August 21 - Monday
Twynings to Chalfont St. Giles via Stratford-upon-Avon
We were up and packing and repacking trying to get things organized and consolidated as much as possible. We had gotten things down to the backpack, two and a half small bags, and two large bags - it was still a lot to carry. Not so much in weight as it was in cumbersome-ness. Adrienne joined us for breakfast and we had the most tastey lemon-lime marmalade. Marmalade of any sort has never been my first choice for spreads on my toast but I thought if it was going to be good I was in the right country for it. It was really good and I hope to recreate it (with a little Sherry twist, of course) when I get home. We left at about the planned on departure time of 1015 for Evesham to catch a bus to Stratford-upon-Avon ฃ3.70 each was the bus fare. The sun had come out and we chatted with Adrienne until the bus came and then it was hugs all around as we wished each other well. As we rode away Jon and I both agreed it felt like we were leaving family. It's not very often that you enter a person's life and get along with them as if you've known each other for years. I felt as welcomed as if she had known me as long as she had know the rest of the Phay family. We felt bad about not making a more official goodbye with Adrienne's daughter, Allison, and her family but hope to keep in touch with her, Martin and the boys too. We were quiet for a lot of the trip, a little bummed about leaving. We both agree that there will be a severe culture shock when we arrive in Bangkok. It will be so completely different from what we've been experiencing here in England lately - namely, the beautiful, serene countryside.
The rain really started to come down and we were glad to be inside the bus rather than outside the bus worrying about getting splashed by the bus which would have happened if we were on our bikes!
We arrived in Stratford upon Avon in the afternoon and our first priority was finding a large bag we could consolidate our bike bags into and would also use while in Thailand and until we got our backpacks from my parents when we met in Korea at the end of September. We started looking in all the area charity shops/second hand stores but they didn't have anything large enough so we started for looking for bags on sale. At one point we were referred to the Argos store which is a store with counters with catalogs on them, you look through the catalog for the item you want, write down the inventory number, pay for the item at the cash register and they pull the item from their inventory. It's kind of like catalog shopping without having to wait for the item to come in the mail. Once our number was called we took our new dufflebag on wheels out of its packaging and starting transferring the bike bag contents into the new bag. Everything fit and we were left with one large bike bag to hold all of the other bike bags and the backpack so we were pretty pleased. That being done we were both really hungry as it was long past lunch time. At first we were looking for a caf้, wanting to sit down for a spell, then Jon spotted a Christmas store so all plans for eating stopped while I made a beeline for the entrance and I left Jon sitting in front of the building where Shakespeare was born.
There was Christmas music playing and that Christmas smelling potpourri in the air - magic! I walked around and bought some ornaments from Great Britain, Scotland and Wales. I even bought the last minute golfing Santa for Jon who I knew really wouldn't care less but I used it as an acceptable excuse. When I walked out of the store with my bag, Jon just shook his head at me. I showed him the new treasures I had just purchased and just as I suspected, he really wasn't that interested at all. We continued on. The weather was cloudy one minute and warm and sunny the next. We decided to go for the pasty for lunch as we had not had one yet. Jon got the bacon and leek having gotten hooked on leeks after our fabulous Sunday lunch with Adrienne the day before and I had the cheese and onion both were tastey.
We had arranged to meet Catherine and her dad, Tony, near the Royal Shakespeare theater at 1500. We were there a little early and found some cover just as the raindrops began to fall. Once we met up the four of us trooped over to Marks and Spencers for coffee, tea and conversation about alternative building methods. Tony had studied the subject so Jon and I were picking his brain for anything we might be able to use to aid in building our own house and bounce ideas off of him regarding some of our own ideas we'd had or come up with since our time at CAT. It was great and time past all too quickly as we had to leave and go our separate ways agreeing to keep in touch as our project started and progressed. Tony was a great help and we were lucky that Catherine was able to get all of us together.
We arrived back at Chalfont St. Giles around 7pm and Pam was fixing another one of her delicious dinners. It was like coming home, it was really good to see both Pam and Catherine again and we told them as much. We took our bags back up to the room we occupied last time we visited and went back downstairs to bring them up to date on where we've been.
I was fading fast after dinner. Catherine offered to take us site seeing the next day. She suggested Oxford or Windsor. Jon thought Windsor would be good so we agreed on that and I had to call it a night. Jon stayed up chatting with Pam.
