Italy and England, September/October 1999
Yes, I’m back, in fact we’re all back from gallivanting around Europe. Survived the crossing the street in Rome, dodged the pickpockets on the Metro, minded the gap in London, missed the Paddington rail disaster by about two hours, and even somehow flew there and back without the kids sending us completely insane.
This was something of an eventful day. Quite apart from being our last day in Europe, it was to be a day of plans, problems, revised plans, revised plan problems, revised-revised plans, revised-revised plan problems… and so on. The first bit went reasonably smoothly: We said goodbye to Uncle Hew (since he was going to ... [More]
Being our second last day in England, we took things pretty easy, as apart from embarking on a 22 hour flight home the next day, we were also planning a whirlwind trip to Legoland. So first of all we gave Hew’s washing machine a good workout, while the kids ran around his back garden, and ... [More]
After some consultation with the Lonely Planet guide about what else we could see in London, we headed into Victoria and wandered around the multitude of bus stops trying to find where the 24 to Camden Town went from. We found it, and the bus, just starting to depart. We dashed up waving our arms, ... [More]
Tower Bridge does the traditional thing. We set out once more to explore central London. This time the first stop was Soho, because we wanted to sample the wares at a market, and the Berwick Street Market seemed as good a place as any. After inspecting and purchasing some of London’s finest fresh fruit and ... [More]
Trying to look at things from a different perspective at the Natural History Museum Just as I’m trying to take a picture of L and Jeremy strolling through Hyde Park, Isaac comes into view… Anybody for a Cuppaccino Expresso? With L’s plans to see Lyle Lovett in concert on this day up ... [More]
It was almost time to head back to London, but not before dropping in on my Uncle Kevin’s family again. We somehow managed to cram all our stuff into the backpack (the other one was back in London) and Gran and Grandad drove us to Bognor station. We said our goodbyes and boarded the train, ... [More]
Today we explored various towns along the south coast of England. First my grandparents dropped us in Arundel, most famous for either its very impressive castle, or for being the headquarters of the Body Shop – depending on who you ask. Or is that Littlehampton? We didn’t go into the castle (little kids and the ... [More]
It was time to introduce L and the kids to my most legendary relative ever: the sublime UK in the UK: Uncle Kevin. Grandad and Gran drove us over to Chichester, where Kevin and his wife Liz and son Luke live. Getting over there was a good chance for Isaac and Jeremy to have a ... [More]
Today after much wrestling with my PhoneAway card, I finally managed to get it working (Telstra had provided the wrong local number to dial) and checked our voicemail at home. 14 messages no less, the most immediately significant of which was that the ticket for L that I’d booked through the Ticketmaster UK web site ... [More]
We caught the train into London Blackfriars – an interesting name for a station, though I didn’t spot any black friars walking around it. It was pretty quiet, being Sunday morning, and we strolled along the Embankment, which is a rather less interesting name for what is undeniably, an embankment. One of London Transport’s youngest ... [More]
We set off into central London from my Uncle Hew’s place, with Hew in tow. We got off the train at Victoria, and strolled around to Buckingham Palace. Buck House is kind of impressive to people who’ve grown up elsewhere in the Commonwealth, and seen it on the telly every time there’s been a royal ... [More]