Arena Hotel Coventry

With time rapidly dwindling I went down to Banbury way this afternoon to visit my brother et famille before I leave, taking the opportunity to say goobye to two young nephews - one of whom was able to appreciate some of the implications of what I am doing, "But what if you get sick?" he asked. :-)

Back up to Stoke in the late evening. Last day of preparations tomorrow.

... nearly midnight so we had to kick out the boys as its bad luck to see the bride on the morning of the wedding!!! we shared more drinks and laughter (so much for my early night!) and then had to eat chocolate cake and sing happy birthday to Mark after midnight had arrived. I crawled into bed about 1am, excited but very nervous! No idea what neil did after that point, probably drank lots more beer, hopefully before getting some sleep! tomorrow was going to be the biggest day of our lives!

... open in like 2 weeks and have a lot to do still but it was awesome!! Coolest place I have ever seen. I'll try and take some pictures but they won't do it justice while I'm here, I have some people sending me pictures from the opening after I leave. May seem similar to Vegas but i've never been to Vegas. Anyway, here I am at 12:45 writing about it before bed cuz we just finished the tour. Gotta work at 11 so better scoot to bed. Cheers!

... a walk and also cutting the orange for the walkers and offering water. He talked to all the walkers, checking them out and was there to help. The walkers themselves come from different age groups. As John mentioned, anyone is free to join the walk. There is a family with one little girl, a retired man or a retired teacher or an active employee. We don't know each other before, but we have a chance to chat and I believe everyone felt ...

... over the castle that Nathan couldn’t even hold the audio controller any more. Our feet and hands were numb by the time we got into the car.










We went home for lunch of a pastie and eccles cake and then drove out to the Castle Inn at Edgehill where Stephen and Michele used ...

Stephen drove us to Chipping Campden (20 min. away) for our 4 hour walk. It was bitterly cold as a wind was blowing but the sun was out. It was a lovely village and had a lovely open stone market hall from 1627 with an uneven stone floor.









We ...

... back to the river. We went and did a brass rubbing for 7 pounds 50p ($17) of the Earl of Warwick from 1406. We were so cold when we got home that I had to put my feet on the central heating pipes for ages. Called Lavinia in London and arranged to have dinner Monday night. Went to the local for a drink and then home for Coq au Vin.

... another pretty little Cotswold village with a stream, pub and a trout farm. We had a map with directions and they were very bad directions, because we got lost from box 1 and ended up doing the walk back to front and totally wrong sections. It snowed the whole time and was wet snow so after a couple of ...

... and river and beautiful country on the other. It was started in 1068 by William the Conqueror. It was owned until 1978 by the Earls of Warwick and then bought the Tussaud Group. We walked over the drawbridge and explored first in the towers of the Gatehouse and Barbican. They had 2 port cullis to lower to keep people out and if they trapped people ...

Woke up 3 am and dozed until 6am and then got up. Nathan slept until 8 am. Michele made us all porridge for breakfast. This morning we did a 2 hour walk around Stratford with Stephen. We went to Holy Trinity church where Shakespeare was baptised and buried. We had a look inside and read some of the old tombstones. We walked along the river and saw swans and ...