Stonehenge Rocks

Our destination for this week's adventure is Stonehenge, in case you haven't already guessed. According to the T-shirts and pencils on sale in the giftshop, Stonehenge Rocks! We reckon they're right - it's a cool place, in every sense of the word. We bought a pencil to prove it.

Probably the only disappointing thing about Stonehenge are the two A-roads (ie. main roads) that run right by the site. One actually cuts right through the ancient earthworks that formed the Avenue leading to the monument. You have to walk through a tunnel under the road to get from the carpark to the monument and then stare back across the road to the ancient barrows (burial mounds) in the distance.

It would have been an impressive sight in 2008BC walking up the Avenue after three weeks of tough hiking from the cave in West Byfleet. Still, we have to admit, popping over the hill on the A303 after an hour or so's drive and seeing Stonehenge right there in front of you, is pretty impressive too. The Sat Nav was telling us we were getting close, but we didn't realise we were that close.

Good news though! The English Heritage organisation that manages Stonehenge (amongst quite a few other interesting places) has plans to tunnel and remove the roads so the entire site can return to something more akin to its original state.

Anyway, hope you enjoy our pics!





As you can see it was the usual story of someone take the photo of everyone else in the family (Lucy was even behind the lense at one stage) until we met a nice lady from New Zealand who took a photo of all of us. In return, we kindly didn't mention anything about the Rugby World Cup.

And in other news:
* It snowed on Thursday! Just in time for the school pickup on Lucy's first day back for Winter Term - how appropriate. Nice big fat snowflakes! We tried to get phtotos, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground, as it was quite a warm 3deg on the ground.
* We've taken the Christmas Tree down .

New Years Day in Arundel

We've all come down with the dreaded lurgie over the holidays and we've hardly been out at all during the break. So on New Years Day, we made a pact to get out and see somewhere new even though everyone was still not 100%. Our destination was Arundel - it's not too far away (about an hour) and it gets a run in all of the guide books, so it seemed like a good option.

Indeed, it is a very nice town. The only negative point (for some) was that most of the "nice-looking" shops were closed for the day. Arundel Castle, which is the key attraction in Arundel, was also closed, but we knew this beforehand, so that doesn't count as a negative according to the rules. We still managed to have a good look around and get some much needed fresh air, which was very welcome after a week holed up in our little château.


The main drag


Nutters out the front of the town's Cathedral.
Note the pub directly outside the cathedral, which is apparently how you can tell that it's a Catholic church.


Inside the cathedral - very impressive.


The Castle


Caiti and Keezee outside the Castle.
This photo is shown here to prove that we actually did take Caiti along, and that's not just a made up dummy in the pram in the Cathedral photo above.


Jo and Lucy outside the castle gates at the bottom of the hill.


By the way, you may notice that nobody looks hungover after New Years Eve. It was indeed a quiet one, although we still did manage to catch some fireworks at midnight, coutesy of our mate down the road.