Road Tripping in England

2009 has been a funny year.  I did not leave England until mid August and I did not take my usual mid-winter vacation to the sun!  Keeping sane obviously has been a challenge, especially as singing “rain, rain go away, come again another day” really doesn't address the fundamental problem that I don't much like rain today, tomorrow or any other day. The fact that the song has a virtual 100% success rate is irritating too, sure the rain actually will go away but it also will return the next day (or the following day at best)! Let’s not even get started on the temperature, great for moulds and fungi, crappy for me. I thought mould and fungi would prefer heat, a bit of time over here put paid to that theory.  I have developed a little weekly challenge, buy a loaf of bread on Saturday and see if I can eat it all before it goes mouldy, so far no luck, although I have not yet resorted to popping the bread in the freezer between toastings...I have tried keeping it in the fridge though, got a whole extra day out of it!

So, back to keeping sane.  I have been engaging in the ancient art of Road Trips. Since May I have been to Henley-on-Thames, Brighton, Falmouth, Suffolk & Norfolk, Somerset and Devon and to the Cotswolds.  To round things out I have had a steady steam of friends and relatives visiting, starting with Phillip and Kathleen back in April, peaking with virtually all my family in May then tailing off with Christie and the boys in July. It’s been busy.

I will share here with you some of the highlights and lessons learned.

March was pretty nice here in the UK, some rain to get all the green stuff going but also some nice sunny days.  Emma and I made the most of them and did some exploring around London.  We spent a great day out around Henley-on-Thames.  HoT is nice little town up river from London. It is well known for the Henley regatta, an annual rowing race that draws huge crowds.  This area of the Thames valley is very pretty and worth visiting if you are in London for any amount of time more than a long weekend, and, of course, if the weather is decent.  We took the dog with us and were again impressed how most pubs have no problems with allowing your dog in to dine with you!

March continued being nice and Emma and I managed to throw the first of many bar-b-ques.  We are determined to smarten up our back garden and it is starting too look pretty nice.

Check out the spring pictures in the picture gallery by following this link and selecting the 'Spring around London' gallery; Spring & Summer around England

April started poorly and pretty much stayed that way, poor Phil and Kat did not get the best weather for their visit.  It was great to see them and I really want get back to San Diego to visit them on their home turf.  They had a great time in France though so hopefully the whole trip was a win, check out their blog at; http://southoftruenorth.blogspot.com/

May was always going to be a busy month.  I finished working for Deloitte in May, I had my father, brothers, sister, sister in law and one nephew all coming to stay with me at some point, and I had a wedding to go to in Falmouth. Emma was very brave in the face of this invasion however she wisely choose to head for higher ground when Adam, Andrea, little Beni and my father all arrived.  She took herself off to Florence, clever.  Even without Emma we had a great time, the weather was fairly mixed but that did not stop us from hitting most of London’s main attractions.  Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate was a high point, I am not sure I had the right attitude as I left a 50p piece on his grave and managed to be on my cell phone for critical photo.  Oh well.

Emma returned in time for Christie, Sam and Charlie’s visit.  We had another whirlwind round of sightseeing then we were off for the weekend to Falmouth where my cousin Andrew was getting married!  I drove and we went via Stonehenge.  The boys were suitably impressed and I snapped a few pictures but the site has lost some of its magic for me.  I first saw Stonehenge when I was about 10 and it was a magic place.  It was literally a bunch of unmistakeable stones standing in field next to a highway, no fence, no rope, no fees.  You could pull over and go and wander in and out amongst the stones, touch them sit under them or even carve your name into them.  This is of course why now they are surrounded by a fence, you have to pay admission to get in and the magic is gone. I often wonder if in our drive to preserve things that are ancient we sometimes kill them.  These monuments have been around for thousands of years, enduring many different uses and continually influencing people around them and being modified by those people.  Now we have frozen them in time and in extreme cases we don’t let anybody near them at all, too me that is very sad.  Happily there is an equally spectacular stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire, it is still open to everyone and you can go have a picnic with your back resting against a giant standing stone…magic.

Where was I?  Falmouth is a great little city on the southern coast of Cornwall and home to my cousin Andrew and his wife Lamorna (Moon for short).  We had a great time at his wedding and were really pleased to see the May weather behaving itself, warm days, blue skys and clear nights!

<June, July and August will be added shortly!  LBW 31-08-09>