in miles in the UK while temperature and other measurements are given in Metric. I've known Southampton as the arrival and departure port for the great transatlantic ocean liners during much of the 20th century. The Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, S.S. United States and QEII as well as the ... read more

Wednesday 14 June we left Plymouth behind and made our way to Portsmouth via the motorway and pretty English villages. We are staying at the Royal Marine Club for six nights - a very nice hotel just near the harbour. Parking at the hotel was at a premium but John found a parking spot for our little red bus and there it will stay until we leave. Thursday we bought ourselves a ticket to the historic dockyards which allows us to explore this great place over a number of days. Our first stop was HMS Warrior 1860, a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate built for the Royal Navy in 1859–61 and HMS Victory. She is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalger in 1805, the shop he died on. We ... read more

So, just before I left for the Paris Roubaix, I had started to fix the body panels on the Discovery, thinking it would only take a few days. Well it didn’t. In fact it took the following two weeks, after I returned to get it finished. But I’m happy to say that the effort was rewarded with a Pass certificate from the MOT station, so I’ll except the extra time it took. Without further delay, I threw as much underwear as I could into the Van, grabbed all the bits I forgot the first time, and left the following Monday, with the objective of reaching Calshot beach, on the edge of the New Forest. As Bob the van is unhappy reaching motorway speeds, I opted for the “avoid motorways” option on the Tom tom, and yes ... read more

Stefano I had hosted Stefano once before but just for the night as he needed somewhere to stay for a business trip. After Stefano had kindly hosted me at his apartments in Luxembourg and France, I really wanted to return the favour of his hospitality by hosting him at mine and to show him some places he hadn't seen before in England. I took the Friday off work and Stefano booked his flight tickets for a long weekend visit. Hartley Wintney I've been living in Hartley Wintney for a year and a half, after buying a brand new home through a government scheme to help first time buyers get on the property ladder. This is the first property that I have ever owned. To buy a house in the UK is not easy as the housing ... read more