Nuts About Nelson, part 3

For our last week-end in England we hopped down to London.  We spent a lovely day in Greenwich seeing the maritime museum and the prime meridian building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The maritime museum featured many displays having to do with national hero Admiral Nelson, of course. 

This is his fork-knife.  Remember, he lost one arm in the course of duty.

 

 

The original U.S. Declaration of Independence is kept, highly secure, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.  I walked by that building twice a day for two years and never went in because I didn’t want to deal with the three hour wait, but I hear it is in a thick glass-covered case that retracts into the ground if there is a security problem.  I was humored to stumble across this at the British museum.  It is the copy of the Declaration of Independence that the framers sent to King George – it’s just stuck on a side wall in a simple glass frame with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff.  You can see it’s dated July 4, 1776.  I didn’t have time to focus in and take a better picture because a guard came over and told me “no pictures”.

We then headed across the lawn to the Meridian Building which houses a small museum (mostly about clocks) and a little courtyard with a line on the ground marking the Prime Meridian.

 

View from the Meridian Building

 

I did it wrong – I learned later you’re supposed to stand with one foot in each hemisphere.  Whoops.

The Prime Meridian

 

Observatory

 See more of our Greenwich pics here

DD and Me: 20 hours in London

Sunday, June 8

Dana’s flight departed on Monday and it seemed like it would be very stressful for her to deal with the train from Birmingham, the tube, the madhouse that is Heathrow and an international flight all by herself all in one day, so we had no choice but to travel on Sunday and spend a night in London.  Oh no.  Of course, we missed the train (due to a leisurely breakfast).  Once in London, we jumped on the tube at Marelybone only to discover half-way through our journey that the Victoria line was down all day.  Dana had a ton of luggage from Iraq so we hopped in a cab to the hotel.

For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to spend our afternoon at the Camden Town markets.  I must have had a hole in my pocket because all of my money disappeared.

This is only the beginning of literally hundreds of vendors with every style of hand-made clothing, bags, jewelry and trinkets imaginable.  I ate delicious falaffel from the Falaffel Queen.  I had dressed for rain (since that’s what it does here) but It was quite sunny and getting really hot so I had to buy a cute yellow tank-dress-shirt-thing with purple flowers.  And we both bought beautiful skirts from this awesome woman, Nicola Quilter, who was running her own booth.  She pretty much had us with the sizing chart:

I bought a mini-skirt (Trim) but in the knee-length skirt I am Normal.  Dana says, “…might I note that I think the is the only time one will every hear Sara referred to as “normal.”

After that I limited myself to the cash on hand which was a wise choice (Dana left the next morning with 14.50 quid which turned out to be the exact cab fare from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3).  Other than the skirt and shirt, I only purchased what will become holiday gifts for lucky friends and sisters. 

We spent the evening catching up with friends.  Really, there’s nothing that makes you feel more cool and worldy than having last-minute drinks with people you know in London.

Nicola and Dana.  Nicola took us on a bus to get back to our hotel near Victoria Station.  That nicely rounded out our forms of public transportation for the day.

 

Val, Neill and Sara.  This one is fuzzy, but that’s appropriate since I’d been hitting the Pimms again and Val was jet-lagged from getting back that morning from her three-week honeymoon to Japan and Australia.

I haven’t seen Dana since The H swept me away to the suburbs.  We had so much fun, we won’t wait that long again to have a vacation adventure.  Cheers, Luv!

 

Mums The Word

My first Guest Blogger:  My Mom …

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Sara & The Husband for inviting me to visit.  It was a fabulous trip.

Whirlwind – best word to describe it – a whirlwind of sights, sounds, experiences and tastes.

Birmingham.

April 28.

Arrived late morning after a long flight full of interesting characters. Made a quick tour of the Bull Ring and returned to the flat where the H (or SIL in my case) was home from work. We all enjoyed Sara’s tasty lamb stew, thoughtfully prepared with a separate pan for me with a much lower Scoville unit rating.

April 29.

To market, to market – and what a market it is – outdoor setting full of fresh fruits and veggies, breads of all types, any kind of cheese you would want and more, more, more, with vendors calling to you to buy their wares. Home again, home again…

Walking tour of downtown Birmingham. We came across a small monument to the soldiers of WWII. Inside was a beautiful stained glass window, and notes and flowers had been left in memory of loved ones lost in the war. Peaceful, reverent and serene.

On through the city (and the rain) to the canals. A small pink waterbus was calling to us, so we took a boat ride.

I loved the “street signs” on the canal – little islands with directional markers.

Other longer boats moored sadly by the wall rather than putting happily down the canal.

Fish & chips tonight at a local pub. Yum!

London.

April 30.

We had a lovely breakfast of fruit, scones and lemon curd…mmmm…and caught our train to London. Lots of sheep and lambs dotted the countryside.

After I crumpled my train ticket by stowing it in my pocket, Sara would not allow me to keep my 3-day tube (subway) pass.  At every every entry and exit of the tube she handed the pass to me and then promptly took it back for safekeeping.

Rain, rain, rain. Cold wind.

Following the hotel check-in we hit the streets surrounding Covent Garden and found several wonderful shops, especially vintage clothing shops where my simply adorable daughter(one of two, I might add) purchased a very cute skirt.

Rain, rain, rain. Cold wind.

Fabulous lunch at an Indian restaurant.

Rain, rain, rain. Cold wind.

What I had learned at this point:  I must walk as fast as I possibly can to keep up with the daughter and take advantage of every brief street corner stop to renew my energy.

What Sara learned at this point:  She must slow her pace a bit so as not to lose me.

Somehow we found a compromise, mostly to my favour (I love the English spelling).

 

Unable to find the Apple Market, we headed to Albert & Victoria Museum via the tube.  Contrary to the tour booklet listing it was closed.

Side note: This is the only proof of the wool cap I purchased at a London market to keep my ears warm.  It was lost in a rushing throng of people on the tube during rush hour the next day.

Walking along the Thames (in the rain, of course) we caught sight of The Eye (super huge Ferris wheel) from under the blue plaid umbrella wisely purchased earlier in Birmingham.

The Eye was never operating during the visit, so we didn’t get to ride on it.

Finally we reached our next goal – Fleet Street – 3 short blocks of Sweeney Todd infamy. We walked all 3 blocks (on both sides) just to say we did. It is now a business and office district, but there are still some shady characters about.

May 1. Happy May Day!

Traditional English breakfast and we finally found the Apple Market. Today it rained less and generally was sunnier.

We headed to Buckingham Palace, but due to the huge crowd we mostly “heard” the Changing of the Guard rather than “saw” it.

While waiting it started raining, and almost on cue everyone across the street from us raised their umbrellas in unison.

We did get to see some of the pageantry of the daily event, including this band as well as a horse regiment and another marching regiment with guns fitted with very large bayonets.

Perhaps the best time (along with Stonehenge) was an impeccable performance of King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It was an amazing production. For once the rain was quite appropriate. As if on cue it started raining at the onset of the famous storm scene and the sun shone through at exactly the right moment when the storm ended in the play. Perfect timing. Pictures were not allowed during the show, but Sara snapped this one earlier.

http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/

On to the Royal British Museum where we could have spent hours more.

First stop – the Rosetta Stone – amazing to see the relic we all learn about as children.

Creepy shadows from a large ceiling exhibit. Below that I am studying a crystal skull that was claimed to have ancient mystical powers but was later proven to be a Victorian hoax.

Dinner at The Sussex pub where I had a meat pie (shades of Sweeney Todd!!)  This was a late night and the streets were teeming with people and three-wheeled bicycle taxis.

May 2.

Stonehenge, which Sara wrote about previously.  It was well worth the trip.  We saw endless beautiful, bright yellow fields of what we learned is rapeseed, which is grown for production of biofuels.

Back to London and on to Birmingham. What a fabulous day!

May 3.

The last day was spent in the English countryside at Bolsover Castle and Chatsworth Estate, as mentioned by Sara. Both were simply magnificent.

For lunch we stopped at the Blue Bell pub. The SIL ordered the Cumberland Round, which was a circular link of sausage the size of the plate served with a heaping mound of mashed potatoes in the center (and he ate all of it).

I ordered the Roast of the Day (beef) with Yokshire pudding, which isn’t pudding at all (as we know it), but rather is similar to a large, well-browned cream puff shell served with the beef and gravy. Like everything else to date it was very good.

On my last evening I ventured out alone to a store about 5 blocks from the flat to purchase scones to bring home. It was a successful excursion; I returned unscathed.

It would be impossible to cover everything we did.  It was an amazing trip.  Thank you again to Sara and The H.