High season 2009 in the UK; a trip from Thailand
Sep 29th, 2009, 02:16 AM
#61
lol, khun,
too funny.
real people do occasionally shop at harrods I believe, but less and less frequently. the food hall is too expensive, there are better clothes at Harvey nicks, and it's much too full of tourists!
too funny.
real people do occasionally shop at harrods I believe, but less and less frequently. the food hall is too expensive, there are better clothes at Harvey nicks, and it's much too full of tourists!
Sep 29th, 2009, 05:15 AM
#63
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My God there's still 2 people reading this!
It's got awfully long, I missed out a couple of Harrods incidents, the Food dept and the toy dept.....maybe another time.
Yes - Horrids!!
The soldiers were at the Tower too......couldn't find out why......
I'm changing jobs this week so I might get somee time off and finish it off too......
Not much to go...Tower of London, and a couple of footnotes - shopping and food.
It's got awfully long, I missed out a couple of Harrods incidents, the Food dept and the toy dept.....maybe another time.
Yes - Horrids!!
The soldiers were at the Tower too......couldn't find out why......
I'm changing jobs this week so I might get somee time off and finish it off too......
Not much to go...Tower of London, and a couple of footnotes - shopping and food.
Sep 29th, 2009, 02:32 PM
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I'm still reading--a wonderful treat after day of substitute teaching in 7th and 8th grade. You need to write a book! And do tell about the toy dept and food dept at Harrod's! PLease, pretty please with sugar on it, and please again.
Sep 29th, 2009, 11:03 PM
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PS – Harrods – the Toy Department.....
I've always loved the Toy department a Harrods – more than Hamley's even..........and there in the middle was my all-time favourite – Scalextric..........my boyhood obsession....brought to an abrupt halt by puberty and ten rekindled when I hit middle age........some kids were having a go.....they just couldn't do it....I stood by and watched for a bit but it was all too frustrating; in the end I pushed forward, said “Excuse me” reached down and grabbed a controller from the smallest boy's hand – startled he looked up and released his grip instantly.....
“This is how you do it” I said......smiling and gritting my teeth at the same time...
Spent the next 10 minutes fending off all opposition, sons , fathers - none could outclass KhunWilkhamilton!!! - even some shoppers and a couple of shop-walkers stopped to see what was going on.......
I then saw the young lad whose controller I had taken approaching with someone who could only have been his father.....time to go.
I'm sorry but I simply can't bring myself to relate the fish in the food hall....anyway it was a long time ago and not on this trip........it wasn't my fault anyway......
I've always loved the Toy department a Harrods – more than Hamley's even..........and there in the middle was my all-time favourite – Scalextric..........my boyhood obsession....brought to an abrupt halt by puberty and ten rekindled when I hit middle age........some kids were having a go.....they just couldn't do it....I stood by and watched for a bit but it was all too frustrating; in the end I pushed forward, said “Excuse me” reached down and grabbed a controller from the smallest boy's hand – startled he looked up and released his grip instantly.....
“This is how you do it” I said......smiling and gritting my teeth at the same time...
Spent the next 10 minutes fending off all opposition, sons , fathers - none could outclass KhunWilkhamilton!!! - even some shoppers and a couple of shop-walkers stopped to see what was going on.......
I then saw the young lad whose controller I had taken approaching with someone who could only have been his father.....time to go.
I'm sorry but I simply can't bring myself to relate the fish in the food hall....anyway it was a long time ago and not on this trip........it wasn't my fault anyway......
Sep 30th, 2009, 12:14 PM
#68
As Patrick different regiments have the honour of guarding. When they change you get the oddity off the Gurkas (short Eastern guys in bent brimed hats) handing over to Guards ( large mainly european sized with tall furry hats)
Oct 1st, 2009, 08:20 PM
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Next day...
Tower of London. - http://www.hrp.org.uk/toweroflondon/
Well it couldn't all be a bed of roses........the Tower was, as it has historically been for so many who ended up there, the low point of the trip........I guess we should count ourselves lucky at least we entered and came out again.......but those unfortunates who didn't, didn't have to pay, did they? - Well not in cash....
There's something about the whole organisation of the Tower that is just not right....I get the impression, they have the attitude that they are the TOWER and consequently don't need the help and advice of others – they have the crown jewels and the history......the litany of the famous, infamous and the downright unlucky, so what do they need with any of this new-fangled stuff like “interpreters” crowd management, display consultants....etc etc.?
A bit of research on the net, common sense, and a Beefeater all suggested that if we were going to see the Tower, we should arrive as early as possible. I could have but didn't pre-purchase tickets on the net – I would recommend in high season that is a good idea. I agreed to go ahead early to get the tickets and my 2 Thai friends would meet me half an hour before opening.
On Sundays and Mondays the place doesn't open until 10, on other days it's 9 am......but neither do the ticket offices so a queue starts to form about an hour before opening.....
The British are wonderful at queuing -it is almost an art form – it is certainly an important part of the countries social fabric, unfortunately many of the visitors are not British so queue jumping and general inappropriate behaviour is common-place.
I really think it would be a good idea to open the ticket booths a bit earlier so at least some would have tickets and be ready when the Tower itself opened.
If you pre-booked your tickets you could collect them from a nearby office....whether that opened earlier or not I was unable to check....I was wrestling with the “bootless and unhorsed” to maintain my place in the queue........”Excuse me, this is a queue” - To most people that is a fairly fatuous expression merely stating the obvious, to a British person it is loaded with meaning – even menace.......anyway it had little or no effect here.
After an hour and a bit of queuing and watching people fumbling with strange (to them) money, having credit cards rejected (“the Bank of Нигде-stan has refused your card, Sir) - I was rewarded with my tickets.
My Thai friends had arrived seen me in the queue - “Oh, you here already, we have coffee”...OK they brought me one after a while, but I don't queue well and the whole thing was getting on my nerves....this was the first and only attraction where I felt the queuing was unreasonably organised.
Armed with the tickets i urged my friends onwards towards the gate – I ignored their pleas for toilet or any pause whatsoever......”You can go in the Tower” - Before entering we look behind us and see the crowd approaching a wave of people is about 100 yards behind us.......on entry we stopped against my wishes to buy a rather heavy-looking guide book – I hurried my friends along – no stopping to look at anything – straight to the crown jewels......
Once inside the pressure was off – you are paraded past the gold and silver and jewellery that has formed part of British pomp and ceremony for years.........I still think its understated beauty is its main attraction – when one sees these, it makes one realise how gaudy are the baubles bangles and beads that other countries display around the world that have clearly either imitated of or been inspired by these “originals”.....but I have a problem with the display – low light – OK if that is needed for conservation – but this linear approach – these are all the maces, these are all the crowns – could we not have then arranged in a more meaningful way – we are in an ever-thickening crowd and it really is getting more and more difficult to to anything but “go with the flow” of the traffic.
I have to say that I think this sudden display of incredible wealth and al things shiny, somewhat caught my thai friends off- guard – gold is a very respected commodity in Thailand and I don't think they expected to see quite so much of it in one place.
After a short while we emerged blinking into the bright light of day. By now we were all busting for a pee – my friends still seemed puzzled by my haste to get to the crown jewels – I showed them the entrance now....a queue stretched from the entrance to the Crown Jewels and backed up for about 200 yards. If you don't get in early, you'll just be part of an endless long crawling line that drifts past the exhibits with no opportunity to stop and really look.
I do think that the Tower should take a look at this and take measure to break up this queue – either allow sessions inside the rooms or something....it is not satifacroy a present...neither in my opinion is the rest of the Tower.
The guide book we bought,although a great souvenir was useless on the day – it was too big too heavy and not well organised at all – we needed a concise guide and map – well I couldn't find one – maybe we overlooked it – but then again that sort of thing should be well displayed and available everywhere.
There really was no sense of cohesion in the tower....there were the towers and a few rooms here and there but nothing to bring it all together – it was just a series of disconnected exhibits that you may or may not understand, but any context or meaning was either lost or obscure.
Signing – With age comes glasses – for reading that is......I get very frustrated in restaurants that keep the lighting to a minimum and then present you with a menu with miniscule writing and on an art-filled background...at least then I'm sitting down and ca get out my reading glasses and continue to order........but come on!THe Tower of London is not some chic restaurant for the young, it is open to one and all – including the hyperopic!
There was a lot of restoration going on too.....it may well be that this had to bee done in high season.....but I was left to wonder if a bit of forethought could have avoided so much of the place being a work-sight.
The tale of the “Princes in the Tower” was made a lot of and they did indeed admit to some extent that there is no strong evidence to suggest it was anything more than a piece of propaganda made popular by Shakespeare – but at the end they had installed some bizarre voting machine where the now particularly ill-informed public could vote whether they believed the story or not.....I'm not sure but despite the evidence to the contrary they seemed to be voting Yes – true. I think we can draw more insight from that into the general attitude of today's public, than any historical knowledge......
So I felt I was wandering around aimlessly, left to peer at signs here and there and try ad work out what was going on......and really not that much – I did however find one little corner that made me happy.....tucked away near the gents toilets was a “Butt of Malmsey” or rather a replica and an explanation.
Anyone who has read “1066 and all that” will remember that there are a lot of references to the “Butt” in that book. I was never really sure what it was – it seems it was a kind of fifteenth century form of water-boarding – except usually fatal; Malmsey being a sweet Madeira wine. The Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey in that very room (allegedly) near the gents! Apparently of his own choice – maybe he thought he could drink his way out......better than the other options I would guess... (hanging drawing and quartering or beheading) – nice of them to offer him a choice really -
“Hmmmm, I think I'll take the Butt of Malmsey”
“OK Drowning by Butt of Malmsey it is then.....take him away. Igor!”
This story unlike the Princes in the Tower, is quite possibly true! Although beheading and subsequent pickling of the body in alcohol for transport purposes is also a possibility.
Well my friends seemed to enjoy themselves, standing in front of whatever and smiling back at the camera....
”What is this?”
“It's a screen, the building is closed for repair”
“Not old then?”........
There is some interesting architecture there and I love the way everywhere you look 500 year old buildings stand before a background of the ultra modern as the City continues to build and change.....a mix you only really see in Europe.
So that was the Tower then – not what I remember from my youth – the Ravens were still there the Beefeaters, (the guards without Busbies – actually they wore light blue berets – Marines?) but somehow they seem to have lost the charisma of the place....it needs an “impresario” - not quite the right word, but you know what I mean - to come and breathe life back into it.
After that we headed back to Holland Park where my friend's sibling had to get ready to fly back to Thailand. Before we parted we went for one more meal.
Most Thais I know are very conservative diners, preferring the familiar to any of the strange British dishes on offer. i.e. a bowl of fried insects over a plate fish and chips any day - This time we went to a Chinese restaurant and they lead the way – for the first time I wasn't navigating, and as a result I simply can't remember where it was (somewhere near Holland Park?) – it was called the 4 Seasons and they specialise in Roast Duck with Pak kanaa – that Chinese cabbage in oyster sauce – scrummy! – and very good it was too..... there were a lot of Thai airline employees there too...I think the Chinese were outnumbered here by Thais about 2 to 1.
Before departure there was just one more thing we had to do – shopping for food to take back. Morrisons were the nearest supermarket (who said Jim was dead? He's alive and well and running a supermarket in Holland Park!)
As my friends sibling was an airline employee, we could load them up with stuff for home...........
My friend was particularly keen on some dark chocolate, and various confectionaries.....I bought some Cadbury's Roses and a few small bars to hand out.....but my main concern was tea....lots of it....Tetley's Extra Strong, “Builder's Tea”, Typhoo, and Yorkshire Gold – presumably from the rolling tea plantations of Yorkshire (?!?!?!).....altogether I bought about 500 teabags.
It doesn't matter where I am, I must have good STRONG British tea. When I lived in Australia they had several “English” brands of tea, but all manufactured for the Aussie market or elsewhere and all terribly insipid......the same is available in Thailand, but a really GOOD cup of strong English tea is just about as rare as rocking-horse poop.........I am now set up for months.
My only other indulgence was to be a Stilton cheese, unfortunately Morrisons didn't have any. TIP – if you want really, really good Stilton, go to a Co-op, they own or owned some of the farms in the Stilton region and produce some of the finest you'll ever taste.
After leaving my friends sibling at the Holland Park Hilton under a pile of groceries we found ourselves on a bit of a low, our flight was the next day, we were tired and my friend was a sibling short...so we just mooned around for a while, had an un-memorable evening meal and retired for the night.
So that is about it really –I'll finish not so much on a bang but a whimper....the last day is always a bit of a non-event for me. Whatever you plane there is always the spectre of having to be at Heathrow on time....packing, checking documents etc and getting there on time.
In the morning we did manage to check out the V&A as mentioned way back....and buy a few more bits and bobs to take home, in fact we even made another quick visit to Harrods.
I should say that I really liked my little hotel. The location is really convenient and local facilities are good – especially if you are Thai. The staff were very helpful and pleasant...I can't say a lot more than that as we didn't really test them – I find that you only discover a hotel's true metal when you have a serious problem to solve or a complaint – neither of which applied in our case.
Packing and checking out done we dragged our bags up to Earls Court tube and took the lift down to the Piccadilly line, from there it was a direct line straight to Heathrow, we arrived with plenty of (too much) and still failed to get a good seat on the plane (if there are 2 of you, try and get seats right at the rear, they are in rows of 2 and have a lot of space round them.
Deathrow is not my favourite place – straining at the seems, loaded to bursting capacity – I admire the ability of those that work there to keep it running despite the enormous volume of traffic. The departure area is pretty dismal and uncomfortable and as everywhere, tax free shopping just seems to be an opportunity for the shops to make more money per item by increasing their prices to the point where they are almost the same as tax included.
One bright spot - There's a good bagel stall there – salmon and sour-cream – brought back memories of my days in Golders Green.
I had mixed feelings about leaving, I'd had a good time but really would be glad to get som warm weather and a good plate of “Laab Moo, sai Dtap”. My friend was positively excites at the prospect of going home.........nearly three weeks in England for you first time EVER out of your home country is quite an endurance test....
“Come again?”
“Maybe next year...or two or three”
Tower of London. - http://www.hrp.org.uk/toweroflondon/
Well it couldn't all be a bed of roses........the Tower was, as it has historically been for so many who ended up there, the low point of the trip........I guess we should count ourselves lucky at least we entered and came out again.......but those unfortunates who didn't, didn't have to pay, did they? - Well not in cash....
There's something about the whole organisation of the Tower that is just not right....I get the impression, they have the attitude that they are the TOWER and consequently don't need the help and advice of others – they have the crown jewels and the history......the litany of the famous, infamous and the downright unlucky, so what do they need with any of this new-fangled stuff like “interpreters” crowd management, display consultants....etc etc.?
A bit of research on the net, common sense, and a Beefeater all suggested that if we were going to see the Tower, we should arrive as early as possible. I could have but didn't pre-purchase tickets on the net – I would recommend in high season that is a good idea. I agreed to go ahead early to get the tickets and my 2 Thai friends would meet me half an hour before opening.
On Sundays and Mondays the place doesn't open until 10, on other days it's 9 am......but neither do the ticket offices so a queue starts to form about an hour before opening.....
The British are wonderful at queuing -it is almost an art form – it is certainly an important part of the countries social fabric, unfortunately many of the visitors are not British so queue jumping and general inappropriate behaviour is common-place.
I really think it would be a good idea to open the ticket booths a bit earlier so at least some would have tickets and be ready when the Tower itself opened.
If you pre-booked your tickets you could collect them from a nearby office....whether that opened earlier or not I was unable to check....I was wrestling with the “bootless and unhorsed” to maintain my place in the queue........”Excuse me, this is a queue” - To most people that is a fairly fatuous expression merely stating the obvious, to a British person it is loaded with meaning – even menace.......anyway it had little or no effect here.
After an hour and a bit of queuing and watching people fumbling with strange (to them) money, having credit cards rejected (“the Bank of Нигде-stan has refused your card, Sir) - I was rewarded with my tickets.
My Thai friends had arrived seen me in the queue - “Oh, you here already, we have coffee”...OK they brought me one after a while, but I don't queue well and the whole thing was getting on my nerves....this was the first and only attraction where I felt the queuing was unreasonably organised.
Armed with the tickets i urged my friends onwards towards the gate – I ignored their pleas for toilet or any pause whatsoever......”You can go in the Tower” - Before entering we look behind us and see the crowd approaching a wave of people is about 100 yards behind us.......on entry we stopped against my wishes to buy a rather heavy-looking guide book – I hurried my friends along – no stopping to look at anything – straight to the crown jewels......
Once inside the pressure was off – you are paraded past the gold and silver and jewellery that has formed part of British pomp and ceremony for years.........I still think its understated beauty is its main attraction – when one sees these, it makes one realise how gaudy are the baubles bangles and beads that other countries display around the world that have clearly either imitated of or been inspired by these “originals”.....but I have a problem with the display – low light – OK if that is needed for conservation – but this linear approach – these are all the maces, these are all the crowns – could we not have then arranged in a more meaningful way – we are in an ever-thickening crowd and it really is getting more and more difficult to to anything but “go with the flow” of the traffic.
I have to say that I think this sudden display of incredible wealth and al things shiny, somewhat caught my thai friends off- guard – gold is a very respected commodity in Thailand and I don't think they expected to see quite so much of it in one place.
After a short while we emerged blinking into the bright light of day. By now we were all busting for a pee – my friends still seemed puzzled by my haste to get to the crown jewels – I showed them the entrance now....a queue stretched from the entrance to the Crown Jewels and backed up for about 200 yards. If you don't get in early, you'll just be part of an endless long crawling line that drifts past the exhibits with no opportunity to stop and really look.
I do think that the Tower should take a look at this and take measure to break up this queue – either allow sessions inside the rooms or something....it is not satifacroy a present...neither in my opinion is the rest of the Tower.
The guide book we bought,although a great souvenir was useless on the day – it was too big too heavy and not well organised at all – we needed a concise guide and map – well I couldn't find one – maybe we overlooked it – but then again that sort of thing should be well displayed and available everywhere.
There really was no sense of cohesion in the tower....there were the towers and a few rooms here and there but nothing to bring it all together – it was just a series of disconnected exhibits that you may or may not understand, but any context or meaning was either lost or obscure.
Signing – With age comes glasses – for reading that is......I get very frustrated in restaurants that keep the lighting to a minimum and then present you with a menu with miniscule writing and on an art-filled background...at least then I'm sitting down and ca get out my reading glasses and continue to order........but come on!THe Tower of London is not some chic restaurant for the young, it is open to one and all – including the hyperopic!
There was a lot of restoration going on too.....it may well be that this had to bee done in high season.....but I was left to wonder if a bit of forethought could have avoided so much of the place being a work-sight.
The tale of the “Princes in the Tower” was made a lot of and they did indeed admit to some extent that there is no strong evidence to suggest it was anything more than a piece of propaganda made popular by Shakespeare – but at the end they had installed some bizarre voting machine where the now particularly ill-informed public could vote whether they believed the story or not.....I'm not sure but despite the evidence to the contrary they seemed to be voting Yes – true. I think we can draw more insight from that into the general attitude of today's public, than any historical knowledge......
So I felt I was wandering around aimlessly, left to peer at signs here and there and try ad work out what was going on......and really not that much – I did however find one little corner that made me happy.....tucked away near the gents toilets was a “Butt of Malmsey” or rather a replica and an explanation.
Anyone who has read “1066 and all that” will remember that there are a lot of references to the “Butt” in that book. I was never really sure what it was – it seems it was a kind of fifteenth century form of water-boarding – except usually fatal; Malmsey being a sweet Madeira wine. The Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey in that very room (allegedly) near the gents! Apparently of his own choice – maybe he thought he could drink his way out......better than the other options I would guess... (hanging drawing and quartering or beheading) – nice of them to offer him a choice really -
“Hmmmm, I think I'll take the Butt of Malmsey”
“OK Drowning by Butt of Malmsey it is then.....take him away. Igor!”
This story unlike the Princes in the Tower, is quite possibly true! Although beheading and subsequent pickling of the body in alcohol for transport purposes is also a possibility.
Well my friends seemed to enjoy themselves, standing in front of whatever and smiling back at the camera....
”What is this?”
“It's a screen, the building is closed for repair”
“Not old then?”........
There is some interesting architecture there and I love the way everywhere you look 500 year old buildings stand before a background of the ultra modern as the City continues to build and change.....a mix you only really see in Europe.
So that was the Tower then – not what I remember from my youth – the Ravens were still there the Beefeaters, (the guards without Busbies – actually they wore light blue berets – Marines?) but somehow they seem to have lost the charisma of the place....it needs an “impresario” - not quite the right word, but you know what I mean - to come and breathe life back into it.
After that we headed back to Holland Park where my friend's sibling had to get ready to fly back to Thailand. Before we parted we went for one more meal.
Most Thais I know are very conservative diners, preferring the familiar to any of the strange British dishes on offer. i.e. a bowl of fried insects over a plate fish and chips any day - This time we went to a Chinese restaurant and they lead the way – for the first time I wasn't navigating, and as a result I simply can't remember where it was (somewhere near Holland Park?) – it was called the 4 Seasons and they specialise in Roast Duck with Pak kanaa – that Chinese cabbage in oyster sauce – scrummy! – and very good it was too..... there were a lot of Thai airline employees there too...I think the Chinese were outnumbered here by Thais about 2 to 1.
Before departure there was just one more thing we had to do – shopping for food to take back. Morrisons were the nearest supermarket (who said Jim was dead? He's alive and well and running a supermarket in Holland Park!)
As my friends sibling was an airline employee, we could load them up with stuff for home...........
My friend was particularly keen on some dark chocolate, and various confectionaries.....I bought some Cadbury's Roses and a few small bars to hand out.....but my main concern was tea....lots of it....Tetley's Extra Strong, “Builder's Tea”, Typhoo, and Yorkshire Gold – presumably from the rolling tea plantations of Yorkshire (?!?!?!).....altogether I bought about 500 teabags.
It doesn't matter where I am, I must have good STRONG British tea. When I lived in Australia they had several “English” brands of tea, but all manufactured for the Aussie market or elsewhere and all terribly insipid......the same is available in Thailand, but a really GOOD cup of strong English tea is just about as rare as rocking-horse poop.........I am now set up for months.
My only other indulgence was to be a Stilton cheese, unfortunately Morrisons didn't have any. TIP – if you want really, really good Stilton, go to a Co-op, they own or owned some of the farms in the Stilton region and produce some of the finest you'll ever taste.
After leaving my friends sibling at the Holland Park Hilton under a pile of groceries we found ourselves on a bit of a low, our flight was the next day, we were tired and my friend was a sibling short...so we just mooned around for a while, had an un-memorable evening meal and retired for the night.
So that is about it really –I'll finish not so much on a bang but a whimper....the last day is always a bit of a non-event for me. Whatever you plane there is always the spectre of having to be at Heathrow on time....packing, checking documents etc and getting there on time.
In the morning we did manage to check out the V&A as mentioned way back....and buy a few more bits and bobs to take home, in fact we even made another quick visit to Harrods.
I should say that I really liked my little hotel. The location is really convenient and local facilities are good – especially if you are Thai. The staff were very helpful and pleasant...I can't say a lot more than that as we didn't really test them – I find that you only discover a hotel's true metal when you have a serious problem to solve or a complaint – neither of which applied in our case.
Packing and checking out done we dragged our bags up to Earls Court tube and took the lift down to the Piccadilly line, from there it was a direct line straight to Heathrow, we arrived with plenty of (too much) and still failed to get a good seat on the plane (if there are 2 of you, try and get seats right at the rear, they are in rows of 2 and have a lot of space round them.
Deathrow is not my favourite place – straining at the seems, loaded to bursting capacity – I admire the ability of those that work there to keep it running despite the enormous volume of traffic. The departure area is pretty dismal and uncomfortable and as everywhere, tax free shopping just seems to be an opportunity for the shops to make more money per item by increasing their prices to the point where they are almost the same as tax included.
One bright spot - There's a good bagel stall there – salmon and sour-cream – brought back memories of my days in Golders Green.
I had mixed feelings about leaving, I'd had a good time but really would be glad to get som warm weather and a good plate of “Laab Moo, sai Dtap”. My friend was positively excites at the prospect of going home.........nearly three weeks in England for you first time EVER out of your home country is quite an endurance test....
“Come again?”
“Maybe next year...or two or three”
Dec 19th, 2009, 04:32 AM
#74
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for anyone interested I'm writing an account of a road trip in Thailand with my psychoanalyst..............
http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...f-thailand.cfm
http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...f-thailand.cfm
Jan 13th, 2010, 02:08 PM
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khunwilko: An excellent review of your travels in the UK, especially Plymouth. It is the city where I spent the first 21 years of my life and experienced the Blitz too. I will be visiting there (with my London husband who thinks everyone born South of the Thames is a Country yokel)in May. The last time I visited was 30 years ago, so I will indeed see a change! When I left all those Summers ago, I think the weather was exactly the same as you experienced. Good old wet, chilly, windy Plymouth Hoe! Of course the first thing I will do is find a Pasty shop (even my husband loves pasties) Ivor Dewdney, here we come!
Incidentally, if you think Heathrow is dreadful - come and visit Los Angeles. It must be the worst International airport in the world.
We also buy pounds of good, strong, British tea (loose of course, not bags)to bring back to L.A. And, anyone that visits us must bring an extra duffle bag filled with tea. Our American friends call it "the British Penicillin" meaning everything can be cured with a "good cuppa tea"
Incidentally, if you think Heathrow is dreadful - come and visit Los Angeles. It must be the worst International airport in the world.
We also buy pounds of good, strong, British tea (loose of course, not bags)to bring back to L.A. And, anyone that visits us must bring an extra duffle bag filled with tea. Our American friends call it "the British Penicillin" meaning everything can be cured with a "good cuppa tea"
