Livy's Adventures

Stood on Nelson’s HMS Victory in Portsmouth today. Such a good day on the harbour and by the seaside. Ticket to see the HMSes and their museums and have a harbour tour was quite good value. I pretended I was in Hornblower...truth be told that I was Hornblower (main reason i wanted to go on the ship in the first place!) pretty cool display inside. Went to Winchester and bought a postcard of Jane Austen's tomb because was too expensive to go in, haha, then went to Stonehenge. We were surprised that it closes long before sunset. Otherwise it’s crazily eerie and fascinating. So ancient and mysterious. The whole countryside is filled with random mounds connected to the Prehistoric sites. We joked that while it costs like 6 pounds to see Stonehenge Farmer Dave charges 2 pounds plus a cup of tea for people to come onto his farms and see his mounds. The countryside is beautiful. It's Australian (Victoria/Tasmania) countryside but not. The birds are Australian sparrows and such but not, Australian swans but not! It's so interesting sociologically as well, the way that our cultures are so significantly connected yet so different. For dinner we found a cuuuuuuute little village away from the road. So many cute little cillages. This one is called Wishford (next to where we’re staying – another cute little village called Stoford with the Swan Inn that’s been really good). Pounds are craaazy - everything seems so much cheaper, haha, but it’s obviously not half price! We hired a car which is awesome, we hired a satnav that we called Gladys, she's Irish and creepy until you get to know her. We love her. She’s our saviour. The Lonely Planet is our bible, Tomorrow we're going to Salisbury. Cathedral there is supposed to be super hot chickens. I asked May if she wanted me to sing Peter Gabriel's infamous hit Salisbury Hill - just to refresh your memory...'Climbin' upon Salisbury Hill, do do do di do, I could see the city lights, do do do di do, something something time stood still, do do do di do, saw an eagle take to flight, do do do di do' - but she said she'd be right if i didn't. Fortunately we have lots of Farnsy and Bon Jovi to suffice. After Salisbury we’re on to Bath because of its living Roman architecture and relevance plus its high feature in Jane Austen novels. It’s the site of the recently ended JA festival that we thought might be a little bit crazy so best to avoid - by crazy i mean creepy people dressing up in 19th century clothing pretending to be JA characters.