Visitors

Following on from the success of our month-long holiday in Italy last year with Mum and Julie, they decided to visit us in the UK in September for a few weeks.  We were very lucky to have our 'owners' (Nigel's employers) approval to have them stay with us, so they used the son's rooms (he, like most of the family, is in the USA) - Mum grandly accommodated in his bedroom and Julie set up on a comfortable convertible couch in his office - however they did have to share his huge bathroom.  They didn't complain!

We'd planned plenty of outings, of course, so here's a bit of a run-down on the joys of being a tourist in our neck of the woods.....

Note: several of these photos were taken on Julie's camera, by Julie or Nigel ...

At nearby Basildon House, a National Trust property that's used for some of the internal rooms of the fictional Downton Abbey...

Who doesn't recognise Stonehenge?

tourists at Stonehenge

the three Slade girls at the Devizes locks (hidden behind them)

the first pub stop, in the lovely village of Marlborough

And they couldn't visit without seeing London .. twice for Mum and three times for Julie ....

on the train from Theale to London Paddington ....
 

a brilliant Charlie Chaplin impersonator busking at Covent Garden

Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the Slade sisters

on the 'Harry Potter' (Millennium) Bridge with St Paul's Cathedral behind

 Julie got very excited about the grey squirrels in St James's Park ..... especially so when one clambered up onto her knee!  Don't worry - I checked her bag afterwards, before NZ Customs got a chance!

 For my birthday in April we'd gone to a Birds of Prey centre, so Julie knew she wanted to go there too, so we returned .....

We enjoyed a great day in Oxford .... 

.... and a special day aboard the Cygnet - a canal boat on the Avon and Kennett Canal.   Having been shown the ropes we were left to our own devices for the day - negotiating several locks and travelling from Kintbury to Hungerford and return.

Julie skippering the Cygnet under a rail bridge

enjoying the comparative comforts below decks

The Cygnet and Mum (BTW - we grew up on Cygnet Street in Christchurch!)

Julie and Nigel managing one of the locks

A must-see pub, and a must-duck pub, near Brimpton - the Pineapple Pub.  You can see that the beams encourage us to duck (in preference to knocking ourselves out!).

They abandoned us for three days to visit Paris (during which time Glenn and Irene Seymour came to visit), were back for a couple of days, then winging their way back home.  It was all over far too quickly!