We are happy to be back in the land of lovely National Trust properies and country pubs. Despite having his drinking curtailed now, Ted was anxious to collect as many new country pub visits as possible.
It's nice to make a destination out of an NT location too. But it's hard to get enthused about walking around in the rain.
We have had squalls and rain all the time since arriving. One day the rain was going horizontally in front of our windows. It doesn't help that everyone keeps telling us about the extremely hot day before we arrived - and all summer dry and sunny...It is about 20 but feels cooler in he damp.
At the Hinton homel we enjoy games in the evening - cards, mind games and always somethign new. This time we are learning Qwirkle (a matching-colour-shape game) - keeps us awake to combat jetlag and not going ot be too early. They are keen athletic fans so we watch the evening roundup of the finals from Beijing right now.
A visit to the local shopping mall and two cell providers got my phone set up for pay-as-you-go in UK and France, easier and cheaper than trying to get service for my iphone here.
We also tried unsuccessfully to order more of our wine glasses. Online it's easy, put in order, pay, pick up after 2pm next day at John Lewis dept. store or Waitrose grocery store. But when yoou have a billing addres in Canada, not so easy. They first accepted then cancelled our order so I can see it wil have to wait til we are in Cambridge at the end of our trip. At least we know they have the glasses we want.
A day out with Anne & Grame took us to Windsor Great Park, polo park home of the Dukes I guess they own it all) and rain stayed off until we were almost back to the car. WE then found a lovely pub, the Fox & Hounds (of course) in the park for a light lunch and more interesting local brewskies. Liked it so uch, we will return for dinner there on Tuesday. Nephew Neil dropped by to say hi after his workday finished at 3:30pm yesterday, a good job for a family man as long as he is not out on emergency call.
Thursday evening we drove to Sarah's lovely wee house in Weybridge, a tiny semi detached cottage, unbelievably now valued at 500,000 pounds. She has done a lovely job of bringing it up to modern standards - but you can't park outside if you don't live in that road! Glad we did not accept a rental car upgrade to a bigger car, parking is a nightmare in London.
After dickering on whether to bring a leather jacket on this trip, I was glad to have it for the cool evening out.
It's nice to make a destination out of an NT location too. But it's hard to get enthused about walking around in the rain.
We have had squalls and rain all the time since arriving. One day the rain was going horizontally in front of our windows. It doesn't help that everyone keeps telling us about the extremely hot day before we arrived - and all summer dry and sunny...It is about 20 but feels cooler in he damp.
At the Hinton homel we enjoy games in the evening - cards, mind games and always somethign new. This time we are learning Qwirkle (a matching-colour-shape game) - keeps us awake to combat jetlag and not going ot be too early. They are keen athletic fans so we watch the evening roundup of the finals from Beijing right now.
A visit to the local shopping mall and two cell providers got my phone set up for pay-as-you-go in UK and France, easier and cheaper than trying to get service for my iphone here.
We also tried unsuccessfully to order more of our wine glasses. Online it's easy, put in order, pay, pick up after 2pm next day at John Lewis dept. store or Waitrose grocery store. But when yoou have a billing addres in Canada, not so easy. They first accepted then cancelled our order so I can see it wil have to wait til we are in Cambridge at the end of our trip. At least we know they have the glasses we want.
A day out with Anne & Grame took us to Windsor Great Park, polo park home of the Dukes I guess they own it all) and rain stayed off until we were almost back to the car. WE then found a lovely pub, the Fox & Hounds (of course) in the park for a light lunch and more interesting local brewskies. Liked it so uch, we will return for dinner there on Tuesday. Nephew Neil dropped by to say hi after his workday finished at 3:30pm yesterday, a good job for a family man as long as he is not out on emergency call.
Thursday evening we drove to Sarah's lovely wee house in Weybridge, a tiny semi detached cottage, unbelievably now valued at 500,000 pounds. She has done a lovely job of bringing it up to modern standards - but you can't park outside if you don't live in that road! Glad we did not accept a rental car upgrade to a bigger car, parking is a nightmare in London.
After dickering on whether to bring a leather jacket on this trip, I was glad to have it for the cool evening out.
