Last London weekend (and all that jazz)

With time fast running out before our three week trip in Scandinavia, and ultimately returning to New Zealand, we made one last trip to the capital to see Phil and Cheryl. We timed it well as my step-dad and his wife were both in London and we managed to catch up over brunch in a pub at Paddington station, before they set off for Teif’s hometown in Wales.

It was a beautiful warm and sunny day in London and for the rest of the afternoon we laid about in the park at Leicester Square. By tea-time we’d met up with Phil and Cheryl and with it being our last weekend with them they kindly offered to treat us to a London show. Certainly not a bad way to spend a Saturday night! None of us were particularly fussed about what we saw but in the end settled for the jazz musical Chicago.

After a few pre-drinks we made our way to Cambridge Theatre, just a few blocks away from Leicester Square. We had great seats, second row from the front, and thoroughly enjoyed the two and a bit hour long show.

The weather took a slight turn for the worse on Sunday but Phil had recommended to try visiting Greenwich which is within short walking distance of their house in Isle of Dogs near Canary Wharf. We walked under The Thames River and into the town of Greenwich and found a nice Thai restaurant for lunch.

We then headed on from there into the park and up the hill to the Greenwich Observatory and the world famous time-line.The rain had come to the party by this stage so we made our way back home, via Canary Wharf and a couple of pubs, before cracking a bottle of bubbly (I’m not sure if that was in celebration of us leaving but I wasn’t going to complain!) and some take-away Indian. That was followed by biscotti and a bottle of Tokaj desert wine from Hungary Sheryl and I had been waiting to share. Standard Sunday evening really!

It was back to work the next morning and that meant a direct coach from London to Poole at the crack of dawn to get us to the office in time.

Big ups to Phil and Cheryl for all the weekends they’ve hosted us – we’ll definitely miss our weekends in London with you guys.

Time for a Bath

With the Winter coming to an end and finer Spring weather on it's way we (that being me, Sheryl, Jennie, Mark, John & Ange) decided to pay a visit to the historic Roman settlement city (it's more like a large town) of Bath, just a couple of hours drive away from us here in Bournemouth.

We started off with a scenic open top bus tour that took us around everything on offer in this World Heritage site. Tight building restrictions are in place for the residents of Bath but it makes for good viewing - most of the buildings are in their near original state and made from the same type of sandstone. There definately seems to be an element of eletism amongst Bath-ites but it's still a great place to visit if you're in the UK and not too far away.

After a cruise up the High Street and quick liquid refreshment the girls hit the shops and the boys hit the pubs! Unfortunately there was no rugby match on that day at the famous Bath rugby ground, but luckily for us there was some on telly and we just caught the tail end of the Anglo-Welsh Final in one particular establishment.

Wimborne pub crawl

Phil and Cheryl paid us a weekend visit from London during April. We were hoping for some decent UK spring weather seeing as the last time they came down was in the middle of winter.

On Saturday we took them on a walk over Hengistbury Head and on through Mudeford Quay, eventually into Christchurch for a pint of Piddle!

That night we took them into the small town of Wimborne, 15 minutes or so drive away from Kinson, for a tour around some of the pubs on offer.

It started at the Coach & Horses on the brink of the town, before visits to the Cricketers Arms, The Green Man and more. We probably would have made our way around more had we not forget about the 11.30pm drink up time!