August 22-23
Chalfont St. Giles and Wendover
Catherine was kind enough to take us sightseeing at Windsor Castle. We went all over the castle except actually into the castle itself. Both Jon and Catherine had been in before and I didn't feel like spending the money for admission and assured Catherine and Jon that I didn't have a burning desire to see the castle knowing that I would return one day and that this wasn't the last time I would be visiting England. What we ended up doing was walking around looking in shops. Jon bought a fabulous Aran knit sweater. Afterwards we went to the Windsor Farms store which is not far from the castle. It sells goods from the castle gardens (Duchy) and surrounding, worthy, farms. It was just a small shop but it was cool all the same. We bought some "Windsor Farms" bottled water and funnily enough, it tasted like all the other water we've been drinking. Oh, yeah we also drove past Ozzy Osbourne's house and got to see the outside of the closed gate and his security guard. Ozzy and Pam live practicially next door to each other.
We had a date for dinner at the Prescott's at 6pm. Jon's mom had send us on the hunt to find them which turned out to be pretty easy once Catherine whipped out the telephone book a couple days ago. Jon called in the evening and I'm sure he surprised Anne. Unfortunately, since we were only going to be in the area for another couple days it didn't give them much time to plan to see us.
Luckily for us though we were able to agree on dinner Wednesday so we spent the day packing and getting another box ready to sent home of things we wouldn't need for the rest of the trip or to have my family bring for us to Korea at the end of September. Catherine was a great help and it turned into a challenge to see how clever one could be in fitting all of our things into one box. Catherine was stuffing gloves into water bottles, Jon was compressing bags and folding clothes so tightly and intricately I was waiting for him to hold up a shirt folded into a crane the way he was going at it! Pam and I watched on in amusement but they did it and our box was ready to be mailed the next day on the way to the train station to Rory's. We went to the village, of Wendover, a little early. Catherine had never been and of course, neither had we. We did do a drive by of the Prescott's home to make sure we knew how to get there once Catherine dropped us off. I had just recently read that Wendover was fast becoming one of the more popular places for Londoners to move to in order to 'get away from the city' and it also was world famous for its chocolate!
The village was indeed very quaint and after a little look around we went into the village pub for a drink and chatted until Catherine had to go and we had to make our date. As we walked up the front walk and were about to knock on the door we heard Mr. Prescott calling to us and came from the side of the house where they use the side door to enter and exit their beautiful home rather than the front of the house. Mr. Prescott was the only one home at the time as Mrs. Prescott had gone to pick up their youngest son - Mark at work (he's a nurse working in the ER - I'm telling you - nurses are everywhere!!!!). We got a tour of their historical home which we really enjoyed. We were offered drinks and I was lucky enough to sample a local brew which was fabulous and whose name I've already forgotten, unfortunately. Mark and Mrs. Prescott came back shortly and there were (re)introductions all around. Laura, her adorable son Toby and significant other Mark arrived next and we chatted before retiring to the front room with our drinks (oh, Jon had red wine). At this time Mr. Prescott asked if we would like to see his garden. Semi retired now he's able to spend more time in the garden and you can tell because it's amazing. Even the garden has a long history. The fruit trees have been their for decades. I asked a lot of questions about the fruits and veggies while Jon's questions were more around landscaping - the latest project was a mediterranean garden off to the side but in the front of the house. There was also a pond which they had placed years ago that had grown in really nicely.
When we returned inside, dinner was set and ready. What an amazing meal. It reminded us of a holiday meal with all the good food and family around. Fiona and her son had arrived while we were admiring the garden.
We had so much good food - a shrimp cocktail salad, good bread, homemade lasagna, veggies, potato salad and coleslaw. I was sitting next to Mark and we talked shop. Like they are back home, his facility is hiring a lot of agency and travel nurses and as a manager it's understabley a little nerve racking when you're working with new people with questionable experience but when you're short staffed a warm body (with or without experience) is better than no body. I talked to him about becoming a travel nurse which it sounds like he's been considering. He's every agency's dream come true with his ER and mangement experience. By the end of the night Jon and I were trying to talk him into getting his license so he could practice in the States and come visit us!
We stayed at the Prescott's probably far later than we should have - what an amazing family! It's a shame we couldn't have spent more time with them - we would have liked that. Ah well, we'll just have to travel back to the area again!
