When you're having fun

Time flies ... and we're well overdue for an update.

Since our first trip to London we've had eleven days of experiences!  I won't give you a day-by-day breakdown of what we've been up to but I'll cover my memories and experiences of those days, in no particular order.

After our first trip to London we moved to Reading to stay with Nigel's niece, Charissa, while Janos and Gail moved to Cornwall.  Charissa's flat is in Caversham, across the river from the main town and the railway - a trip we made on foot several times.  Reading's not the most beautiful of English towns, but it was a good location for catching the train into London one day, Oxford another, and to Wokingham one evening to enjoy dinner with an ex-workmate from HP days - Ron Wilson - and his delightful teenagers, Emma and Seb.

After a few days with Charissa we moved to Petersfield to stay with an old friend and cycle touring buddy of Nigel's, Tim, and his wife Linda. As it was over the weekend, they took us touring around the countryside. Once we'd seen the planned sights I referred to tiki-touring and Linda asked me what I meant. My explanation was pretty much right, but here's the 'official' version from Urban Dictionary :

(New Zealand slang)
1. a sight-seeing journey with no particular destination in mind.
2. taking the scenic route to a destination.
3. to wander aimlessly.

With Reggie (a VERY well-behaved golden labrador) in tow, Tim and Linda took us on a three hour stroll along back roads, across fields and up and over hills. Our walk was on what is called the Hangers Way.  Yes - no apostrophe - nothing to do with a rope - in old English it means a steeply wooded slope, which is an accurate description of some of the parts we traversed!  We were impressed with Hampshire.  It was more hilly than Berkshire.  Still lots of little winding roads and picture-postcard villages and farms. And there is the sea, where we got blasted by the wind (much stronger than the typical Easterly in Christchurch).  I do like the sea. 

Oxford is stunning.  We walked a couple of laps of the town's streets, exploring little alleyways and climbing the University Church of St Mary the Virgin tower to get uninterrupted views of the city. There's an old, indoor market where you can look through large windows to watch bakers, butchers, cake decorators and picture framers work their magic. Towards the end of the afternoon we found the Ashmolean Museum.  I'll admit I'm not a great one for museums, and this one was no different. I browse the exhibits, taking a closer look at occasional items that catch my eye. Tension, or something, builds inside me and by the time I've done a lap I'm itching to get out.  Nigel's the opposite.  He would have happily spent all day in there, reading every word. Which means he missed seeing many of the exhibits I saw, but no doubt he enjoyed the experience a whole lot more, gained more from the experience, and is itching to get back in there!

On our second trip to London we hit the back streets of Marylebone to search for where my great-great-grandparents married and lived before moving to New Zealand.  We found the area, but streets have been removed, renamed, and rebuilt.  It's an area that was badly hit by bombing and where stone houses may once have stood there is now a less attractive 1960s housing estate.  But the village squares are still there, with tall old oak trees, with at least one resident squirrel.  By accident we found the street that held the church where they were married, but no church.  We investigated another church around the corner and were greeted by an elderly 'caretaker' who was able to tell me that the other church had been taken apart, brick-by-brick, around 1900 and it was rebuilt in north London somewhere.  I haven't yet gone hunting for it.

We walked down Oxford Street; visited one of Nigel's favourite stores (Liberty) where they happened to have a sale on - at 30% off, the £120 scarf I looked at was no doubt a bargain, but unfortunately my bags are already full!   The Leadenhall covered market was a beautiful eye-opener, but as we wandered out the back I found my first reason to pull my camera from my bag - the Lloyd's of London building.

The monument to the great fire of London provides a magnificent 360 degree view of London .... after you've scaled it's spiral staircase of 311 steps!  It was windy and cold at the top, but very worthwhile.  And with a '2 for 1' deal courtesy of the off-peak train to London, it was only £3 for us - and we were given a certificate to prove we'd made it! :-)

From Petersfield we took trains to Cornwall, from where I am writing this blog entry.

I have a few random thoughts and observations to add:

• trains move quietly and FAST!  I got a hell of a shock when a train past straight through a station we were waiting at - it was gone in a second! Same goes when two trains pass in opposite directions.
• anywhere there are people, there are smokers - except for restaurants, malls and tube and train stations, where the 'no smoking' signs are usually obeyed.  Many people = many smokers = streets and gutters filled with cigarette butts = polluted air.  I suspect this is something I'm simply going to have to get used to, darn it.
• dogs on trains and in pubs.  Seems strange to me, but so far they've all been well-behaved.
• my first experience of Paddington Station and then the underground in London was a blur...an excited and happy blur.  I'm sure my jaw must have dropped as I stepped out of the train from Twyford!  I could have spent ages in the station with my camera in hand - It's a marvellous place. But we were on a mission so I just tagged along as Gail, Janos and Nigel navigated our way between stations and led the dash through tunnels and stairwells to change lines.  When Nigel and I returned for our second trip to London I got my head around the maps and think I could probably navigate it all myself without too much stress - it's such a great system.
• when we first arrived Gail and Janos said we wouldn't see blue skies like we see at home.  There's dust and pollution from Europe in the air which always softens the blue colour of the sky.  On the rare occasion we've seen blue sky I've found no reason to disagree with their comment!
• it pays to investigate travel options. Travel here is expensive so it's worth getting any discount you can. Travelling off-peak is cheaper.  A return ticket can cost just a tiny amount more than one way (a single).  Buying a ticket to part way of your trip then buying the on-going leg can be cheaper than buying a ticket to take you the whole way, but make sure you have plenty of time to get the on-going ticket.  Train travel is very comfortable, if you can get a seat.
• Nigel's always moaned about our ugly barbed wire fences at home, in comparison to the lovely hedges here.  I've delighted in pointing out the occasional barbed wire fence here, but I'll admit they're not common. However, the hedges do have a downside .... you can't see through them!  From a car you often have no view other than the narrow stretch of road in front of you and you end up with a stiff neck from your head swinging from left to right, trying to catch views where there are small gaps in hedges!
• having family and friends here has made a huge difference to our enjoyment of our time here and to the type of experiences we've had and we'll be forever grateful to Gail and Janos, Charissa, Ron, and Tim and Linda for their generosity and kindness. 
• you can never take too little with you when you travel ie. you can always buy stuff, assuming you have the money!  Knowing we were travelling for at least seven months, through a European summer and winter, we brought what we thought was 'enough'.  We wanted to be prepared.  We didn't want to leave behind perfectly good items (like a down jacket, for instance) that we knew we would need while here.  I ordered a few small 'necessities' from Amazon before we arrived, which we picked up in Reading - camera remote controls, spare battery and flexible drawing pad - all necessities! :-)  And now we don't know how we're going to fit everything in when we head to Italy.  We suspect some things will be abandoned at Charissa's flat in Reading, but those things will not include any of the technology!  I think perhaps our travelling gear-list could become an interesting topic of conversation for another blog entry. :-) 

Anyway, a day has flown by since I started writing this, so I'll leave Cornwall for our next update, which will be soon!  It's such a wonderful place!!

And here's a look at Oxford Circus on a quiet day, taken in a rush before the lights turned green again ... [it'll take a while to download so when it starts playing hit pause until it is fully downloaded, then play]