England 2006
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The Balettie Bunch invade England!
More pictures can be found here in our England 2006 photo gallery.
UK 2006 - Day 8 (and 9): Triple HPart
14 (and last part!!) of the England 2006 trip
report:
The "Triple H" in the title of
this journal refers to "Heritage, Horses, and
Home"...
After the scary and very
draining events of the previous night (see "The
steps of DOOM!!!"), we're all pretty wiped out
until at least noon (Mark and I didn't even get
back to John and Marianne's until almost
6am!!!).
But... as this is our "last day
in England", John has organized a couple of
quick things for us. After a quick run back over
to Julian and Jenny's to shower and change and
check on the progress of our very sore *but
alive* friend, we return to Oakleigh
House.
Jenny is taking Kathy and Melanie
to an English horse jumping show where Bill, the
"next door" neighbor who owns the equestrian
team, is performing. Mark is taking Andrew and
me to the British Motor Heritage
Museum!
While I actually do have a few
shots that Melanie took at the horse show,
unfortunately, I haven't uploaded them yet... so
you'll just have to use your imagination... and
this expert Artist's Rendition of Kathy and Mel
enjoying the show:
Meanwhile... Andrew and I had
a great time, although we were on a very short
timeframe as the Museum was closing soon!
But...
some of the great stuff we saw... an
Aston-Martin LeMans racer:
... another beautiful
Aston-Martin:
... some of the,
literally, hundreds of examples of British motor
history:
... a very interesting
WWII tracked version of an old Land Rover:
... a *slick* looking MG
concept car:
Since I drive a Land Rover Freelander myself,
this one really caught my eye. It was the first
Freelander off the British assembly line, and it
was signed by all of the factory workers:
It was finally time to
leave the Museum... Andrew wanted to drive
home:
He was disappointed when
he couldn't take it home as a "door prize".
On our
way back to Oakleigh House, Mark, Andrew, and I
stop at a great chip shop and get some
*reallllllllly* excellent fish-and-chips --
served properly in the paper with plenty of salt
and malt vinegar! Wow, that was
good!!!!
We meet back up and pick Julian
up for a last night's Indian food dinner... he's
on enough pain medication where he can actually
sit up for a little while!!!! After that, it's
back to Woodland Cottage to pack things up and
get to bed on our last full day in
England.
The last of the three "H's" has
finally come... it's time to go Home. We load up
the van and Jenny drives us down to Heathrow. We
board our 747 and make our way home to Round
Rock, knowing that we've all had an incredible
experience as a family that we'll never
forget.
Hopefully, you've enjoyed these
rather long-winded (and heavily picture-laden)
journals. Even with my ramblings and photos, it
can't describe the beauty of the country or the
importance of doing this with family and
friends.
If you ever get the chance to go
to England... do the London touristy thing, of
course... but then get out to the countryside.
That's where "real England' is.
Thanks
for reading... Cheers... and SPOT ON!!!!
That's it for this round... return to the main England Adventures page!
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