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.

Midhurst

Here's some photos we took back in August when we visitied the nice little town of Midhurst. We actually stopped off to buy some lunch on our way back from the beach. At this time of year it's a little hard to imagine the weather can actually get so nice and warm..... bring on summer!



The Swan Inn (from the Pub photo collection archive)


The Spread Eagle Hotel (from the Pub photo collection archive)




The old place in the background is Cowdray a good place to watch a spot of polo apparently (chin, chin.. pass the Pimms please Mr. Bottingham)

Pea Soup and Fish Supper

We decided to drive into London last Sunday (Sunday's the day - free parking and no £8 congestion charge) to have a look at the ice rink at the Museum of Natural History. We were rather indecisive about it because it had been foggy around our place all day, and we weren't sure if we would be able to see much.

It should be about a 45 minute drive into town under normal conditions, but our indecisiveness meant we didn't leave until 4pm, by which time it was getting dark, and we decided to take the M25, which was living up to its reputation of being the world's biggest carpark in the fog, being a classic London pea-souper; so in the end it took us nearly 2 hours to get there. But despite dire predictions of our foggy demise from the front passenger seat, we finally made it, and found a park right out the front - ha!

We travelled back via the A3 - a much better option:
View Larger Map

It was quite a sight, with hundreds of skaters getting into it on a cold Sunday night. We enjoyed watching, but none of us had the heart to strap on the skates (I won't mention the fact you have to book weeks ahead anyway). But no worries, there was something for everyone... a Christmas market for Mum, a merry-go-round for the girls, and a public toilet for Keezee (who forgot to go before we left home).

We finished the evening off by eating alfresco in 0 degrees, as you do when you're hungry! We've haven't been eating enough fish and chips since we've been here, and the fish supper (as Nigela, Jamie and Gordon call it) is a national institution, so it was high-time to tuck into some cod.


Mummy and Lucy


Daddy and Caiti (who was fascinated by the skating).
Here's a short amateur photography anecdote for you........ We would have asked someone to take a photo of us all together, but it was too foggy to use a flash (honest - the flash lights up the fog - look at the photo below) and it was too tricky for a passer-by to get a good night-time shot on time exposure.



Arty shot of the merry-go-round with the museum behind, bathed in eerie green-light. Hmmm... the fog lifted a bit for this shot it seems.



Merry-go-round girls.


Fush n Chups!


Arty Shot 2: The nearly-empty rink between sessions.