The End

We're back now.  We wish we weren't.  The whole trip is like a dream now.  We had a blast.  To Duncan and Karen, the biggest "Thank You".  We couldn't have done it without your generosity.  We know there is a lot more to see after 10 days, we know we would love to go back one day.  For now, it's back to life and a happy little Pug.

Cheers!

The faithful Airbus that would wing us back to Seattle.

International flights serve food, an endless supply of beverages and have personalized entertainment systems.  Some silly game occupied several hours of my flight.

Day 11, The Family

Monty and me.

Juliet and Euen

We had a great time with the kids.  I think we miss them a little bit already.  

Day 11, The Breakfast

Our final meal.  Duncan's full English Breakfast.  It was outstanding.  To be fair, Karen had prepared a similar feast previous, and both were wonderful.  

DAY 10, Fish and Chips... Again.

After the match, we talked Duncan into one last round of fish and chips.  I doubt he'll want to have them again for a good while.  Pictured is Brenda's Haddock and chips and the little shop that produced it.  I will miss it.  There isn't anything even close at home.

Day 10, Duncan's Rejection

After we had gotten our tickets and found our entrance, Duncan lead us through the turnstile.  As you can see, the English are serious about their turnstiles.  The photo is of Duncan from the inside.  When Duncan tried to go through the first time, the bloke in front of him had hit the turnstile hard at the same time as Duncan scanned his ticket and it went around twice.  Rejected and holding up the line, he found security who had the technology in hand to determine that his ticket had indeed been used.  A few minutes later it was confirmed that Duncan was in fact not inside the stadium and his ticket was re-programmed.  

Day 10, Reading v QPR

We didn't do much of anything Saturday, but we did drive into Reading for the 5:20pm Coca-Cola Championship League match at The Madjeski Stadium.  Reading had spent the 2 previous seasons in the Premier League, but was relegated back down to the Championship at the end of last season.  They managed to retain most of their players, so I did get to see Steven Hunt, Kevin Doyle, Ivar Ingamarsson, Andre Bikey and American goalkeeper Marcus Hanneman.  The stadium was really nice, and for not being full, was quite loud at times.  We had a great view of the Away Fans section and enjoyed the back and forth with the vocal home fans next to them.  The match itself wasn't great, a nil-nil draw, but some of the play and demonstration of skill was spectacular. 

Day 9, The Hobgoblin Pub

This was a great little, and I mean little pub.  The beers are all poured with hand pumped taps.  The sign claimed that the pub had served over 5700 different beers since 1993.  I had an outstanding porter.  

Day 9, Shopping

We got a late start, but were determined to get to Reading.  Karen had told us that the train from London that went through Sunningdale terminated in Reading in a very nice shopping district.  She was right.  We even found some great deals, even considering the exchange rate and overall higher cost of everything.  In fact, we decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to increase the capacity of our luggage.  Its big.  It's pink.  It can hold a rather sizable body.

Day 8, Finale

Now that we had unraveled the mysteries of travel by bus, we caught one to Trafalgar Square.  They were setting up for an event so we poked around a bit and then headed for Waterloo Station and the train home. 

Day 8, St. Brenda of Pigeon

We arrived at St. Paul's and decided to sit and have lunch, which we had been packing around since earlier in the day (the indian food was very good)  Brenda discovered a pigeon with a bad foot and instantly felt sorry for him, dutifully feeding him and shooing away its faster companions.  Waiting turned out to be a bad idea because they shut the doors as we were ready to go in.  They closed up for 45 minutes to prepare for evening services.  We were not going to be denied, so we sat in a French Cafe to wait them out.  The Cathedral is very, very impressive.  I'd post the images from the inside, but photography was prohibited.

Day 8, Transport

After the Tower, we decided to try bus service.  We felt pretty confident with the Underground, and the trip to St. Paul's Cathedral was easier by bus.  Once we figured out where to catch the bus going the right direction, we happily sped off on the bus pictured.  It was one of the older ones, and painted an odd color, but it did the trick.

Day 8, Guards!

Coming out of the Tower gift shop, we got to see the the new guards come out, get inspected and march down to retrieve the Password of the Day.  We followed for a bit, but it was getting so late that we decided to move on.

Day 8, Ravens

They keep Ravens at the tower.  It was once told to a king that if the Ravens ever left the Tower, England would fall.  They've kept ravens ever since.  I watched the 3 on the ground in the picture for  bit and noticed that they had their flight feathers clipped.

England still stands.

Day 8, The Tower of London

We figured we could see the Tower of London in two, maybe three hours.  It took us over 4, and I know we didn't see everything.

The history of the place is expansive to the point of disbelief and overwhelming.  The shot from the White Tower looking across the Thames has a glass spherical building in it.  It's the Mayor of London's home or offices or both.  I can't remember.  Just thought it was odd, the really, really old opposite the really, really modern.

There's really too much to talk about the Tower.  I'll post a couple of specific things next.

Day 8, Breakfast!

I had wanted to sample Indian food while in England as I had heard it's very good.

It's very good.

We had seen this little shop the day before and had wanted to try it, so we had breakfast/early lunch. 

The shopkeepers, nice folks that posed for Brenda.  We were on the tiny balcony.

Day 7, Post Nap

After the nap, we ventured out onto the streets to look around the area and find dinner.  The idea was to find a proper pub, but after finding 3 in a row the either didn't serve food, had stopped serving food, or simply advertised food in the window but didn't even have a kitchen (Brenda's favorite), we gave up and ate at a Scotch Steak House, which is a chain with a great name, but serves food much like a Shari's in the States.  Afterwords, we went back to looking for pubs this time to find one that was playing the Chelsea v Roma match.  We got some advise and found the Alexander Fleming, which was in fact playing both the Chelsea match and the Liverpool v Atletico Madrid match.  We had a good time, but I'm afraid Brenda may have become a Chelsea fan that night.  I don't know what that means for our future...

Day 7, Intermission

We found our hotel just a few blocks from Paddington Station.  We thought we would test out the beds before going back out into the city....

Mine proved adequate.

Day 7, Underground

This one's just for dad...

Day 7, Early Afternoon

It seems that the pictures are posted in reverse order.  I'm sure you've figured it out already.

The Princess at Buckingham Palace.  To be fair, the Princess was disappointed with Buckingham Palace.  It wasn't as fantastic or as ornate as in fairy tales.  I think she preferred Windsor Castle.

A self-portrait, just to prove I was there.

Yeah, we scarfed Buckingham Palace....

Day 7, Late Morning

Top of the eye.

The Hunchback of Westminster

Nearly to Buckingham Palace.

Day 7, continued

Sights from the River.

The Parliament building.

Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior was in town.

The Tower Bridge. (The prettiest and most famous bridge)

The Golden Hind, Sir Frances Drake's ship.  It's a replica that traveled the world over a decade ago.  I would imagine dad has photos of it when it was in Newport.

Somehow I didn't get river photos of St. Paul's, The Globe Theatre, the Gherkin, and several other buildings.

Day 7

Yup, we made it into London!  Duncan had an early morning meeting in London, so we hitched a ride.  He dropped us at Leytonstone and we managed to get the train into Waterloo Station. We grabbed some food and found our way to the London Eye, the gigantic ferris wheel-like thing that was put up for the Millenium celebration, but proved so popular that it's still there 9 years later.  

It was a perfect day, bright and cool, so we started on a river cruise.  It was a good idea as we got to see a lot of things and get an idea for where everything was.  We also got a lot of information.  The picture shows us on the front of the boat.  It was a bit windy, and thus very cold.  Otherwise it was the only time we were really cold.   

Because of the weather, we could see about 25 miles in all directions, so I could see the arch of Wembley Stadium in the west.  The clock tower that houses "big ben" actually looks small from the top of the eye.  

Day 6

Today was a down day.  We slept in and decided to walk to Sunningdale, looking at all the beautiful old houses, which each seem to have their own names like "Lavershot Court", "Thistledale", "Morningdale", "Chipndale" (I made that last one up.)  We saw the entire town, had a coffee, grabbed a property guide (We could live here)... (If we won the lottery)... (A really, really big lottery), and shopped a little.  Brenda wanted to cook dinner, so we went into the Waitrose grocery and spent over an hour just looking at things.  We grabbed a cab at the train station across the road and headed home.  Dinner was fantastic.

Day 5, "Have fun storming the castle!"

Notice the color of the sky.  It would pour down while we were inside and lighten up once we left.  Just like home.

Day 5

Day 5 started a bit late.  Late in the morning, we strolled down the road to Duncan's local fish store.  It's maybe 100 yards away.  The shop is nice with a large pond section and good looking tanks with large, healthy fish.  It was interesting to see the product lines.  I scored a book for a pound that we can't even get back home!

Duncan's parents arrived while we were gone.  Nice folks.  They picked up the kids for the week and then we were off again.  Duncan agreed to drop us off at Windsor Castle, which is close by.  He got us within sight and we found our way up to the entrance.  After going through the entrance and security, we ran into Roy.  Roy was the last tour guide of the day, and he didn't have anyone to guide, so we volunteered.  Roy was very nice and very informative.  Turns out we just missed the Queen by about 30 minutes.  Once inside the castle we saw an amazing doll house, china set after china set and amazing room after amazing room.  It started to rain while we were inside, but had let up by the time we went back outside.  We missed a golden opportunity to scarf a palace guard when I discovered that the camera battery was dead and I had failed to bring the replacement.  Then we wanted down to the river in the rain and waited fro Duncan.  I made it up to brenda by procuring fish and chips for dinner.  (By "procuring", I basically mean asking Duncan to stop and pick some up on the way home)

Day 4, the finale

In England, they advise you to mind all manor of things.

I am nearly certain we are the first member of the Timber's Army to have scarfed a BLA event.

Brenda was holding Monty within minutes of our return.

Day 4, More People I Know.

Dai Jones and his wife Kim.

Ivan Dibble. 

Trevor (front) and Dave.  Sadly this is the best photo I have of Trevor from this trip.  I have other photos of Dave, but his hair was mussed...