I will return with full tales of our escapades - unlike Tom who just says 'I did this, see Vicki's blog for details'.
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And here I am!! All of the thinking about my next trip (B'day - London - watch this space!) has got me to blogging about the last one. So heeeeere we gooooooo.
I missed the train :-/ by 3 minutes :-( ooops. Luckily I got the next one, changed at Waterloo, hopped on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside, met Tom on the train (as well as a load of England Rugby fans!), we met Sarah at the station and headed of to the castle.
Needless to say, the Castle is at the top of a hill. That day I'd say it was blowing at least a gale force wind. Bracing indeed. Reminded me of home, except there was no saltiness to the air. It also rained. Good old England!
Thanks to Tom, we had free tickets and so didn't have to queue etc with everyone else and all the foreign tourists. We went through the security checkpoints and headed to get some audio guides!! We also had Tom to add extra facts on as we went around!!
Here are the photos!
Obviously because of the lovely weather, we kept the admiration of the outside and outer parts of the castle to a minimum, but those are the photos from both before and after we went inside. As you can see, the Queen was in residence!
We ducked in to each of the gift shops in turn, to see what they had for sale and if there was anything we wanted to buy. Twas also nice and warm and dry in there. Tom gets quite a nice discount, so that was helpful when Sarah wanted to get a pressie for her Mum.
We took some other photos, including the obligatory group one, after we'd toured the State Appartments, trusty audio guides in hand and Tom introducing us to all of his colleagues as we went around. More photos tell our story very well indeed!
This is Tom with a child's busbee on in the gift shop!
The beautiful Christmas tree decorated with Crowns - I was really tempted to buy one!
Bracing the weather conditions!! I think we held up very well...unless you think that Sarah is holding on to Tom lest she blow away!
I shall call this, simply, the 3 muskateers!
Our last port of call before leaving the Castle was St George's Chapel. I am always pretty impressed with old churches and the like (which is a good thing as Mum frequently drags me around rural Wiltshire to see them!) so this was cool to see. I loved the little niches and getting to see the graves/memorials (not quite sure) to lots of old kings as well as Princess Margaret and the Queen Mum.
By the time we'd left the Castle, it was nearly 4pm and hunger was striking! First stop: Pasty shop! Second stop: Shakeaway! Lovely way to end the day. We took the train back to New Malden after that, sharing the platform with about 500 rugby fans!!
Back at Sarah's, it was board games followed by Strictly Come Dancing and other TV before bed. Tom also stayed over so we were able to head straight off the next morning (after I'd rescued my underwear from Archie!!) to the aquatic shop that Sarah gets her fish from, to suss out some new additions to her tank!!
The fish shop was a bizarre labyrinth of tanks and fish, so was quite impressive and we spent a long time in deliberation. Quite a lot of the fish we wanted weren't suitable for Sarah's tank, so there was rethinking a bit, but after that, she got 5 new fish (including a pregnant one!) and we whisked them away to their new home!
After a pretty amazing Sunday lunch chez Osborn we headed off to see Alpha, Sarah's rather large bunny, who lives with a family a few roads awy from her. Tom and I were shocked to see how she had gotten darker of fur, but it was good to see her and meet her family who seem to be taking excellent care of her.
And, well, sadly, I didn't have much more time than that before I had to think about trains and then take my leave of my dear friends for the trek home to Hastings!
Naturally, it was a lovely weekend and we were just happy to be in each others company and together, having fun again. Long may it continue and we look forward to the next time, which I believe will be my b'day weekend in January!
Until next time, Keeeeeep Dancing! Oooh and keep planning, keep striving, no good ever came of standing still.
1 comment:
Helas, the pictures are round the wrong way. Oh well, I'll change them another day.
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