Day Six - Gretna Green, the lake district , Grasmere and Liverpool

woke early and went for a walk around the gardens and sprinkled M &and D in the garden walk in amongst the daffodils. saw some very cute bunnies

 a lovely breakfast. The breakfasts at the hotels so far are almost always smorgasbord which is great, as one can take what one likes and we both load up on eggs, beans and lovely roasted tomatoes.  Another short walk through the grounds and on to the bus and it is our turn to sit in the front of the bus which is great as today we are going through  the lake district. 

The country roads are very narrow and several times I was holding my breath as we passed vehicles going the other way. When we were sitting back further in at the bus I never noticed how close we were but in the front seats you can’t help but notice how close they get to each other. yikes!

Onto the hi way and south to Gretna Green, the marriage spot of Great Britain in days gone by. The legal age for marriage in Scotland was 16 so lots of couples eloped to Gretna Green to get married without their parents permission. Jane Austens character Lydia was reported to do so with the wicked Mr. Wickham (but they didn’t really get married at all, that is how wicked Wickham was). The part of Gretna Green that we saw consisted of a collection of old buildings all in good shape, that had been turned into shops and restaurants for us tourists. Very nice and we picked up quite a few things there. Coasters at one shop, pens in another and then Margie bought me my birthday present there, a lovely celtic cross necklace. Thank you Margie.

Peter told us the heather that we saw by the bus was planted there special for the tourists as the heather doesn’t bloom until the fall but it would look the same.  

A picture of the first heather we were to see.

After Gretna Green we scooted into the lake district which is one of my favourite areas of England. There were miles of stone walls and sheep, sheep, sheep. small country roads stone bridges over small creeks by small farmsteads. so picturesque.
We experienced all kinds of english weather. There was raining clearing up to drizzly clearing up to sunny and gorgeous. 

We stopped for a small break at the lake? and got a fly past from the local air base. so nice. I got a lovely shot of the lovely ladies on the tour looking at the scenery which was also lovely. There were hiking trails across the road going way up those very late hills and tried to get a shot of

lake district

 sheep walls

 grasmere. We had lunch right here in this little restaurant.

Dennie laughing in Grasmere

William Wordsworths grave in Grasmere. He wrote a lot of his poetry here in the lake district. "Daffodils" was advertised everywhere.

 liverpool. Here is me Margie in Beatles exhibit. It was fun to reminisce

Day five - Wednesday- Edinburgh - Grey friars Bobby and would you rather live above ground or below?

Day five - Wednesday- Edinburgh - Grey friars Bobby and would you rather live above ground or below?

woke at 5am with the birds chorus. Closed the curtains and went back to sleep until 545. Got up dressed and walked in the garden. Saw some very cute little bunnies. Sprinkled M&D in the woodland path among the daffodils. The black angus cattle in the field across the road from the hotel were up and grazing, disappearing into the mist. 
Back inside for breakfast. Margie and I went for a wee walk after breakfast around the garden. We left at 8 for the tour of Edinburgh. Peter handed us over to Shonagh our Edinburgh tour guide. 
The history of Edinburg is really very interesting.

The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area is from Cramond where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp-site dated to c. 8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have been found on Castle Rock (saw that), Arthur's Seat (saw that), Craiglockhart Hill and the Pentland Hills.
When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, they discovered a Celtic Britonnic tribe whose name they recorded as the Votadini. At some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its exact location has not been identified, it seems more than likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock or Arthur's Seat or Calton Hill.
In 638 AD the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria, and around this time control of Lothian passed to the Angles. Their influence continued for the next three centuries until around 950 AD, when, during the reign of Indulf, son of Constantine II, the "burh" (fortress), named in the 10th-century Pictish Chronicle as "oppidum Eden”, fell to the Scots and thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction.
The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, though the precise date is unknown. By the middle of the 14th century, the French chronicler Jean Froissart was describing it as the capital of Scotland (c.1365), and James III (1451–88) referred to it in the 15th century as "the principal burgh of our kingdom". Despite the destruction caused by an English assault in 1544, the town slowly recovered,  and was at the centre of events in the 16th-century Scottish Reformation and 17th-century Wars of the Covenant.

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, situated in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth (which is I believe the large river and bay). It is the second most populous city in Scotland (We mostly saw tourists and people from other countries working at the tourist shops) and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom (we haven’t seen those yet except for london 1 day). Edinburgh has been recognized as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century but political power moved south to London after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England in a personal union known as the Union of the Crowns, though Scotland remained, in all other respects, a separate kingdom.  In 1638, King Charles I's attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Subsequent Scottish support for Charles Stuart's restoration to the throne of England resulted in Edinburgh's occupation by Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England forces – the New Model Army – in 1650.
In the 17th century, the boundaries of Edinburgh were still defined by the city's defensive town walls. As a result, expansion took the form of the houses increasing in height to accommodate a growing population. Buildings of 11 storeys or more were common,

 and have been described as forerunners of the modern-day skyscraper. Most of these old structures were later replaced by the predominantly Victorian buildings seen in today's Old Town. By the first half of the 18th century, despite rising prosperity evidenced by its growing importance as a banking centre, Edinburgh was being described as one of the most densely populated, overcrowded and unsanitary towns in Europe. Visitors were struck by the fact that the various social classes shared the same urban space, even inhabiting the same tenement buildings; although here a form of social segregation did prevail, whereby shopkeepers and tradesmen tended to occupy the cheaper-to-rent cellars and garrets, while the more well-to-do professional classes occupied the more expensive middle storeys.

In 1706 and 1707, the Acts of Union were passed by the Parliaments of England and Scotland uniting the two kingdoms into the Kingdom of Great Britain. As a consequence, the Parliament of Scotland merged with the Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain, which sat at Westminster in London. The Union was opposed by many Scots at the time, resulting in riots in the city.
 During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Edinburgh was briefly occupied by the Jacobite "Highland Army" before its march into England. After its eventual defeat at Culloden, there followed a period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the rebellious clans. In Edinburgh, the Town Council, keen to emulate London by initiating city improvements and expansion to the north of the castle,  re-affirmed its belief in the Union and loyalty to the Hanoverian monarch George III by its choice of names for the streets of the New Town, for example, Rose Street and Thistle Street, and for the royal family: George Street, Queen Street, Hanover Street, Frederick Street and Princes Street (in honour of George's two sons).
In the second half of the century, the city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment, when thinkers like David Hume, Adam Smith, James Hutton and Joseph Black were familiar figures in its streets. Edinburgh became a major intellectual centre, earning it the nickname "Athens of the North" because of its many neo-classical buildings and reputation for learning, similar to Ancient Athens. In the 18th century novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett one character describes Edinburgh as a "hotbed of genius".
From the 1770s onwards, the professional and business classes gradually deserted the Old Town in favour of the more elegant "one-family" residences of the New Town, a migration that changed the social character of the city. According to the foremost historian of this development, "Unity of social feeling was one of the most valuable heritages of old Edinburgh, and its disappearance was widely and properly lamented."(our tour bus ride took us through part of it New town built by the well to do to get away from the overcrowding and disease of old town.) Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town are now jointly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Although Edinburgh's traditional industries of printing, brewing and distilling continued to grow in the 19th century and were joined by new rubber works and engineering works there was little industrialization compared with other cities in Britain. By 1821, Edinburgh had been overtaken by Glasgow as Scotland's largest city. The city centre between Princes Street and George Street became a major commercial and shopping district, a development partly stimulated by the arrival of railways in the 1840s. The Old Town became an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates. Improvements carried out under Lord Provost William Chambers in the 1860s began the transformation of the area into the predominantly Victorian Old Town seen today.  

More improvements followed in the early 20th century as a result of the work of Patrick Geddes, but relative economic stagnation during the two world wars and beyond saw the Old Town deteriorate further before major slum clearance in the 1960s and 1970s began to reverse the process. University building developments which transformed the George Square and Potterrow areas proved highly controversial.

Edinburgh is rich in associations with the past and has many historic buildings, including Edinburgh Castle, (saw that inside and out) Holyrood Palace ( the once home of Queen Mary of Scots and which is now Queen Elizabeths official residence when she is in town and we saw that from the outside at a distance), St. Giles cathedral , (beautiful old cathedral) Greyfriars Bobby (we saw the statue of that lovely little dog).
The city has long been known abroad as a centre of education, particularly the fields of medicine, Scots law, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2014. The city is also famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the largest annual international arts festival in the world. In 2004 Edinburgh became the world's first UNESCO City of Literature, an accolade awarded in recognition of its literary heritage and lively literary activities in the present. 
They dropped us off at Edinburgh Castle with instructions on where to be to be picked up at 530 sharp or we would could catch a city bus or taxi back if we missed the tour bus. 
The Castle is lovely perched high up on the hill with the royal mile between it and Holyrood castle where Queen Mary of scots lived.Some more  interesting history talks by Shonagh  as we entered and walked up the road within the castle walls and she left us in the courtyard to make our own way around the interior of the castle and then Edinburgh. It was lovely all that history put into perspective. 
We saw Margaret’s chapel and Margie could join the saint Margaret society as her name is Margaret. It is a lovely little chapel that is said to be haunted. oooooo.   
We saw the crown jewels and were a little disappointed as they consisted of a couple of sceptres and only three crowns. Very pretty crowns granted, but still only three. Once we were finished looking at the castle as much as we wanted, we wandered down the hill and out of the castle onto the royal mile which is a mile long road of souvenir shops, cafes, churches and tours of different sorts. Haunted Edinburgh, drinking Edinburgh, underground Edinburgh. We opted for the historical and underground Edinburgh. 

after we bought a few souvenirs and had bite for lunch we went into the St Giles cathedral there, very impressive and I took lots of photos after paying a pound (they gave me a sticker to wear to prove I had paid and therefore could take photos) to the person in charge to be able to take photos. It seems fair and they use the money to help maintain the church and I am sure that maintaining a 5 hundred year old church would be quite costly. most of the sweater shops had all the same sweaters , most of the kilt and tie shops had all the same kilts and ties. We did go down a few of the little side alleys to find great little tshirt and souvenir shops where we picked up quite a few things. Our ghost underground tour began at three at the cathedral and we were there on time. 
After nearly three centuries of unitary government, a measure of self-government returned in the shape of the devolved Scottish Parliament (we saw that building by the Holyrood castle) which officially opened in Edinburgh in 1999. (they were having an election in september this year  to decide whether or no to leave Great Britain or stay status quo. Huge conversations over there… turned out that they voted to stay but only by the narrowest margin)

^{Needless to say there was lots to see in Edinburgh}

Day four, Tuesday- York, Hadrians Wall and a wee bit o Scotland.

Got our wakeup call at 630 and got ready to go, suitcases outside the door and I brought our things down stairs so that we would not have to go back up. Breakfast at 7 of scrambled eggs, beans on toast, fruit and juice and tea of course. Yummy. Dashed across the street to the park to sprinkle M&D in the rose buses. Back for a washroom break and then onto the bus and off to York. Another misty , grey kind of day.

After a pretty uneventful drive of about 30 minutes in quite a bit of traffic we came into York.

 The daffodils were blooming on the grass mounds along the walls that surround the old city. The trees were in bloom where they dropped us off.  through the gate past the park and when we crossed the bridge and I dropped M&D into the Ouse River for them to follow it through new parts of England. Nobody could say that my parents aren’t well travelled. 

Peter kept us going a quite a pace as he rattled off a lot of history about York. Romans, vikings, medieval times. The shambles is a very cool street in York. Our first medieval street and we were duly impressed. only a few shops were open as it was a holiday and we didn't really have time as we only had so much time in york

During the walk to the cathedral York Minster Peter pointed out the home of guy Faulks, a notorious man of his age and told us of how they still celebrate Guy Faulks day by burning his effigy on big bonfires in towns and villages all over the country. he was part of a plot to blow up parliament. I don't think they have halloween here.

The York Minster is fabulous. Margie and I wandered around the cathedral fro our full allotted time marvelling at the windows, the types of architecture soaking;g it all in. 

York Minster is one of the starting points for the camino to Santiago de Compestella. which I have partly walked. another pilgrimage site. the window says it all.
I picked up a t-shirt, coasters and some postcards in the little gift shop. You could very easily spent 2 or three days in York there is so much to see that we didn’t get to see as we had to move on  to Scotland. Sigh. An excellent reason to come back.

The tour took us through some really stunning countryside. Beautiful fields of yellow canola, green grass, hedgerows, farms and villages. So picturesque that sometimes it just took your breath away. There were sheep of course with wee lambs, so cute. We must have seen a thousand sheep. Very large old trees in the middle of fields and the farther north we went there were fewer and fewer leaves on the trees.

 At 1215 we were at Scotch corner and there was construction along the way. By 1230 it was raining between Darlington and Neam Castle. We had a comfort break at a Macdonalds and the stop was only 4 minutes and 24 sec long. We went through the edge of town and as we were driving down the road, Peter pointed out the stone wall on the boulevard separating the roads as part of Hadrian’s wall. I thought if that is all I get to see of Hadrian’s wall then I am going to be unhappy. 

A little bit later we stopped in Hedon on the Wall at the Swan pub (there are a lot of Swan Pubs in great Britain) for lunch, a very tasty veggie soup and egg salad sandwich and 2 beer, the old speckled hen and a local brew Wylam. Both were pretty good.

Peter started telling us about the area and books about Hadrian’s wall -Rosemary Sutcliffe being one novelist with a good one, 7 eagles I think. 

We went to the post office where I picked up some postcards and stamps and then we went for a walk through the town past a medieval church(11th C I think), down a road with a roman name, through a little gate and down a hedge lined path to Hadrian’s wall. I was so excited I jumped on to it and jumped up and down. Peter was giving all of the adults a nice talk about the wall but the young boy and I were walking on the wall. The wall disappeared into the mist as it was quite thick and there were some horses in the field next to the wall. The wall was only about 3 feet high and 4 feet wide but it was there. Over the centuries many parts of the wall were dismantled completely and the stone reused to build farm houses , churches, barns and walls between fields. That any of it survived at all is really a marvel, but it did. Living History if you can call stone walls living. There is a path that you can actually hike all along Hadrian’s wall right across the country. How cool would that be.

Back on the bus to Scotland the home of Peter. Peter entertained us with some fun things like how to talk like Sean Connery, some misty music, and telling us about his home town, a small place that we would not be stopping in but that he liked very much.

the lambs up north are just being born and they are so small compared to what we had seen so far. 

the highlands look quite barren but Peter says to come back in the fall with the heather is purple not brown like it was now. We stopped at the English/Scottish Border for a photo op  and happily did the obligatory stand with one Foot in each. The cattle here are sometimes those little long haired big horned red ones. The terrain is very rocky with cliffs and pheasant, llamas, primrose, daffodils and the oldest tree. 

We did a quick comfort stop at Jedburgh abbey ruins from the year 1138. One of the many victims of Henry the 8’s closing of the monasteries. 

At 5:10 we passed the road to Rosalind chapel from the Davinci code. They use to get up to 20,000 visitors then a year after the Davinci code it went up to 180,000 and were not really ready for that .

At 6:00 we arrived at our hotel outside of Edinburgh, Norton House Hotel. A really nice manor house converted into a Spa hotel. Our room was lovely and this shower did not give Margie such a hard time. We did not have a lot of time before dinner.

We were piped into dinner by Andrew our 6’.8” piper and I had a very tasty vegetarian haggis, I have to find the recipe for that. All the food was excellent. The Clappy Do’s entertained us after dinner music, songs and dancing. I bought the CD as they were fun.

Margie and I went to the pool at 845. A marvellous hydrotherapy pool with a waterfall to massage your back and shoulders. Out of the pool by 10 and I think both of us slept very well. Edinburgh tomorrow.

2014- April 21 - Day three - Easter Monday- Churchhill, the Bard, and Harrogate.

I did not sleep well at all, I fell asleep around 2 and woke up at 3. Managed to fall back asleep and Margie woke me up at 645.  Dressed quickly headed downstairs for breakfast leaving our luggage outside the door as we went.Had a quick breakfast of eggs, hash browns and toast. 

It was a beautiful sunny day as I headed off to the river Thames to drop off a little bit of mom and dad.  There was a lovely mist on the still river with swans and scullers both silently following the river. I dropped M&D in and they floated along with the current for a bit before dropping from sight and joining the english country side. The Thames goes all the way to London and to the sea so I am sure they would be happy with that. They will have lots to see.  Then I hoofed it back to the hotel and made it back with time to spare. We received our CIE backpacks which most folks had sent to them by mail but as our tour was rearranged they didn’t have time to mail ours so they sent them to the hotel for us.  Nice.

We left Windsor at 8 am sharp. Willie the Driver and Peter the tour guide. 14 of us  in total, 12 Americans and 2 Canadians. Peter explained how the tour would work . Every day we were to check the seating chart before entering the bus as the seating would be changing to allow for a rotation of seats giving everyone the chance to sit at the front. Margie and I looked at the seating chart and, ignoring it, moved to the back of the bus giving ourselves lots of room to look through our backpacks and get comfortable for the trip. in our packs were a poncho, a luggage tag, a strap with CIE on it for putting on our suitcases and a daypack. Saw partridges just walking around  in fields , usually in pairs. How English, I suppose. lovely fields. kind of misty weather intermittent sun.

We were on the road for about an hour and we came to Bladen and stopped at the White house pub and restaurant. Sam a young man who was part owner with his father was just opening up . we had a tea and then walked up a hill past lovely flowers and green trees. to St Martins church. walked through the graveyard and came to Churchill’s grave. went inside the nice little church and lit a candle for Bill saying a few hail mary's. I don’t think she would mind saying prayers to her in an anglican church. Bought some postcards and a cd for Ron and Mary songs from the second world war. lots of them Mary and I sing when I am over at their house. Back down the hill past the lovely flowers, back onto the bus and off to Stratford upon Avon and the home of William Shakespear. 

Peter told us that we might have a long time getting to Stratford upon avon due to a car rally that was being planned in the area to protest against a housing project that would bring three thousand more people into the town. that would mean a lot more cars and so the rally to show how the  town could not absorb that kind of traffic infix. we hoped that it wouldn’t cut into our time too much. Stratford is a lovely little town. We were dropped off  about one block from the main street with instructions on when to be back by  and we had a few hours to look around. The main street is pedestrian only and wide. We started at the Shakespear museum which was very interesting and included his house and gardens where they were doing non stop outdoor performances. Picked up some coasters, tea-towels and postcards from the museum gift shop and moved on.  

Walked down one side of the main street towards the river and there was a parade of men dressed up with bells on and one fellow in a dress. We found out they are called the morrismen and come out in the print to do fertility dances and such , very fun. 
the marina enjoying the sunshine and the lack of crowds that we were thinking might have been there due to the protest.  It was busy as it was Easter Monday holiday but not crowded and we only saw a few cars with placards protesting the new project. In a way we were glad that the protest didn’t go that well as it worked out for us. Then back up the other side and all those little shops. Had a tasty and interestingly presented lunch of veggie tikka and ham and cheddar sandwiches ( you can guess who ate what) then browsed the shops all the way back to the bus. picked up some Beatrix potter things for Mary. a washroom break before we got on the bus as there is a rule in Great Britain that if a person needs to use the washroom on the bus, then the bus must stop. We did not want to cause the entire tour to be slowed down. At another shop where found some T-shirts for the guys and tea towels for the girls. back on the bus at 115.

A long drive with  a short stop at a convenience stop. Here they have shops and restaurants and gas, all in a little mall. Very nice with clean washrooms. Picked up a juice and back on the bus to Harrogate. Passed lots of sheep, a coal powered electrical power pant with its own coal mine. The weather had turned misty foggy and we passed through lots of little towns and the Nottingham woods which were lovely with bluebells. It is the season they say.

Harrogate ,  another lovely town.  It seems that all towns in England are lovely. We checked into our hotel, the Harrogate, right across the street from a nice park. our room was smaller but with a nice view of the park. we dropped our luggage off and went for a walk before dinner. We heard that there was a roman bath down the street so tried to find it but when it did it was closed as it was a holiday monday. Further down the street we found a nice park with a rose garden and a statue under glass. The queen mothers garden. Across the road was the rest of the roman bath that had been turned into a Chinese food restaurant. On the way back up the hill we found a shop that was open and purchased a nice scarf with kind of funky birds on it but fun. 

There was a golden bicycle on the wall across the street and so I asked the clerk what was up with that and she told us that the tour do France’s equivalent in England was going to be going down that street and the golden bicycle  was like a road marker. cool. 

We continued up the street and came to Betty’s tea shop which is world famous I understand, so we stopped in for a cream tea. We didn’t think we would ruin our dinner if we split one scone and had a cup of tea. Well that being our first cream tea we were very impressed. So yummy and the tea was seriously one of the best cups of tea I think that I have ever had.  When I asked what kind of tea it was they said it the house blend made especially for the water in Harrogate. We need to have someone come and do that in Edmonton. It was so good I bought a box even though we don’t have the same water in Edmonton. Maybe it will still be better than what we have at home. I also bought a fat rascal , 2 small scones and something else but can’t remember what is was called. I like Betty’s.

we walked back to the hotel through the park which at dusk was nice enough with some flowers and statues and  a funky frame around a bench in the garden so that you could take your picture and you would be framed already. Cute.

Dinner was very good. butternut squash and cumin, cabbage rolls with peas and cream sauce, carrots and parsnips in butters with steamed rocket ( so good) with three kinds of ice-cream for dessert . We chatted with Susan and Bob, retired teachers from Lancaster, Maryland. I have to get their address and send them a copy of the CD I bought Mary and Ron. Susan and Bob bought a jamacian cd in Strattford at the market. The beer I tried tonight was called Copper Dragon and it was rather bitter and not really to my taste. Several of the tour went out to the park to see if we could get photos of the frame. Then back to repack and go to bed.,another odd bathroom shower set up, Margie is not having a lot of luck leith the showers over here. I was asleep by 11 and slept well but Margie did not. what an historical day. Shakespear, Churchhill and Chinese restaurants roman baths. and the first and most scrumptious cream tea ever!

Windsor City and Castle - a blustery Easter Sunday - Day Two

Bea woke us up at 8 (We slept in!) when she brought us our breakfasts. The eggs were a very odd colour of orangey yellow but we ate them anyway. We wondered what they feed their chickens over here. Got ourselves put together by 930 and off we went to the airport via the tube. This particular morning there was a problem with  one of the lines so we had to go to Holbron station and transfer trains but we were getting better at it by this time so only needed a few directions to the piccadilly line to Heathrow. Watch the Gap.  

It  took over an hour to get to the airport. 

Arrived at the airport terminal 3 information booth in a bit of a panic at 11 and looked for our driver who was supposed to pick us up at 11. We would know him by the city transfer card that he would be carrying but he was not there. We checked the signs for all the drivers who were there . We were starting to get concerned when about 5 minutes later he showed up. Ernie was very nice and drove us the 20 minutes drive to Windsor. 

Now you are probably wondering what the heck we were doing spending one night in London and then leaving. Well that was part of the whole rearranging of the tour that we had planned. the original tour was going to leave on sunday from london and we were going to go to stonehenge on saturday but when our tour got changed we had to rearrange our activities. c’est sera. We got to see Hyde, Kensington and Holland Parks with all its lovely green to get us out of winter mode and into green England Mode. ( and we got souvenir umbrellas)

Ernie Dropped us off at the Harte and Garter Hotel right across the street from Windsor castle. A lovely hotel upgraded from the 400 year old hotel that is was. our room was not quite ready so signed in and went out to grab a bite to eat and see the sights before our tour started at 230. 

Windsor is a lovely town with cobblestone streets and lots of restaurants and shops selling souvenirs. I picked up some postcards at one shop and some more at another. some coasters and pencils and a shot glass for one of the guys at work. Margie and I then had a bite to eat at a small place with good quiche and salads for me and lasagna and salad for Margie. Odd lasagna with a béchamel sauce instead of cheese but supposedly a favourite in Windsor. 

Back to the hotel, picked up our room keys, 207, they had already brought up our luggage, thank you very much. it was a bit of a maze with ups and downs, turns and doors to more hallways. when we finally found our room we were very pleasantly surprised to find it was a very large comfortable room on the quiet side of the building. We had showers after Margie figured them out, odd showers, wrote postcards and at 215 went to the main lobby to join our tour group and start our tour of Windsor castle.

It was a blustery Easter day and as our tour guide Peter herded 14 of us along and gave us instructions on how to greet the Queen if we rani nto her ( her standard was flying which meant she was in residence) I couldn’t help but think of how the times had changed. Here we were just common folk going into a castle to just look around where once we would only have gotten to see it if we were working there in some capacity.

Windsor castle is lovely from the outside once you get past the large outer walls. we picked up audio guides and popped into the gift shop where I bought a washcloth for me and post cards of course. 

The tour was about to begin outside and it started to rain so out came our lovely souvenir umbrella, mine yellow and Margies' the black pin stripe. The wind whipped up and we were pretty much wind blown around the castle. The gardens in moats, the arrow slits in the walls , the gates, it was all so castley we just loved it. We both took lots of photos outside but no photos were allowed inside. then Went to see Queen Mary’s doll house. The line was outside around the back of the castle with a view of Eton in the distance. the line moved fairly quickly so we did not get too wet. 

The doll house was amazing! and way bigger than I thought it was. Queen Mary received gifts of miniatures from around the continent which she put into her doll house for display. It was a work of art really. all the detail in those little rooms working lights,  bathrooms and kitchens, gardens, it was lovely.

the tour of Winsor Castle itself was laid kurt very nicely and the audio guides great. the staff were very informative giving us little bits of history and tidbits of information that made it feel very personal . Colin in the drawings room was very happy to tell us the entire history of England and the taxation problems since william the conquerer. All I asked was is How old is Windsor Castle? Sheesh. But he really was very well informed and happy to share. 

the castle is beautiful with each room its own world. there were only a few rooms that were a little over the top as in most of Versailles. the rest were very tasteful, rich  in detail, colour and history.

as it was Easter our tour started late and so we did not have the whole afternoon to see the castle. we ended up being shoed along nicely at the castle was closing to the public so we missed a few rooms. My favourites were probably the shield room, st georges room and the small ballroom and the garden in the moat.. we stopped at another gift shop, there were several in the castle, and Margie bought a lovely swarovsky flower basket broach and  I bought a swarovsky  crown necklace  along with a butter knife from buckingham palace on sale. we headed out taking more photos and another gift shop where we got some more postcards. Pictures of the inside of the castle for my album. on the way out of the castle i saw a mail box and couldn’t resist mailing two of the post cards form inside the castle. what fun! I wondered if it would have a royal stamp on it?

We got back to the hotel about 530 and went up to the room to change and get ready for dinner at 6, well drinks at 6. We were downstairs with drinks in hand by 555, had beer again. I had Tetley and Margie had an argentinian beer, San Miquel, which I actually liked better than the tetley. Peter gave us all a little talk on what would be happening the next day and then we had supper. Buffet, pasta salad and veggies for me, dessert was very good. We both decided  to do the after dinner tour of Windsor. It was a lovely evening, no rain, not too cool and interesting. More photos on a lovely if fairly quick walk past the castle and the queens gate and road, the river Thames, swans, bridges to Eton and clocks in the sidewalk. I did not fall asleep until after 1230. Arranged a wake up call for 630. What a great day. Forgot to sprinkle mom and dad somewhere in the castle but will get them out tomorrow into Windsor somewhere.

'Getting to know Great Britain in 18 days’ or ‘Sleeping in a sheep field can be an adventure too’ Day one Friday -Saturday 18 - 19 April 2014

After months of planning and of having our plans changed at the last minute, the day finally arrived for our departure. It was snowing. I puttered around the house,cleaning the kitty litter, organizing and tidying in general. Went to the coffee shop at around 830. Will, Jim, Cam, AF Ron, Wendy, Marleen, Dan, Keith and Ed. A nice group. Gave Will the books for Roy, gave Wendy her birthday present, had a bagel for breakfast while solving the problems of the world with the Whyte Ave Riff Raff. Everyone passed on their good wishes for a great trip. I told them all that I would send them a postcard.( I had the address labels already made up). After coffee went to grateful threads around 1130 and chatted with Marleen for a bit. She being a world traveller herself shared some of her fun times.

 Home for a smoothie to help clean out the freezer for Terrance. A few more domestic duties like vacuuming , changing the sheets on the bed, a bit more tidying. Shauna and Terrance came around 4  and Cam came at 430 sharp to drive me to the airport. Thanks Cam.

I met Margie at the airport around 5:10ish with no problem and we checked in.  Excitement under-lied all our activities: Security, dinner of a tasty quesadilla  and running into Jeanne while waiting for boarding. So exciting!

The flight left on time and Margie and I had separate seats. I sat with a very nice young man from Ireland who told me right off he was going to sleep the whole flight. Then we chatted bit. He worked for the Power line between Edmonton and Calgary. I agreed  that sleep was the best thing although sleep eluded me. I only got about 4 hours sleep  so watched movies mostly and checked the map to see where we were. Had a small bagel for breakfast. the flight was actually very good. smooth sailing as it were. Poor Margie Only got about 1 hours sleep.

We landed at Heathrow about 1130 and found our way to the luggage area. Went through customs and found our way to the arrivals area and, after a bit of confusion, got a day pass for the underground, the tube , the train in to London. Found our way to the train through a long tunnel and caught the train, the Piccadilly line ( how cute is that) our first underground ever,  ‘watch the gap’. The step up from the platform was sometimes very high, over 8 inches, how do people in wheelchairs do it. 

When we finally left the underground and were running above ground the weather was partly sunny and everything was green! Flowers were blooming and we were taking pictures like crazy tourists. Our original plan was to go to the Holborn and transfer to another line to go back to Holland Park but it seemed to take a long time and some people on the train were very nice and helped get there quicker pointing out where to transfer to catch the connecting train, the District Line,  to our bed and breakfast. After a bit of walking around stations upstairs and downstairs, there are not enough elevators or escalators in London train stations, we did in fact arrive at our bed and breakfast stop. Right beside the metro station and just down the street from Kensington park and two blocks from Holland Park. 
Of course when we first came out of the metro station we started walking the wrong way but hadn’t gone to far before we realized our error and corrected it.

We were a little sad about the bed and breakfast as it was old and run down and I had never stayed in one like it before. There were piles of old mattresses and things in the front yard which did not give us a warm greeting to start with. The lock on our door and the key to the rather dingy and not too clean bathroom was also not welcoming and something I had never experienced before. The room itself was an everything in one with old very soft beds, chairs and table with a tiny kitchenette and peeling wallpaper. The view of the backyard which pretty much matched the front yard. Needless to say we were not impressed. As we weren’t going to spend much time in it and were only going to stay in it one night, we made the best of it. After the lady in charge, Bea, who was very nice showed us the ropes we left our bags in our room locked the door and headed out to explore the neighbourhood.

Just down the street past the metro was our first pub , the Castle pub so we went in and had lunch of  and our first english beer beer. It was actually very good. So much for the beliefs that english food is bland. The waitress was friendly and

we chatted. After lunch we walked up the street and it started to really look like rain so ducked into a little shop and each picked up some postcards and an umbrella. Margie’s was a black pinstripe and mine was plain yellow. I wanted a souvenir umbrella but the shop did not carry any fancy souvenir ones,  just regular ones. Sigh. What to do with a plain yellow souvenir umbrella. Went back to the B&B wrote out our postcards and decided to go out with our bus passes.

In Great Britain they drive on the opposite side of the road than in Canada. Margie saved my life by telling me to look left and putting her arm out before I stepped in front of the oncoming traffic. They even paint “look right” on the road at crosswalks so that tourists won’t get run over as often. If only those tourists would look down and read the road.  We crossed the street  in safety and proceeded to find the Holland park. Mailed our postcards on the way. So green, so flowering, so lovely! We were again tourists with cameras taking pictures like crazy of the flowers, tulips, daffodils, blooming trees and vines. We wandered through the gardens enjoying the sunshine and the green to no end. The Japanese garden with its waterfall was another photo opportunity as was the tulip garden. Hundreds of tulips all colours and sizes. Really beautiful. We left the gardens and jumped on the 94 bus with our day passes and went to Hyde park where our father had, somewhere in the park, had a peanut butter sandwich during the second world war. 

We started out walking at Cumberland gate but turned back as Hyde park seemed to be just like Hawrelak park back home, grassy fields and trees, very nice but not what we wanted to see that day. The wind had picked up and it was quite cool out in the open so we walked back and saw a very tall statue down the road so walked toward it. The statue was very odd looking and we couldn’t figure out what it was until we had gotten quite close. A very large horses head was what it turned out to be, odd but interesting and beside it a fountain and a large marble arch which was what the area was called.  

Marble Arch. After a few photos we caught the bus back to Lancaster gate with the italian gardens and lake. We followed the lake and found an enchanting statue of peter pan with woodland creatures and fairies.  a few more photos and then we followed the lake and came to a path with a very large statue of a horse and rider. 
On either side of this statue, off in the distance, were a building on one side and something very shiny and gold on the other. We went for the shiny gold and halfway there we had a magical moment passing  under some trees in bloom. The breeze blew blossoms and petals off of the trees and it was like being in a warm pink snowstorm. The golden shiny building turned put to be the Albert memorial. The memorial is absolutely beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye thinking how much Queen Victoria loved him and he her. We spent some time there looking at all the statues and taking photos.

Decided when we were walking back that we would find a nice restaurant for dinner and hit the sac early as we had to go back to the airport in the morning to catch our ride to Windsor.  

We just missed the bus back to the bed and breakfast but there was the Swan restaurant right across the street so we went there for dinner. 500 years old and very good. again the staff were very nice we had food?Lazagna and food and another kind of beer.?.

Back at our B&B we both fell asleep pretty quick considering we had little sleep on the plane and had probably walked about 10 miles. Our first day in England was lovely.