Weekend in Glastonbury

To get to Glastonbury we had to take the train to Bristol and then a bus to Wells and Glastonbury. Quite the journey! It took half the day, mainly because we stopped a couple of hours in Bristol so The Boy could meet a friend there – the actual travel time wasn’t that bad. And we got to see more of the countryside, which was nice 🙂

 

Although I don’t quite understand why people have made these huge white horses on the hillsides… They should be hedgehogs!

The first day we didn’t do much. Some laundry and relaxing at the hotel for a while. Our hotel was actually a whole apartment, with a kitchen and everything. Very new and fancy, and right in the middle of town 🙂

We went out for dinner later, had a really tall burger at a place that had Gollum painted on the wall and a cat sneaking around under the tables.

Then we went up on a hill to see the tree that Joseph of Arimathea supposedly planted when he came to England two thousand years ago.

There wasn’t much left of the poor tree, which has been chopped down a couple of times, but saved because someone had the foresight to take saplings from it. These have been replanted, but it seemed pretty much dead to me. Stupid people vandalizing things…

Saturday morning we were up early and walked up to the tower on the tor (which you can also see in the background in the photo above).

The view of the area was great, you could see for miles and miles. So flat!

On the way back down to town we visited Chalice Well Gardens, a really pretty garden that’s famous for some springs and some famous people that used to hang there. So many pretty flowers and bugs! I found bumblebees and dragonflies and butterflies and hoverflies and oh my 🙂

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at an old farm that is now a museum. Soup is good food 🙂

There were some cool chickens in the yard, but they were a bit too shy to come say hello…

 

The rest of the day was spent browsing through a few shops that were still open, and then just wandering around town, which is really quite small, taking pictures of critters and things.

Phone booth full of plushies (no hedgehogs that we could see)…

Tower thingy in the middle of the town square.

Sunday was shopping day. Time to buy all the things we’d looked at the day before. A few more Christmas presents done 😀 We went by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, where King Arthur was said to have been buried (turned out they were just making it up). The garden around there was nice, and there were lots and lots of dragonflies darting around. Too quick for me to catch, though 😦

We ended our stay in Glastonbury with two concerts, at something called the Glastonbury Extravaganza, which is held every year. This was not like any concert I’ve even been to before, this was a very laid-back affair. People brought lawnchairs and blankets, there was even a few barbeques, and there was no control of bags or anything. Totally relaxed and friendly 🙂

 

The first band, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, was unknown to us (although we’d heard one of their songs before, Make Me Smile). We really came to see the second band, which was Bryan Ferry doing some jazz stuff. Very cool. The Boy was very excited, but I don’t think The Girl knew any of the songs from before…

After the concerts the event was ended with fireworks, which was really fun because it was so close. I’ve only seen fireworks from a distance before. This time we almost got hit by falling remains 😛

Next morning we hopped on the bus to Bristol and then the train directly back to London, where we made one last pitstop and had dinner, before we headed for the airport.

As usual, the plane was delayed, and there was a slight mix-up with the gates, but now we’re finally in the air. On our way home! Will be good to get back to the rest of the family. I’m sure Hedgie and Red-Nose will keep the other kids awake for days with all the stories from this trip 🙂

Bye bye, England! We’ll be back 😀

A day in Salisbury

Early in the morning yesterday, right after breakfast we took a train from London to Salisbury. The kids really enjoyed the ride, it was fun seeing a bit of the English countryside, even though it passed by a bit too fast sometimes 🙂

We arrived too early to check in to the hotel, so we just left our bags there and hopped on a tour bus to Stonehenge. Woo 🙂

Hey, we’re henge-hogs! 😛

After that we went to Old Sarum, an old fort on a hill just outside the city, the different parts built by many different people many years ago. The palace was build by King Henry I. Yes, I could see myself living there 😀 A roof would be nice, though…

At the end of the tour we visited Salisbury cathedral, which was very cool. Huge!

For some reason we were supposed to look for Mrs. Montacute’s poor son, who was lost….

But we found him 😀

There was even time for a bit of shopping before the stores closed, and we got a few Christmas presents done before dinner. The Boy had the biggest steak I’ve ever seen!

And a grasshopper for dessert… Yum!

We then dropped our things off at the hotel before we hit town. The kids aren’t old enough for this sort of stuff yet, so this time it was just me.

The staff thought I was cool, and for some reason they even gave me a bowl of water… Perhaps they thought I’d had enough beer? Heh.

It’s now Friday morning, and we did actually manage to get up early, despite last night’s escapades… Right now we’re having breakfast, and are pretty much ready to hit the road again. The Boy is having a vegetarian version of English breakfast, with some sort of veggie sausauge (looks very odd), and The Girl has pancakes (actually, just one) with syrup and strawberries.

Looks very fancy and all, but I think I prefer grasshoppers…

Three days in London

After no more than two days home from the summer holiday we were off again! We were following parts of The Boy’s travel route from two years ago, first to London, then Salisbury and Glastonbury, before going back to London to catch the plane home.

Hedgie wanted to come along since he comes from Glastonbury and wanted to show us where he grew up 🙂 Then Red-Nose wanted to keep Hedgie company, so she tagged along too. Here we are all on the plane, super excited to see a little more of the world:

Our hotel was quite cool. A nice little place with a tiny breakfast hall in the basement. We also got the only room in the basement, so we didn’t have to walk far for breakfast 🙂

Ready to hit the streets of London!

After unpacking a bit, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where the waiter said I was cute 😀 Lots of tips for him!

Since the plain to London was almost two hours late, we didn’t have time for all the things we’d planned on Monday. We wanted to visit the Tower of London, but this is as close as I got:

This was the start of a Ripper walk we did, where we were guided around following in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. At the end of the walk we rested our feet at The Ten Bells, one of the pubs where Jack probably picked up at least one of his victims. Creepy!

Supposedly these tiles are the originals from a hundred years ago…

Tuesday we were up early and walked through Hyde Park on our way to the museums. I said hello to a swan family, some ducks and a coot. They were so cute!

I went to the Natural History Museum with The Girl, while The Boy went off to do his thing (a David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Hall right next door). We’d planned to finish somewhat early and do something else after, but somehow we managed to spend all day in these places. Seven hours looking at dinosaurs and creepy crawlies! Best day ever 😀

Me and Dippy!

Teeth!

And guess what… I’ve actually met Kraken! How cool is that 😀 You know, the huge giant squid in the basement of the museum, in a great big glass tank full of alcohol. So awesome 🙂 Here she is, all 8.6 meters of squiddiness:

The Kraken and I 🙂

Wednesday was a bit of a slow day, because we were pretty tired from the two days before. First we visited Museum of London, where we looked at Stone Age and Ancient Roman stuff from the area around London. Pretty cool 🙂 You could try living in a really old house, or try on some fancy old clothes:

And for some reason there was a Dalek:

Next up was British Museum, but since it was a hot day, we needed a little ice cream break before we went in:

We were so tired that we didn’t even get halfway through the museum. We just looked at most of the Ancient Egyptian stuff, and a bit of Assyrian.

The Rosetta stone!

Assyrian sphinx. Awesome 🙂

Then we headed for the gift shop and almost didn’t buy anything, and left the museum. Exhausting!

This was our last day in London, so now it was finally time to relax. After the museums we wandered around Soho for a few hours, rested for a while at a Starbucks and stopped by the biggest bookstore you could imagine (where The Girl went mad and bought a ton of bug books, woo!), before we finally stopped to have dinner at a very fancy Lebanese restaurant. Turned out we should have reserved a table, because the table we got was tiny, and apparently someone was hungry…

I’ve never seen so much food on one table! But can you believe they finished almost all of it? We were practically rolling back to the hotel 😛

So now we’ve packed and are ready for bed, we’ve got to get up early to catch the train to Salisbury tomorrow morning. Can’t wait!

Celebrating Lucia

Christmas is right around the corner, and tonight my family and I celebrated St. Lucia. Usually one makes weirdly shaped saffron buns with raisins (which are very very tasty), but this year we didn’t have time for baking…

We did have time to dress up, with real candles and everything! It was a little bit scary at first, but The Girl had it all under control, and the candles were only lit for a few seconds while photos were taken. The boys are still wearing their fancy hats 🙂

Hope you’ve all had a wonderful day, whatever you may celebrate, and hope you find some time to relax in the middle of Christmas shopping and decorating 🙂

Reunion and family expansion

Glyptodon and I came home from our summer holiday to find that the family had expanded during the summer. What a fantastic surprise!

Believe it or not, this little guy has come all the way from England! He followed The Boy home from his holiday trip. We call him Hedgie, because he’s English. Very posh, too, I suspect. Only drinks tea and wants scones for breakfast.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but the family will never grow too big. More hedgehogs in the world!