Cointha’s Blog

After a long, long flight of 25 hours from Melbourne, we finally arrived at the Heathrow airport, London which was pretty exciting. It was only about six o’clock at night but we were extremely tired because of jet lag. We stayed the night in a hotel but woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep which wasnt too surprising considering the new time frame. Next morning, we hopped into our new hire car and drove through lots of cute little English villages that all had tiny skinny roads. Even on the main streets you had to pull over just to let another car pass you. That’s because most of the buildings are hundreds and hundreds of years old and the roads weren’t designed for cars. We soon came to Windsor Castle and had breakfast right next to it. It was a magnificent castle owned by the queen and she stays there a lot. We also saw lots of squirrels, which were interesting to us because we dont have them running wild in Australia. Later on, after getting through the floods in Henley on Thames, we came into Bradford on Avon, a beautiful village set on the Avon river with lots of history. This is where we stayed for two weeks with our English friends Anthony and Moira. To get to there house, you had to find a narrow alleyway in the middle of town, then climb up a million steps, (well not really but it seemed like it) and then you had to go along a path that went to a gate and door opposite each other. You then went through the creaky gate and found yourself in a lovely garden with a tall three story house. Anthony has a grand piano and it seems amazing how the removalists ever got it up there. Because not only are there the steps and skinny passageways, they have spiral staircases to get to each floor. Apparently, this is the way people live in the small towns in England which I think would be really nice, but only if I didnt have to move the furniture. Our time at Bradford was nearly over after we did pottery on the wheel with Anthony which was great fun, though most of my bowls were really wonky which we had to demolish and keep the only straight one and also after going to Lacock and its abbey, Lacock Abbey where some parts of the Harry Potter movies were set, we bought a motorhome and we drove to Dover, sighting the marvellous white cliffs, where we would board the ferry to go to Calais and then drive all the way to Holland. Our time in England was great and were looking forward to going back there in the summer.

By Cointha