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England 2023
  • Sarah McCabe
  • Sarah McCabe

England 2023

A 14-day adventure by Sarah Read more
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  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Lyme Regis

    November 22, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F

    A bunch of us went to see another little seaside town, Lyme Regis. This town is known for many fossils that people have been digging up for a couple of hundred years.

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    More modern miracles

    November 22, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F

    I spotted this very cool faucet in a public bathroom. When you put your hands under the center point you get water and when you move them to the sides, you get air to dry them.

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Thanksgiving dinner

    November 22, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 54 °F

    After we got home, Doug got seriously to work in the kitchen on our Thanksgiving dinner of duck and trout and pre-dinner whiskey sours. It was a tremendous feast.

    There was a beautiful sunset, but we only captured the tail end of itRead more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Ambulance and A&E

    November 23, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    So there was evidently quite a bit excitement in the wee hours that most people (Russell and myself included) slept blissfully through. Joanna was in the central courtyard late at night for a cigarette and somehow lost her balance and hit her head.

    Fortunately Judith knew she was outside and went looking for before too long.

    Also fortunately, Linda (who was a nurse) insisted on Joanna getting checked out at the hospital.

    Unfortunately that did mean waiting 4 hours for the ambulance and then another few hours at the hospital for the doctors to come in to work at the A&E (Accident and Emergency, or, as we call it, ER) but they glued Joanna's head back together and scanned her brain and she was home within 12 hours of her fall

    I have read enough manor house mysteries that I have to ask: did she fall or was she pushed???    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Traditional Cream Tea

    November 23, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌬 50 °F

    After Joanna (and Judith) returned from a sleepless night at the A&E, and got settled in for a well needed nap, the rest of us headed off for a traditional Devonshire Cream Tea.

    This is probably the most fancy version of Afternoon Tea that the English do. Ironically, High Tea is not a very fancy meal at all (despite what Americans think). The "cream" in the name refers to clotted cream, which I thought, when I have read about this in the past, was something like a very thick whipped cream. It's not. It has a taste and consistency much closer to unsalted butter.

    Anyhow, Devon is known for their clotted cream so we were all excited to try it out. It was a huge amount of food (mini quiches, crustles sandwiches, scones and assortment of little cakes). Plus most of us opted for the option of a glass of champagne. It was a wonderful day and we had plenty of leftover cakes to share with Joanna and Judith.

    The hotel where we had tea was an old mill and had a very medieval ambiance.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Leftovers and packing up

    November 23, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    For our last night we did our level best to eat up the leftovers so that they wouldn't go to waste, since nobody could fit all of that in their home fridge. We did a fairly good job, but I think Joanna's freezer will be overflowing for a while.Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Morning Goodbyes

    November 24, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 48 °F

    The next morning was departure day.  Doug was the first to head out, sometime around 6 am.  The rest of us trickled out until the last of us left just before 10 am.  Russell took the opportunity to take some last photos of the interior of the house.

    Rosie took us and all our luggage and all her birthday balloons in her car.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Journey to London

    November 24, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 45 °F

    Rosie drove us over 3 hours on the dual carriageways and motorways (i.e., divided highways and freeways) to the outskirts of London where we picked up a train. On the way we got to sample the finest in English roadside service areas and got stuck in a giant roundabout that was stuck in gridlock. Good thing I misdirected Rosie so that we got to do the gridlocked roundabout one and a half times instead of just one half.

    The word of the day was affable.

    When we finally boarded the train I did NOT "mind the gap" and managed to do a faceplant right onto the train. Spoiler alert, I did not have any lasting damage to my body or to my eyeglasses, but it did shake me up for a bit.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe
    1

    London Food Tour in Soho

    November 24, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 41 °F

    After we checked into our hotel (Page8 - great location and nice amenities, but we both miss the expansive common areas in the CitizenM) it was soon time to head out for our "Food Tour" of Soho.  It was not exactly what we expected.  It was more a tour of Soho historic sites with some stops for occasional snacks and drinks.  It was Friday night (and Soho is a happening area) but it was just shocking how crowded the streets were.  I'm sure many (most?) of the people were tourists, but still it was striking.  The streets were also decorated for Christmas with lights and other pretty decorations.

    The weather was still dry, but it was much colder than we had experienced so far.  Good thing the tour guide lent Russell his scarf, or Russell would have been miserable.  

    The tour ended around 8 and we both just wanted to go back to the hotel and call it an early night.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Site seeing in the cold

    November 25, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 43 °F

    Once again, the weather was clear and dry.  However, it was still much colder than Russell was prepared for.  So one of our first stops was to find Russell some earmuffs.  Good thing there were places set up for tourists who came to London unprepared.

    Then we wandered about separately for a while.  I checked out some small Christmas markets and wandered about London streets, while Russell visited the National Portrait Gallery.  I ended up window shopping in a pretty ritzy area.  Saw these really good looking men's dress shores.  They were close to $1000, so they better be good looking!  Eventually, we met up again and did some more wandering.

    There was a large peace protest planned, but we tried to avoid the blocked off roads.  We ended up passing another giant blocked off road where they were filming a movie.  They were filming a car stunt while we were there and we got to see one take where a guy is jumping from the top of one moving car to another speeding vehicle.  I could only see the very beginning of the stunt, but it was still fun to see how much effort goes into about 10 seconds of screen time.

    After several hours of wandering around, we headed back to the hotel before heading to our early dinner reservation.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Early dinner at Barbary

    November 25, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 43 °F

    Dinner tonight was at a well reviewed North African restaurant called Barbary. It was so tiny and so popular we could only get a reservation for 3:45 that we decided to treat as an early dinner.

    We didn't recognize most of the dishes on the menu, so we just deferred to the waiter's suggestion. It was all yummy, but I would have no idea what to order if we ever went back.Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Lunch at Bancone and Golden Hinde

    November 26, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    We got up early enough to plan two good meals today. (Why yes, we do spend most of our time meal planning!) The first was lunch at a place called Bancone. The only location we could book was over near the Borough market (our main stomping grounds last week). We decided to walk there on a new route to see parts of London that are new to us.

    On or way there we stopped in a Cathedral that was having Sunday services.

    The food was very good, as was the wine.

    The restaurant was close to the replica of the Golden Hinde, Sir Francis Drake's ship that he used to circumnavigate the globe. After lunch we went aboard. It was remarkable to think of a ship this tiny , carrying about a 100 people, much less crossing the Pacific Ocean with no idea of when they would hit land.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Sightseeing in the rain

    November 26, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 43 °F

    By the time we left the Golden Hinde, it was truly raining.  This is the first time we got to really test out our new raincoats.  Well, I did at least, because I decided to take another walk through the city.  Russell headed over to the Tate Museum of Modern Art.

    I ended up going through the City of London, which is the site of the original Roman settlement, but is now the financial center.  So it was very modern and pretty much deserted on a Sunday afternoon.  

    I eventually made my way to Covent Garden where they had a pretty extensive craft market set up.  Found a few fun things to buy.  The Christmas tree at Covent Garden was a site to behold.  Eventually, Russell met up with me and we both headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Dinner and pickpocket

    November 26, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 46 °F

    Tonight's dinner was more about the ambiance than the food. We had reservations at Brasserie Zedel, which aims for the ambiance of a traditional French brasserie from the Art Deco/Art Nouveau eras.

    The locale was lovely but our mood was soured by the fact that Russell's backpack was picked on the way there. They only got the empty little bag for his raincoat, but still it was unnerving. We did try retracing our steps to see if they dropped it on the ground when they realized it was worthless, but no such luck.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeEngland 2023Sarah McCabe

    Leaving England

    November 27, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 46 °F

    We were notified the night before our departure that our plane was likely to be delayed an hour. In the morning, it still was delayed so we had a relaxed attitude about getting to the airport. Good thing, because it turns out there were some train issues getting there as well. Many trains cancelled, many others delayed.

    We eventually made it with plenty of time for a traditional English pub meal at the airport (steak pie for me, full English breakfast for RQ).

    We are sad to say goodbye to England but are happy we had such a successful trip outside of North America - our first in about 5 years.    Read more

    Trip end
    November 27, 2023
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