FYI

I was just notified that evidently my blog is of some interest to members of Fodor’s, a forum I had attempted to get advice from last year when trying to plan my trip, and learned since on my blog I dared to post pictures of myself and the parts I enjoyed on our family trip that I am selfish and shame on me for not taking pictures at other places my family wanted to see or that we didn’t even dare to venture to any place anyone other than what I wanted.  All of the photos from our trip that I chose to include in my online photo album are here and what you see on this blog is from my journal of our trip.  If my children choose to make public their journals, then their memories of the trip would be available, but again this is my blog and I won’t be posting their journal entries here.  If your life is so unfulfilling that you strive to track down and read up on the blog of a poster who asked for advise of the forum you frequent almost a year ago and then spend days nitpicking my every comment, twisting and distorting the complete entries to colour the interpretation to meet your needs, mocking my family and myself along the way – who really needs help?  And to follow that up by making crude comments here about myself and sexually inappropriate comments about my daughters – sick.

Windsor, Day 1

We started today later than most, but it was to be a casual day – relaxed.  We woke around 8 am, readied ourselves and ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant around 9:30 and then set out with Billy as our guide.  By this point, we’ve become pretty familiar with the double roundabouts, two in a row, leading away from the hotel towards the motorway.  In fact, we didn’t even need Billy to tell us to get to “take the roundabout, second exit”.  It was almost a fluid motion.

15 March, part 1

This journal includes part of my audio log as well as written entries after returning from the city.  I’ve tried to edit out tenses, I may have overlooked some.

Westminster Abbey, Part Three

This picks up after leaving the Nave and moving through an outdoor hallway/garden area (the Cloisters) to the Chapter House.

Westminster Abbey, Part Two

This picks up at 27 minutes and 43 seconds in my audio journal of Westminster Abbey, having just left the area where the Coronation Chair should have been.

Westminster Abbey, Part One

For Westminster Abbey, I chose to keep an oral diary of sorts, recording my thoughts as we toured the church.  This entry is long, and likely of limited interest.  But as it is part of my trip journal, it is included in my blog.

Arriving in London, again, for the first time.

I’d been advised by a few online friends to not venture into London earlier than 9 unless I wanted to deal with London rush hour, which they assured me I did not.  So this morning we slept in til 7 am!  We took our time getting ready and decided to give the breakfast buffet at the hotel a whirl.

15 March, part 2

We began a northeastern path towards Leicester Square, a site we were anxious to see.  Specifically of interest the commemoration to Shakespeare.  Also the handprints of stars and the notoriety for street performers.  The idea of sitting back and absorbing as the world moved around us was kind of exciting.  Every site we’d seen every place we’d been had required walking, exploring, going, moving – not once could we simply sit and absorb.

Walled Up Toilets Are Of No Use When You Have To Pee!

Monday, the dreaded day arrived; the entire reason for our trip was at our doorstep.  Were we ready?  Could Alannah hold her nerves together well enough to overcome her shyness and boldly plan out her future?  Was I ready?  While we had talked for almost six years about her dreams and goals, this was one of the first steps in bringing them to fruition and aiding my baby girl to cross the street on her own.  Big girl pants and all.

The First Great Day of Our Trip

I didn’t want to get my hopes up, seeing as they’d been dashed to bits many times over in the past six days, but this day was really becoming something worth putting my pen to paper for.  Leaving Salisbury, we drove north towards Avebury, following the same path proposed to have been used by the ancients to travel between Stonehenge and Avebury.  It was perpetually sunny, something that had occurred almost immediately as we drove out of London.  It was like the sky opened up and said ahh you’ve escaped, welcome to a better world!

Crop Circles and Castles, Oh My!

I’d only heard of Old Sarum through DAOC.  It was the name of the village our guild house was in, situated in Rilan.  So naturally when I began planning this trip and I saw there was a place called Old Sarum just south of Stonehenge, I had to see if it was worth a visit.  And oh my.  Old Sarum is a fort, a castle, a massive beast on the landscape of Wiltshire county.

On the road again…

With less than four hours of sleep, I was up with the sun.  Well, without it really.  London and its suburbs are funny like that.  A continuous grey haze of clouds resides over the city and you know that somewhere up there is the sun but you cannot see it.  One Londoner told me they had seen the glowing object in the sky once, many years ago, and out of concern it was a UFO they had contacted their government only to learn that it was supposed to be there.  (I suppose it was more comical to hear it with his accent telling the tale, but at the time, I laughed.)

An unplanned and unpleasant stopover in Birmingham

Visiting Birmingham never was a plan.  Not even a plan that got nixxed for time constraints.  I didn’t want to go there, never thought of going there and damn sure never plan to again.

The Merry Knights (or perhaps not)

We hurried on from Boltby and Kilburn, anxious to get to our next stop in time for me to make it to our last stop for the day.  Our next stop was Sherwood Forest, Alannah’s can’t miss location so that my little tree hugger could see her 800 year old tree.  It was all she had spoken of for some time and now that we were on our way, she chattered away incessantly about it.

Boltby Scar

Leaving Northallerton, we headed east towards Foxton to view the farm home of Francis Parvin, which is still owned by Parvins to this day – though my attempts to connect with them prior to our trip and find out our relation to them was not fruitful.  The farm too sits off of the Swale River and the bridge over it was narrow and wooden and old.  We stopped and I took snapshots of the old farmhouse, delapidated though it was.