England

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Monday 26 May - Sunday 2 June 2008

After a month in the US of A, it was absolutely divine to spend a week in England at Alex’s place, where everything felt totally normal (I even had vegemite on toast for breakfast). We had a pretty relaxing week, mainly spending time with Sean’s sister Alex and her family; Andrew, Niamh and Carrig.

I think I will definitely appreciate the Australian weather when I get home. In England, if it rained (which it did nearly every day) we just put on our rainjackets and kept going. Alex lives in Surrey, just south of London, so we were able to visit some beautiful homes and gardens. It rained for most of our visit to Nyman Gardens, so we missed out on the view, but we had a great lunch at Cherkley House and Gardens another day. My favourite afternoon was spent at Fannie’s Farmhouse, a country tea house without mains electricity, with beautiful gardens and best of all a tree house. We had tea, pear sandwiches and scones with jam and clotted cream.

Sean and I spent one huge day in London. We accidently slept in, so had a late start, but made up for it by walking absolutely everywhere. Our first stop was the London Eye and then we walked along the south bank of the Thames, past the Globe, tall ship and dungeons. We were aiming for the Tower Bridge and London Tower, but had to turn around to make a walking tour that departed from Westminster.

The walking tour was definitely worthwhile. We chose the Old Westminster Tour, which went around Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the Thames and Downing Street. We met the tour guide at the Westminster tube entrance, paid our seven pounds each and immediately thought we’d made a mistake. There were about 30 people in the group and it was so noisy we could barely hear ourselves talking. Anyway, we needn’t have worried because our guide led us away from the crowds into quiet areas and we were able to hear him fine. He was loud, interesting and did great impersonations of famous British personalities, such as Winston Churchill.

We also spent another great day at Bath. It was a two hour drive from Alex’s house and we parked outside of Bath and got the ‘park n ride’ bus into the town centre, which drove along a ridgeline and gave us a great view over Bristol. We arrived just in time for a free walking tour and afterwards, relaxed with a session at the newly opened Thermae Spa (what else would you do at Bath?), which was just fabulous. The complex had an indoor mineral pool, with spa jets and fountains, four steam rooms that ranged from 45-50 degrees and smelt like frankincense, lavender and peppermint, foot spas and an outdoor heated spa that overlooked the Bath skyline and hills.

We caught the train from London to Scotland early Saturday morning and were running so late, that we only had time to wave goodbye to Andrew and the kids as we reversed out the driveway on our way to the station. We found our way to Euston fairly easily and kicked back for the 6 or so hour journey North.

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Photos

With Niamh in the Treehouse
(It wasn't anybodies birthday)

The Oldest House in Bath
A few hundred years ago stone masons tried straightening out the crooked wooden window frames from the 600 yr old house... not so successful

The Roman Baths
Hey Marty and Dan! the water looks lovely... fancy a swim?

At Cherkley Court and Gardens
With Andrew, Niamh and Carrig

Comments

[Marty]

Bath
Actually the water looks great and we really enjoyed our swim!

[alex]

so, so great seeing you both
the title says it all, it was so lovely seeing you both, come back soon pretty please, I wont make you work as hard. Niamh misses you both, and keeps asking when you two are coming back from your long walk! a little confused was our Niamh...and you forgot to mention how Sean kept his hand in by doing a brilliant job rewiring my faulty lights and ensuring we lived to see another wet day down here.