England By Roadtrip, Pt. 2

So, when I last left you, dear reader, we were finishing up our visit to the Angel of the North.  Very impressive, and quite cool.  (Sheffield apparently is planning a statue called "The Man of Steel" which I assume, for copyright reasons, is not going to be a huge statue of Superman.)  Anyways, I finished sulking for not going to Edinburgh, and we headed to Durham.

Our friend, Gee, went to University in Durham, and had always regaled me with discussions of how beautiful it is.  I always listened, but never seriously thought of going.  Well, we went.  Let me tell you now... Durham is amazing!  Beautiful old cathedral, well preserved city, and the feel of a very cool place to live.  (It also has a taco place, so bonus!)  Anyways, we went there, and Lovely English Lass took photos of everything.  The kids behaved reasonable well, and it was lovely out.  We walked, looked into places, I bought two shirts and a cap from a Scottish place that was having a sale.  (So my Scot fix was done.)  There is a beautiful pedestrian bridge over a river that you cross to get to the Cathedral, and the views were just lovely.

One problem.  I was away from LEL and the kids on the opposite side of this bridge, when i saw a man with dreadlocks and a conga drum walk from my side of the bridge to LEL's and spit on her!  I ran over and said, "He spit on you!"  She seemed non-plussed about it, and just shrugged it off.  That took the fight out of me, and I couldn't believe she was not upset.  Turns out, she thought I was talking about Crazy Little Man, and not the weirdo who had spit on her.  LEL has a mixed history of homeless people doing bad things to her.  Once in London, a homeless guy punched her in the shoulder. Strange...

Anyways, after that we went to a nice Organic Farmhouse, had some lunch and went back to Blackpool.  While spending a few more days in Blackpool, we ventured out to Manchester to the Trafford Centre (where close by at Old Trafford 3 weeks later my Spurs would beat Man United 3-2 for the first time since 1989.  Yeah, I'm going to mention that a few times.)  We also went to Lancaster just north of Blackpool.  Amazing town, and a great place to walk around and enjoy oneself.  We went to a pub called The Friary, which as the name suggests, was once a very large church.  Nice place, but felt a little wrong having a beer there, so I had a coke.  But Lancaster was very nice, and a lovely place to visit.

We then travelled all the way down to Devonshire, which took way too long because of traffic in and around Birmingham.  We left at 11 am, and finally arrived at 9 pm.  The trip should have taken 5 hours.  But we saw beautiful sites and cities like Biddeford.  The next day we went to Bude, and walked around, taking in the seaside and loving being out in the fresh air.  LEL didn't end up getting her Cream Tea, but we did have a nice time walking around.  The only problem is that area of England closes at 4 pm on a Saturday.  WHAT!?!

After a brief detour to Biddeford on Sunday, where the entire city was closed, we moved on to Bath.  Like I said with Durham, we can DEFINITELY live in Bath.  Strangely, our hotel was located in the middle of the city, but only cost us 15 quid.  Not too bad, really.  We ate at a pub called the Pig and Fiddle, where I had an Alpaca burger, and the had Anchor Steam and Brooklyn Beer in bottles.  Not only that, but they played jazz music over their speakers that had a sousaphone.  Seemed like home to me!  But Bath also had the Jane Austen Days occuring as well.  Numerous people walking around dressed like the 1800s, and men with sideburns all the way down their face wearing riding boots and top hats.  Very cool place, and we loved visiting.

We then moved down to visit LEL's aunty and uncle, who like in Gweek, Cornwall.  They took us around to The Lizard, the furthest southern point in England, and then to Cream Tea.  I found that the Cornish way to have Cream tea is to put the jam on first and then the clotted cream, because the heat from the scones melts the cream and that's no good.  The Devon way is to put the cream first and then the jam.  (A Public Service announcement from "Know Your English Regions.")  It was lovely, and also quite harrowing.  The roads between Cornish villages were not made for automobiles, and definitely not two coming in opposite directions.  High hedges on the side and trees coming over the road are beautiful, but not conducive to driving when a Range Rover shows up in front of you wanting to pass.  Very tight squeeze.  Plus, at night, it looks like the Headless Horseman is going to come after you.

I wanted to go to Land's End, just to say I'd been there.  (Also a reason to go to John O'Groats.)  LLG got sick on the way, so we made a quick stop in Penzance.  (Yes, Pirates of Penzance did come to mind, and I did sing "Modern Major-General" to myself when I got there.)  Still, it was a lovely town, and we got to have a very nice Cornish Pasty while there.  We then went to Land's End, had photos taken at the famous sign, and returned to Gweek.  We left the next day for London and the end of our trip.

But before London, we had to visit Stonehenge.  LEL had never been, and I felt it was an absolute scandal that she hadn't.  So off to Stonehenge.  Nice place, but gets a bit boring after a bit.  And with two hyper-active children, it's even worse.  So off we went to the London Borough of Hounslow, and a lovely Travelodge right at the end of the runway to Heathrow Airport.  (Hounslow is, if you remember, the setting for "Bend it Like Beckham.")  The Friday we travelled into the city, saw Big Ben and Parliament, walked to Trafalgar Square, found out that my Mexican restaurant near Trafalgar (the Texas Embassy) was no longer there, and walked all over Westminster until the kids had enough.  After a nice rest, the next day we spent it on Richmond Green with friends from all over London.  Quite a good time.  The kids then had McDonalds, or Old McDonalds as they call it, where Crazy Little Man kept staring at the transient family that was seated behind us that kept yelling and screaming at each other.  (A good way to get me in a fight.)  LEL and I had a very nice curry, and we went to sleep ready to leave.

The next day was rainy, which it hardly did while we were in Blighty.  The food at the hotel was awful, and we waited 8 hours in the airport for the plane to leave, but all in all it wasn't a bad day.  The kids were pretty good, and the flight home wasn't too bad.  It was nice coming out and seeing the sunshine and noticing all the familiar stuff around.  While vacation is good, it's always nice to come home and sleep in your own bed.  It was a great visit, and I do miss England many times.  (Especially when Spurs beat Man United at Old Trafford for the first time since 1989.  Did I mention that?)  But we came home with great memories, and hopefully next year when we go back we'll have just as good a time.  For now, I'm happy in SA, and I think that the family is too. At least until a Combe Bus cuts me off in traffic.