Day 4 - Windsor Castle

By now all of us were feeling a bit tired of sightseeing but knowing it was our last day we wanted to make the effort just once more to visit Windsor Castle.

A short drive and easy car parking close to the centre of Windsor made the journey more pleasant. The weather was on the change and although we had sunshine, there were noticably more clouds and rain was in the air.

Windsor in all its splendour however, did not fail to impress, even me as a native Britain! We collected our now customary multilingual hand sets and proceeded through strict security into the grounds of the castle. After making our way following the guided tour points, we entered the castle to first see Queen Mary's Dolls House that was not created to play with but to show royalty what was possible to make on such a small scale. There was a working hoover that was only 3 inches in size and all the furniture was an exact replica of the full sized versions made by renowned craftsmen of the time, orignal miniature paintings and fine china tea sets with places just measuring 1 inch in diameter (1.5cm approx) adorned the miniture rooms.

After walking round the dolls house twice we then moved onto the impressive state rooms with swords, suits of armour, paintings and sumptiously dressed rooms in bright colours and gold leaf. After spending 2 hours in the castle we moved on to St Georges Chapel, where a number of important royal figures are buried including the Queen Mother. The chapel itself was designed and built by the brother of the person who built Bath cathedral, just in case you are interested!

After a sandwich, we left Windsor, returning home via Reading to collect some liquorice (I have a terrible passion for a certain type of liquorice that you cannot buy in France, so as I had a suitcase allowance this time I decided to stock up!) Then on to Basingstoke to sort some car stuff and then back to Newbury to meet a number of girlfriends and their children for tea at Pizza Hut, which by the way, was enjoyable but chaos with 8 adults and 12 children, the noise was deffening!

Tesco, the large supermarket chain in the UK was frequented on our visit a number of times and the final task before returning to France was to get all our purchases in the suitcase without being over the weight limit............believe me the liquorice was coming with us whatever!!

Home on the Thursday morning in the rain was time to reflect on what we had achieved in such a short space of time and to plan a girly weekend away without kids for the next trip!

Day trip to London

Day three, a super speedy visit to London was spent taking in as many sights as time and children would allow. We took the 10am train into Paddington buying a one day travel card which includes the tube and bus (once in London and also gets you into some of the main attractions for half price) our first stop was Parliament Square.

As we emerged from the Tube into bright sunlight again, we were greeted by big ben striking midday. The golden paintwork gleamed in the sunshine and we just had to take the opportunity for a photo session! We then walked along the side of the houses of parliament and back past Westminster Abbey, although the queue to get in and the price was prohibitive. As we had already seen a number of cathedrals, we decided to give it a miss, however William and Kate had been there the night before us to choose the music for their wedding! Walking on to Victoria we then joined Buckingham Palace Road and the Royal Mews where the Royal Golden Carriage is kept and the cavelry horses, then it was on to Buckingham Palace itself. After watching the guards for a few minutes we walked through St James Park and into Trafalgar Square.

We stopped for another photo opportunity with the lions guarding the base of Nelsons Column and took the tube (mainly to rest our feet and keep the kids happy) to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. After yet more photos we made our way back to Paddington, where Nathalie wanted a photo of the large rail station before we got onto the train!

Phew, exhausted.

Bath Spa

Day two of our 5 day whirlwind tour of Southern England was a trip to Bath Spa. Only about an hour in the Car from Newbury, we arrived at 10.30am after a minor detour (as I forgot how to find the carpark). Again, fortunately the weather was great and despite a bit of haze the views over Bath from the Lansdown carpark were fantastic. We left the car in the park and ride and took the return bus trip for just £3 for the day, bargain!

We were dropped in the centre of Bath itself and paid a quick visit to a fab cheese shop and then moved on past the great shopping with many other tourists to the Roman Baths where we bought our adults tickets for £15 each. This again (like yesterday) included a multilingual tour and meant that even though Nathalie's and Aude's English was not bad, the understanding of what was on display was made much easier. We spent a number of hours wandering around the baths being amazed by what had been uncovered and much of it quite recently.

After a sandwich sitting in the sun we went into Bath Cathedral, which again like Salisbury is a major feat of engineering. The sun shon through the brightly coloured stained glass windows bathing the whole cathedral in multicoloured shadows that bounced off the angled stonework it really was beautiful.

At 4.30 we made our way back to the carpark and arrived at my sisters at 6pm just in time for beef stew and dumplings, yummy!

Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral

Goodness me............I have not written a blog since February!

So much to tell but I will write seprate blogs so as not to bore everyone and try and keep them brief, so where shall I start....

Why not with my trip to the UK at the begining of March!

I have been planning to return to the UK with my French friend Nathalie and her daughter for a while but either due to work commitments or financial constraints it has not happened. However, on 5th March we finally made a trip for 5 days to take in as many sights as possible, and boy did we cram them in!

As I have travelled extensively, I found it strange that Nathalie was enthralled by the sight of the clouds below the aircraft wing at 30,000ft and the moving walkways at Gatwick when we arrived on British soil. Fortunately, the public transport system didnt let us down and we arrived at my dad's for good old British Fish and Chips around 8pm.

Up early the next morning, depite the cold weather, to do a quick trip around our local pretty villages taking in Kate Middletons family home and local pub and then off to Salisbury and Stonehenge.

The weather for the time of year despite only 5 degrees was fantastic, blue skies from edge to edge and fantastic sunshine, almost unheard off for the UK in March, someone must have known we were coming!

Salisbury Cathedral as always, was amazing and boasts the tallest church spire in the UK. It can be seen for miles around and you can even pay to walk up on the inside to see Salisbury from a birds eye view, no time on this visit, but next time perhaps.

After lunch in a cute cafe we headed off on the short car ride away to Stonehenge, well it would have been short if all the roads were not being dug up and we had been sent on a bizare diversion! As we came over the hill on the A303 the Henge came into view and all in the car were excited. The public entrance is dissapointing for such an important world heritage site but the entrance fee was not extortionate so we opted for the multilingual handset guided tour. Even after a number of visits over the years I learnt more about the monument this time than I thought possible, perhaps I was in a different mindset previously!

For an hour we listened and looked in awe at the huge stones and finally left after taking copious amounts of photographs. We headed home via Marlborough, which has one of the widest high Streets in the UK and is on the A4 between Bath and London for tea in an "italian restaurant!"

Next installment Bath!

Peaceful Saturday evening - not!

Normally on a saturday as a family we have a nice lazy morning, I make lunch and in the afternoon Nick and I potter in the garden or I do the ironing while Nick does some property maintenance. Abigail does her homework under duress whilst making any excuse possible not to clean out the hampster! Typical family Saturday I would say.

This week I gave the car a birthday and completely valetted it inside and out, even getting all the tar spots off. Abigail decided to help by cleaning one wheel (at 9 years old you tend to loose concentration very quickly unless you are paid!) and Nick spent the afternoon planting yet more trees in our rather rapidly expanding orchard.

The evening started normally and rather quietly. We lit a fire and sat in front of the tv watching a very old film Cool Runnings, which was real escapism.

Just as the film was ending and I was contemplating retiring upstairs to bed there was an almighty rumble in the chimney, for some reason (reflexes I suppose) lept out of the beanbag just in time as some rather large bricks came crashing down the chimney scattering ash, embers and wood all over the carpet and just missing me. I was shaken to say the least and after the dust had settled went to gingerly look up the chinmey with a torch to see what had happened. In the mayhem the bricks had closed the flue trap door and the room was filling with smoke as the fire was still burning. We shone the torch up the chinmey but even with a torch couldn't see alot, but were both too frightened to go to bed just in case there was more rubble to fall. We both waited until the fire burned out and at 2.30am went to bed slightly on edge. On passing the spare room, by chance I checked the fireplace in that room, only to find that the fires were linked by one flue and that fireplace was full of brick rubble too. What a nightmare!

I blame the chimney sweep myself, as he is the only one I can think of to blame just at the moment!

Insurance claim on the cards I think, but at least no one hurt and hopefully no serious damage to the house.

Perhaps Feeley fate is kicking in again, hope there is nothing much worse on the horizon.

Toulouse ........... in the rain!

Last Sunday evening whilst slobbing in front of the fire and TV we heard a knock at the door about 8pm........very strange, as in deepest France we don't get many visitors unannounced, let alone on a Sunday evening.

I sent my husband to open the door and we were surprised by Sabrina, our au pair we had had when we lived in the UK. She has become part of the family, even if she doesn't live with us anymore but lives with her boyfriend in Tours Northern France, and she is also known now by us to act impulsively and spring surprises!

As it was half term from University she had made the 6 hour journey south with her sister to pay us a visit and stay for a few days. We were overjoyed to see her and I hurridly made up a bed for them. After a good catch up we all retired to bed at 11pm.

On Tuesday, I decided to take them out for the day, but in true Feeley style things did not go totally to plan!

Firstly, we thought it would be a good idea to take the train from Moissac, save on petrol and see what the SNCF rail network was like for us to get to Toulouse. Wrong.......not a good idea.

Issue 1: Only two trains a day to Toulouse 9am and 12 noon and two trains returning from Toulouse late in the afternoon and evening. So rather than wait an hour and a half, we decided to drive.

50 minutes later we were looking for a parking space in the centre of Toulouse. After circumnavigating the centre at least three times, driving up and down the banks of the Canal du Midi and swearing at numerous idiot drivers we finally found our space in a perfect location. We hopped out and disappeared into Flunch for a spot of lunch! My steak was consumed greedily and I was now beginning to relax and enjoy my day out.

Issue 2: Realised we had not paid for the car park and had to dash back to the car to pay before we were clamped! However, I need not have worried, in France generally you don't pay for parking over the lunch hour............this is unheard of, not paying for car parking in the UK especially at lunchtime and in the centre of a big city!

Car suitably ticketed, we wandered towards the central shopping area and Square where the Marie is located.

Issue 3 . Camer battery died typical!

The rain started lightly at first and after a short while it was throwing it down.

Issue 3: no umberellas! so darted in and out of shops to keep dry but thought as we were in Toulouse we really should go down to the river and wander along the Garonne. It was nice but we were fast beginning to look like drowned rats. Sabrina and her sister put on brave faces but after two hours we had all had enough and decided it would be much better to go shopping in an indoor mall near Blagnac airport!

Good choice..........and no issues, except not enough time shopping!

Pony Club for my daughter!

Since we moved here, I have as you are probably aware, been having horse withdrawal symptoms and miss my horse desparately. All this horse talk has got my daughter Abigail keen again and although she had her own pony in the UK I never really had enough time to spend with her to ride it. Here, I have the time but not the will or the funds to go down that route again for a while at least. So the next best thing was to enrol her at the local pony club/riding school where each child not only gets an hours lesson but also taught how to brush, tack up and learn parts of the horse. Each term is ended by a test which is a recognised level of horsemanship in France.

This Wednesday was her second lesson and with only 6 in the class in a nice indoor school she is able to gain the confidence and knowledge needed to ride properly. However, over confidence is a bit of a problem and unfortunately, she took a tumble and ended up on the floor. She put a brave face on it got straight back up on the pony and carried on, I was so proud of her.

Lesson learnt and back next week for lesson three.