Weekend in Windsor (and New Malden!)

18/11/09
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.

Poppy Update

HOORAY!
The figures are in!

I, personally, raised £757.35!

HOORAY!

Oh and I didn't win a prize in the raffle :-(

Poppies, poppies everywhere!!

My life recently has been very full of this certain red flower!

I been selling poppies in Sainsbury's foyer ever since the 31st - its switched between being very cold and wet in there to being tolerably warm when they finally put the heating on. We were selling 'ordinary' pin on poppies, stick on poppies, pin badge poppies, car stickers, rememberance crosses, car poppies, silk poppies and programmes for last night's Festival of Remeberance and Rededication at the White Rock Theatre.

So I took my MP3, my phone, food & drink and sweets and got to get lots of money in my collecting tins. My record was 1 £20, 3 £10s and 5 £5s and the tin only had half an inch left at the top. Another key occurance was the man who gave me an entire plastic bag of coppers!! That was very exciting indeedy.

The week before Mum and I delivered boxes of poppies with collecting tins to roughly fifty local businesses and today began the process of getting them all back again! When they're all in we'll need to return them to the Poppy Appeal Shop based in the town centre, to be counted.

A few days after that saw Mum and I manouvering through the town centre with two large hampers full of food. They are to be the grand prizes in the Poppy Appeal raffle (we don't take the cost of running the shop out of the donations, so the raffle covers the rent). We'd spent most of the previous day trying to artistically organise them - one Christmas and one less festive - and in the end added hay (donated free by a very supportive lady!)! If I do say so myself, they looked rather good!!
So yesterday was Rememberance Sunday.
In the morning my Mum and I were at Alexandra Park for the Rememberance service at the War Memorial. Mum marched with the veterans procession and I was in the crowd watching. It was a bit of a rainy and cold morning, but there was a good turn out and the Pipes and Drums were very impressive.
The parade was massive: the parade of Standard Bearers was lead by the Queen's Colour, followed by a parade of veterans -young and old, after them came the serving personnel from 47Regt Royal Artilery and the Princess of Wales' Royal Regt, all the different types of cadets, youth organisations etc. We also had representatives from Hastings' twin towns especially Oudenaarde in Belgium, whose representatives were all wearing garishly striped clothing and tricorned hats!!! :-)
The funny thing was that the heavy rain the night before had causd the lakes in the park to burst their banks and the paths the parade had to march down were 3ft at widest!!!!
There was hymn singing, prayers, wreath laying, an update on the renovation of the War Memorial and - of course - the Two Minutes Silence at 11am marked by cannon fire!


In the evening was the Festival of Rememberance and Rededication. We arrived just before 6pm to sell programmes (which you need to get in) and I was selling them right up until 7.15pm. I missed the first part - where each organisation goes up on stage whilst their particular song is played. They are preceeded by their Standard Bearer and they all then remain on stage for the rest of the evening. That part was followed by the entertainment!!
We had a performance by the Pipes and Drums *oh I do love pipe and drum music* and then the Singalong!!We sang Jerusalem, Run Rabbit Run, Sussex by the Sea and Land of Hope and Glory. Less frivolous singing was the National Anthem, Oh God our help in ages past, The Royal British Legion Hymn, I vow to thee my country and Abide with me.

So that's all that's happened and is yet to happen with regards to the Poppy Appeal save for Wednesday which those of you with a keen and penetrating mind will realise is actually the 11th November - Rememberance Day. We'll be having another service at the War Memorial with Two Minutes Silence and then head straight to the Poppy Appeal Shop for the drawing of the raffle - I am ever hopeful that I might win a nice prize!!

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That's all for now - as you can tell I'm rather frazzled by it all and so this may not make much sense, I don't know!! But that's what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks and will be until the end of this week!