Yes, it's happening again.

Ruth and Julian are travelling again.

We're off to the UK - and the glutton for punishment I am intends to keep you updated.  And hopefully a little jealous too, and more hopefully, bring a chuckle to those not travelling.

My plan is to post a link here on Facebook and on Instagram and also to email a distribution list each time I make a new entry.

My plan is to post beautiful photographs alongside comments that describe not-so-common perspectives.

I suppose I'm doing it for me, so if you don't like how I do it or what I post... no problems at all.

So... Here goes!


Singapore Airlines was our travel mechanism - I can't bring myself to tell you how much the return airfares were - suffice to say I will be looking forward to a long stint back in Oz on my return. 

We had an incident free journey and arrived at Heathrow on time after about 22 hours of airline hospitality. We landed about 7:30am London time. 

The first trip highlight came soon after our train trip into the centre of London - Caught up with son Michael who took the day off work to enjoy our company.  He made sure we didn't fall asleep during the day by taking us for a long but entertaining walk.  We walked past a large number of the famous sights in one day!

Tower of  London

Trafalgar Square

Buckingham Palace

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben and the houses of parliament.  

The London Eye

We checked out Whitehall and 10 Downing Street - if you want proof, ask me and I'll send you the boring photos.

We didn't fall asleep once.  Mind you, when I look at the second selfie of the trip, my eyes are barely open!


It was a whole lot worse the next day - checked out Westminster Abbey from the inside with a few others:

With hoards going through the place each paying GBP27 - about A$50, why would they have this inside the cathedral? 

I thought I'd made my donation going inside, but clearly they want more.

A highlight for me was meeting the new King and Queen with Ruth.


Ruth is in the one in the forefront of the pic.

 After the royal visit we were so excited we wanted to do it all again. Maybe we just didn't believe we were in London.  But instead of taking all day walking to each spot, we took an easier way out:


Yep... the London Eye!

We were really there.

If you've never been to London, "you gotta go".  

Cambridge tomorrow.

See ya

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bath

Image
 I'm very happy to put my accutely optimised navagation skills away today.   I can rely on Dr Google to show us the way to drive to Bath via Glastonbury and Wells.  Our guide in a book, Rick Steve, tells us it's worth stopping at these places to visit some.... ... cathedrals. Well after yesterday's scary moments in the wilderness, it was great to have a car-driving day with cathedral interludes.  I can look to the heavens and say thankyou! Glastonburywas established around 712, and then there was a huge fire in 1184.  It was rebuilt by the 14th century and became one of the richest monasteries in England. It is supposedly where King Arthur was buried in the sixth century.   There's a bit of conjecture about it, but in order to maintain the tourist income, when they were rebuilding it, the monks made out they found his remains.  It certainly remains at least as the mythical burial ground for him.   The grave is in the open now becaus...
Read more

Cotswold walk concludes

Image
 I'm not sure how interested everyone will be about this blog. Walking, walking, walking. On and on and on. Rolling hills, rolling hills, rolling hills. Cute little towns intermingled with the rolling hills. No cathedrals, but lots of churches. Here's Bill posing in a cute little town under my direction: Happy co-walkers enjoying the rolling hills: Well one out of three look happy at least! Now this was an interesting monument we came across on a hill: This item is known as Cromwell's Seat.  Apparently this was the place Thomas Cromwell sat (he was Henry VIII's chief minister at the time) to watch the burning of Hailes Abbey after it was decommissioned.   We came across this cute property: And a nice tree in a field: A big one actually, hey? More wheat fields: Rolling fields: Cute little town with a church: Baaaaah: I translated that to mean "Any food you could spare for me please sir?" We came across a castle on top of a hill.  This one is Broadway Castle - i...
Read more

Cottswold walk 1

Image
Now, those of you who have been reading my blog and not just looking at the photos might remember that I presented a photo of a modern piece of art that was installed at the Salisbury Cathedral. I didn't get this piece at all. It looked completely out of place to me. So I told you I would enlist the help of my artist friend William H Luke to explain this thing to me. Well... he didn't disappoint. Here's the original pic: Well, blow me down. This thing turns out a) to be a very important piece, and b) was produced by one of England's most important 20th century sculptor, Barbara Hepworth. It is called "Construction (Crucifiction)". It is such an important work that they transported it to be installed temporarily in the Rijksmuseum Gardens in Amsterdam for them to ogle at it there. Here's an extract of a newspaper article from April 2022 when it was happening: So this thing is a modern art representation of the crucifiction. I don't know why I didn't...
Read more