London and Home

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We are now home. Planned to do a posting when we got to London, but the hotel we were in charged 15 pounds per day for internet which we didn't pay. Most of our other stops were free or charged from 3-6 euro per day so this was a shock.

We completed our canal experience on July 15. Overall it was a great experience. Beautiful countryside and fascinating to work the locks. Have lots to share with everyone when we get home. The weather was somewhat less than desirable - in the mid 60's most days, lots of clouds and only a few days with no rain at all. Four days pretty much had rain on and off all day. They provide slickers with the boat so this was not unusual weather. In fact, it explains why everything is so green and lush. Temps did go into the low 70's on 3 or 4 days and everyone thought the heat was unbearable. They kept reassuring us that it would cool off and get better the next week.

We spent the night in Oswestry, Shropshire, and and then left for London on the 16th. During our evening in Oswestry we took a walk through the main part of this small town and came upon the old church with a bell tower. The bells were ringing and the tower door open so we went in and started up the stairs. A group of change ringers (6) were having a rehearsal. The large bells are pulled with long ropes in different sequences to get different melodies so to speak. They were excited to share with us about the process. I got to ring one of the bells (takes practice to get it to ring and in time with other bells) and we got to go further up the tower and see the bells. Very neat experience and unexpected.

Planned to spend 3 days seeing the sights in London, but didn't visit as many sites as expected since the crowds were so thick. Our first day in the city was a Saturday with beautiful warm weather and the streets were so crowded you almost had to force your way through to get anywhere. Lines everywhere very long. We wandered through the grounds surrounding Buckingham Palace and walked by the Parliament buildings. Took the Thames River cruise without too long of a wait and visited the National Observatory. Interesting museum, but too crowded to see items well. On Sunday we spent the day in Kew Gardens, the National Botanical Garden. Very nice with a lot to see. Plenty of people, but not crowded so a very enjoyable day. Last day in London we visited Harrod's, took a tour of the Ben Franklin house and went to St. Paul Cathedral. Finished the day and our visit by going to the musical Oliver. Excellent performance. Thoroughly enjoyable evening and a great finale for the trip.

Want to share a tech thing we did this trip which has worked very well for us. We usually have problems dealing with voice messages when traveling for this length of time - hard to access messages particularly when out of the country and if the answering machine gets a glitch in it - no more messages for the rest of the trip. If you have a Google e-mail account (gmail) you can sign up at no cost for Google Voice. When you sign up you will get a Google phone number. You can have people call you on that number and leave a voice message which also shows up in your e-mail as a transcript of the call. Sometimes hard to understanding meaning from the transcript, but no problem since you can also listen to the actual voice message on your computer. As long as you have internet access you can get your messages. You can also set the system so when someone calls the Google number it will go to your cell phone, or Aunt Jennie's phone if you are visiting her. We set our home phone to forward to the Google number so any calls to our home phone while we have been gone have come to the computer. It has really worked well.

This is our last posting for this trip. Hope to see many of you soon as we arrive home. David & Barb

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Photos

Boating in the Rain
The gear was provided so you know they expect that you will need it.

Stairstep Locks
Series of 4 consecutive locks with no holding pools between them. Can only enter when Lock Master gives the OK.

Butterfly
One of the many butterflies in the butterfly house at Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens
Flowers in front of the Palm House at Kew Gardens.