Land of Hope and Glory

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Dear all, thanks for coming to the site which contains the promised 'illustrated holiday report'!

A picture speaks a thousand words, so I'll keep it brief and let you admire what is mostly Ian's photography.

Our trip began in Rowan's Grandad's home village of Linton, near Cambridge. If it is in your atlas please let Rowan’s Grandad know. What a great place to start, strolling between Grandad’s house down streets lined with crooked old half-timbered houses to our humble abode (joke) at Mrs Rossiter’s B & B (see pic) with its luscious green manicured lawn, babbling English brook, and bumper English breakfast. We thought we might be on a movie set. During our short stay, we managed to catch up on 10 years of news since Rowan last saw Norman and Leslie, visit the nearby village of Lavenham and tour the colleges in Cambridge. This part of the trip is accredited with the first ‘best of’ prize - best sausage - at the Lavenham pub “The Swan” (shortly followed by runners up at S & M café in London, and Triglavski Dom, Mt Triglav, Slovenia) Thanks Grandad, Leslie, Babs and Vic for a great stay.

Our next UK exploits were in Grandborough (again please report any atlas findings) near Rugby with Rowan’s aunt and uncle Pauline and Andrew. First ‘claim to fame’ on the trip …Pauline and Andrew’s home is Gilbert House which is none other than the house in which Gilbert crafted his football underneath the apple tree in the front garden. Andrew very kindly drove us quite a distance to see Warwick Castle, and Statford-upon-Avon. We received a great deal of edumication about the history of the mother country and its warring ways, and had a really fun time.

Next stop was the big smoke. London. It is in the atlas. We were assisted in our London pursuits by Emily who had organised a rigorous itinerary which meant we were able to fit in both sightseeing, and catching up with friends and family. Regrettably we did not have long enough, but we did our best. To dear Martin, Susie, Nichole, Jeremy, Isaac, Julian, Em, Dave, Sal, Floss, Ash, Tim, Alana, Sarah and Simon - thanks very much for making the trip a fun one by having us stay, inviting us to your christening, the night-lights tour, travelling to meet us, organising our sightseeing and rendezvous points without mobile phone, and shouting us beers and more with your special magic money (i.e. pounds). I think the photos of our sightseeing are fairly self-explanatory.

and so we left the mother country... keep reading for our further escapades

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