Sunday, August 1, 2010

Remembered My Camera Today

... which was a good thing because there were so many awesome things to take pictures of today.

I went to bed at 10 pm last night and slept clear on through til 10 this morning.
They left me a nicer bed than I left them. I feel bad about that.
However, I left them a dryer and they left me a clothes line, so I guess things will even out in the end.
:)
I'm googling laundromats in Leamington as soon as I finish typing this. I can't imagine drying bedding (5 beds) and towels (5 people) and all our clothes in the backyard on the drying rack. It will use up an entire day. And I'll have to do it twice (once when the kids leave and again when me and my friends leave.) TWO days. Two days of doing laundry? Life is too short.

There are things to see. Like Cadbury World. I'm trying to convince the boys that this would be a fun activity. It's less than an hour away from here! How can we NOT go? (Might have to wait til Val gets here. Maybe she could write it off as research for her position with Purdy's?)

I walked for over 6 hours today.
These legs usually walk less than one hour a day - I have a desk job and sitting-down-type hobbies. So all the moving was good. But my legs are rebelling. I think I have a pinched nerve in my groin. Yeah. That feels about as good as you could imagine. Shooting pains radiating both up and down when I step the wrong way. And if I could figure out what the wrong way is, I'd stop stepping that way.
:)

Regardless, I'm not going to stop walking.

Driving is still abit of an adventure. It's still taking all 5 of us to keep me on the correct side of the road. It would help if I was more fluent in my lefts and rights. But I'm handicapped that way. So they have to remind me where to go without using the words "left" or "right" as prompts. You have NO idea how thankful I am to be driving an automatic vehicle. And I've got a van because up until the day before we left, Max had another friend planning on joining us. If I had known sooner that he couldn't find a flight home, I would have rented the tiniest car 5 people would fit in. Because the roads here? Are narrow. How narrow? Uh. Words won't do. I'll take a pic one of these days. Remind me. But trust me, they are narrow.

Clint is the TomTom SatNav interpreter. She (soothing British voice) says something about roundabouts and exits and blah blah balh, so he points. Which is helpful. Vital, actually.

And Max? Whoa? What a surprise. When we got on the airplane, he paused before finding his seat, took my backpack from me and hoisted it up into the overhead rack. Like it was a normal thing to do for someone's mom. Without me even asking. (!) (I would of never asked. I've done a fair bit of traveling and I make sure I can handle my luggage by myself.) And when the flight was over - again, before he got his own walk-on luggage all sorted out, he got mine down for me. And then in the airport, when we got to the luggage carousel, we saw the boys luggage on the belt close together but mine wasn't with theirs. I looked waaaay ahead, and noticed it heading back behind the wall for another go-around, so I started running over to the other end. Max ran past me, and told me he'd look after it.     Say WUT? Who raised that kid?

When we got to the Heathrow, Clint suggested I sit with the luggage while they went and looked around. Max said, "How is that fair to mom? Sit with our luggage? Maybe she wants to look around too...."
:)

I've posted a few pics to facebook so if you're not my facebook friend, follow this link.

Here are a few of my favs from our first full day:
Vancouver Airport, waiting for our flight-
















Breakfast this morning -















Fifty year old Englishman with good teeth, teaching us about bowmanship at the Castle -

















Inside the castle walls. A bit touristy. And not as well done as Disney would've done it.
















The Lads from Langley:















We walked up and across the top of the castle. 530 steps up. I did it.
Drew said "I hope we don't have a repeat of New York here."
(I believe he was referring to the unfortunate incident of me falling down on the street of Harlem.)


















Very pretty:















English country garden as seen from atop the castle:
















Waiting for Max -






















We watched the Eagle show, then Clint went and took some pics of the eagles in their stalls:















This castle, by the way, was built in the 1300's -
















After we left the castle, we strolled through the Village of Warwick and stopped in at  St. Mary's cathedral. This was the wall in their graveyard -







































And now I'm tired.
Tired of uploading pics and tired of being awake.

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. Amazing travel companions
2. Old buildings
3. New camera lens

Thanks for stopping by,
Shalom.

And really - go check the facebook pics. They're better than these.

1 comment:

Claire R said...

Jane, I love your smiley faces!! : )
And your pictures are amazing, I wish I was travelling too! Well, after I have sorted the new house out, then I'd love to go back to England - you make it sound so incredibly appealing.
I'm glad you guys are having fun...