Land of My Father

Having spent holidays in Stephen's family homeland it seemed only fair that we should spend a few days visiting my aged parents in my home county - which just happens to be one of THE home counties. So, off we went in the early hours of the morning to the sunnier climes of Kent. The summer of 2004 has only been record breaking for the amount of rain so it was no surprise to leave in the middle of a thunder storm. The only thing giving me hope was my Mum's frequent phone calls boasting about the lack of water where they live. It rained on and off all the way down but luckily was quite nice when we arrived at Cambridge where we stopped off and had a little wander round and then had our lunch. Then back on our journey where it started raining again as we hit Essex. However as we crossed the Dartford Bridge (and what a wonderful piece of engineering that is) the skies cleared and we were met with a summer mist followed by very very warm weather). By the time we reached the family home it was too hot to anything other than sit in the garden.

Off to the Big Smoke

On the first real day of the holiday we decided to go to London. I spent many a year commuting to London on dirty smelly and always late trains. What was then Southern Region was one of the reasons I relocated to Yorkshire. Typically the trains are now new and clean and a lot quicker. On reaching Victoria it was so warm we couldn't bear the underground so walked to Kensington via Belgravia (to see how the other half live) and the Kings Road (to do a bit of shopping) and had lunch in Hyde Park before going to the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately the Museum was far too hot and crowded so it wasn't the nicest of experiences. The Dinosaur exhibition was good and I loved the possible explanations of why they might have died out complete with cartoons. These included dying of boredom (when cricket was invented) and pollution caused by the amount of dung produced by the enormous beasts. We then strolled back through Piccadilly Circus (where my old sandals finally gave up on me and Stephen bought me a new pair - you can see the new ones in the Canterbury pictures) and then on to Buckingham Palace and back to Victoria Station. It was a good day and as warm as a summer day should be.

A Canterbury Tale

The next day we went to Canterbury for a stroll along the city walls and a nice lunch is the beautiful John Dane Park (where we saw people playing cricket). Canterbury is a lovely place and the shops are really good. We found a lovely cat shop where I bought a cat door stop for Becky who looks after Hogarth when I am away; a birthday present for my friend Emma (her birthday isn't for a while yet so I can't say what it is) and a fridge magnet. There were some great fridge magnets - one of my favourites being 'inside every fat cat is a thin cat that eats too much'. We could have spent a fortune in there but didn't. The small fortune was spent in another shop where I bought fancy jars for the herb vinegar I make (See - I really am a Home Counties girl at heart) and olives stuffed with feta cheese, some capers, an olive dish and some wonderful spicy sauces. We then went back home and cooked my parents a meal of pasta and basil and tomato sauce. We were going to take them out for meal on the Friday but my Mum hadn't been feeling well so didn't fancy going out (as you will see later we did end up taking her out on Friday but not to a restaurant).