The cutest video ever (and other stuff)...

Hi all! It's hard to believe our 9 days back in England are almost over already! We've had a great time catching up with friends and enjoying these final moments of Englishness. :) The weather is cold and miserable, the sun sets at 4:30pm... but the "Christmas is coming" vibe is everywhere, our hire car has heated seats (!!), and we are relishing every last drive down those gorgeous narrow little country lanes!

On Friday we went into London for a final bit of sightseeing. We went to St Paul's Cathedral, Hyde Park, and the Science Museum.

St Paul's was built by Sir Christopher Wren, and it was where Prince Charles and Diana were married. It's massive and very grand - domed roof, huge columns, etc etc. We didn't pay to tour through it properly, but we actually went back in the evening when it was open for their Chorale Evensong, so got a bit more of a glimpse inside and heard some nice music. Incredible accoustics!!



Hyde Park was pretty empty and the trees were mostly bare at this time of year, but they were setting up a "Winter Wonderland" section with European-style Christmas markets - little huts with red holly-lined roofs - plus a haunted house, ice skating rink, rollercoaster etc. It was lovely to wander through that, and it brought back lots of memories of our travels through Europe at Christmas time last year! There was even a white "World Tourist Attractions" Ferris wheel there - exactly the same as the one at South Bank in Brisbane!



We didn't have much time at the Science Museum, but here are a couple of photos...



But the highlight of my day was the following moment...



Hope you enjoyed it nearly as much as I did!!!! :D :D :D

Things we'll miss about England...

The wonderful friends we've made

Amazing old buildings everywhere

Squirrels!

Wensleydale with Cranberries (the best cheese ever!)

Being close enough to London that we could pop in for a visit at the drop of a hat

Ridiculously cheap flights (best one - AUD $35 for both of us to go to Ireland and back in April)

PUDZ Heavenly Chocolate Pudding and PUDZ Sinfully Sticky Toffee Pudding (click here for website)

Being close to Europe!!!!

London's West End and cheap www.lastminute.com theatre deals

Gorgeous countryside everywhere

Innocent smoothies (click here for website)

Interesting pub names!

"Mind the gap" and "mind the closing doors, mind the closing doors"!

Narrow picturesque little country lanes that hardly have room for two cars to pass

200g blocks of chocolate being cheaper than they are in Australia (and thus being able to justify eating more of them)

The EuroTunnel

Black cabs and red buses

Gourmet Burger Kitchen (click here for website)

Little rock walls (Ireland and northern England)

The possibility of another incredible British Christmas dinner like the one we had last year!! (click here for blog entry)

UK driving holiday, Part 2: Lake District and Mansfield

After our two nights camping in Wales on our 9-day driving holiday in early August, we stayed a night in Mansfield with Dotti and her housemate Beth, and then set off for the Lake District. The Lakes are a famous area in north west England that we had heard a lot about and always intended to see, so we were very glad we managed to squeeze it in right at the last minute!

The Lake District is where Beatrix Potter lived, and where many of her Peter Rabbit tales were set. There were a few Beatrix Potter-related attractions in the area. It is also where the poet William Wordsworth spent 60 of his 80 years. (Click here to read his famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", which was inspired by the sight of millions of daffodils at one of the many lakes for which the area is named.)

From the moment we arrived in the Lake District, it was easy to see what inspired them - the area is completely and utterly adorable!!! Quintessential England: hills covered in bright green grass and purple heather, little rock walls meandering across the fields, beautiful old stone houses, and of course, lakes everywhere! I think we actually decided it was the most stunningly picturesque part of England we had seen - which is really saying something!

We ended up staying in a B&B because we couldn't be bothered to go through the effort and pain associated with camping. :P So the first afternoon, we spent ages driving around talking to B&B owners and calling some from a book we had, until we finally found a nice little place in the town of Windermere. Then we headed off on a long walk and came across a gorgeous lake (of course) and had a bit of a photo shoot. :) The first photo below is actually of a watersports clubhouse (kayak hire etc)!!



During our two days in the Lake District, we again had a nice relaxing time just walking around, checking out the shops, and driving around taking photos of incredible views. I remember being disappointed I was unable to capture the most breathtaking scenery as it wasn't safe to pull over at many of the best vantage points, so perhaps it will give you some idea of why the Lake District is such a famous holiday destination if I tell you the following photos are just random snaps that barely do it justice...!!!



On our way back to Mansfield after two days in the Lake District, we came across signs to Castlerigg Stone Circle and decided to follow them. This was a circle of large stones in the middle of a grassy plateau surrounded by moutains, and it is estimated that it was built thousands of years ago - see the information on the sign below. There were a few other people there, but no staff or other tourism-related facilities except an ice cream van!

There were no restrictions regarding climbing on the stones either, which felt quite strange after having seen Stonehenge months earlier - which is also a stone circle, but is fenced off, patrolled by a guard, costs money to get close to, and probably isn't allowed to be touched! Castlerigg Stone Circle also looked somewhat less impressive than Stonehenge though. :) Here are some photos...



Our last night of the trip was spent at Dotti and Beth's house. The next day was Sunday, so we went to their meeting and then had lunch with some friends. Some of you might recognise a few of the people in the photo below (five Aussies and two Kiwis!)... L-R: Mark, Tanya, Beth, Dotti, Lechelle, Charlton, me, Ben.


And that was our last holiday in the UK. :) Yay, I'm finally up to date!!! :D

UK driving holiday, Part 1: Oxford and Snowdonia

Well, now that I've finished writing about our Europe trip in July, I just have one more holiday to record before I'm up to date!! After we returned from Europe at the end of July, and were staying with Matt and Kat for our last couple of weeks in England before flying back to Australia, we did a 9-day driving holiday to see some parts of the UK we still hadn't been to. It was a lovely trip, but not very "bloggably exciting" - i.e. no travelling companions and no dramas, just lots of nice scenery etc - so I will be far more brief than usual. Also, we've only got two more days in Australia and I want to be up to date by the time we leave! :)

Anyway, first we stayed three nights with Bryce and Nikki D and their two little boys near Oxford. They are Aussies from Perth who have been living in England for about 6 years - we met them at a picnic we went to in June. We had a great time staying with them! We hardly took any photos, except the ones below of us up on White Horse Hill on a rather chilly day. :) The white horse is a figure cut into the side of the chalk hill, dating back to the Bronze Age. We didn't get a chance to take a good distance shot showing the whole thing, but the second photo below shows its head in the foreground (upside down), if that helps you make sense of it! :)



After Oxford, we headed into north Wales for two days of camping in Snowdonia. We had bought a tent for this trip as we intended to camp in the Lake District as well, but we ended up chickening out and so the two nights in Wales were the only time we ever used it! (However, our tent was so cheap that it still worked out cheaper than spending those two nights in a B&B.) The second photo below shows the view from our tent - there were slate quarries on the sides of the hills nearby.



Anyway, it rained the whole time we camped in Wales, and our camping mats were so thin and hard that I actually had bruises on my hips for the rest of the week!! But it was still fun, and the mountainous countryside was absolutely gorgeous. Since I'm trying to keep this brief, I'll leave it up to these photos of Wales to illustrate the point (click on them to enlarge)...



Anyway, we had a very lazy time in Wales, just driving around enjoying the views, exploring little towns, and even spending a few hours reading books in a tiny library near our campground!

And that was the first five days of our driving holiday. :) I'll be back soon to tell you about the rest of the trip - Mansfield (Dotti's place) and the Lake District!

Final Europe trip, Post 11: Vernon and Ardres

Continuing on from Post 10: in France with Delle, Dotti and Lachy at the end of our two-week Europe trip in July...

After our visit to Monet's Garden, we drove back to the nearby town of Vernon, where we ate a massive lunch and then went our separate ways for a while to do some shopping and exploring.

Vernon is a gorgeous little town with interesting shops and lots of Tudor architecture. It also has a massive Gothic-style cathedral reminiscent of Notre Dame. The large temporary panorama at the top of this page shows the cathedral and a row of Tudor-style shops, as seen from the steps of the building in the third photo below. I absolutely love Tudor architecture, the older and wonkier the better, so I loved this sweet little town!



After this, we continued on to Ardres, a little town near Calais where we were to stay for our last night in Europe. We were boarding the EuroTunnel at Calais the next morning (Thursday) to head back to England, and Delle and Lachy were flying home the day after that.

Our B&B in Ardres was an absolutely gorgeous house a few stories tall. Our rooms were at the very top of the house, so it was a good workout wrestling all our luggage up the creaky narrow wooden staircase! Our rooms were very cute - a pink room for the boys and a green room for the girls...



That night we all had a craving for crepes again. We asked our helpful and friendly host and were delighted to learn that Ardres had a very nice creperie. So we thoroughly enjoyed our two courses of crepes (savoury and sweet), agreeing it was a fantastic high note on which to end our European sojourn. Yum yum yum!!!!!



The next day we headed back to England and spent the afternoon in London, showing Lachy some of the sights (well, Delle too, but she had probably already seen more of London than we had all year!). In the evening we saw We Will Rock You in West End. Great fun! That night we stayed with Matt and Kat, who had a very full apartment as they also had two other visitors from Austria.

The next morning, Dotti, Ben and I took Lachy and Delle to the airport and sadly farewelled our wonderful visitors... so glad they had made such a tremendous effort because we had all enjoyed absolutely unforgettable days together. Thanks guys!!!! :D



Well, that's it - our final Europe trip all recorded! Hope you enjoyed coming along! :)