Well, we chose to visit Britain during its wettest summer on record! The south of England has flooded twice, and the Thames River has burst its banks in Oxford. We were in Paris when that happened, and fortunately had only one day of rain when we were there. That was the day that Susan and Dan decided to go to Euro-Disney! As I write this, the rain is bucketing down. This weather is a major contrast with my last sojourn to Britain in the summer of 1976, when there was a record drought, with fairly constant temperatures of about 35 degrees, and all the grass was the colour of straw.
We have had no major disasters, and I hope it continues that way, since we fly back to Australia tomorrow (Sunday 29th). I left the mobile phone I bought in Edinburg on the Sandown Bay bus here in the Isle of Wight, and although I reported it within 20 minutes, it was never found. Also, we lost all our photos of Paris due to a faulty memory card in the camera. I am definitely not a fan of high technology.
These have been the highlights of our trip for me:
Shanklin. We are about 10 metres from the beach. There is a great British holiday atmosphere here on the Esplanade (despite the weather). It is very relaxed. Everything is close and the scenery is very pretty.
- The Isle of Wight as a whole is at least as pretty as anywhere else we visited in Britain/Ireland.
- Hong Kong. We stayed 3 nights there on our way to Britain. Very noisy, busy and safe. Everyone is occupied and has a good standard of living thanks to government policies. The harbour lights looked like fairyland when we landed at night.
- Visit to Littlehampton (where I was born). I was able to meet up with some of my relatives and my mother’s best friend’s daughter and her family. I also retraced my steps in Littlehampton and Wick (the suburb where I lived) and took photos of everything. Some areas are a bit run-down and overgrown with weeds, and the central shopping area appears smaller. The alleyways around the back of our old house were black gravel when I was growing up; in 1976 they had been bitumenised over; now they are pale grey rubble. We had a lovely welcome at the comfortable and cosy Victoria Hotel in New Road where we stayed.
- Boat trip around the Thames in London. Although London is greatly over-rated and quite ugly, as monstrosities of buildings have been allowed to be built next to historical ones, the boat trip was good because of all the historical scenery and the commentary by the cockney guide.
- Edinburg is an attractive and friendly city with unspoilt Georgian (I think) architecture, and a magnificent view from the hill. It was COLD!
- The Welsh Countryside. We did not spend long in Wales, but I would like to go there again. The Welsh accent is my favourite.
- Paris is very pretty and well-organised, but you have to be young and fit to live there, which most Parisians seem to be, probably from all the steps they have to climb up and down in the Metro stations. They also like you to speak French, which also gives you mental exercise.
- Places I could live: Shanklin, Edinburg (with central heating), Belfast, Cherbourg.
A couple of comments: Nearly everywhere in Britain the homes are within walking distance of shops and community areas, reducing the need for cars. There are very few large shopping centres as we know them in Perth. In Perth we are spoilt for shopping. However, shops here are often open until late in the evening. Unfortunately, I must also say that I felt safer walking out at night everywhere we visited than I would walking down Stafford Road, Kenwick at night. Now it is Dan’s turn to comment:
Hi every body there might be a few speeling mistakes that’s because its midnight I am sopostto tell yall aboot disnepworldland now I start with a statement it was bliss I went on thr33 rollercoasters and there did backflips and loop d loops and they were soooo fast but all the picures gfot deleated so,me how and they had a parade it was awesome.
OK!! Well that seems to be it from us for now.
