Macdonald De Montfort Hotel Kenilworth

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.

... at Brinklow, where we added a bullfinch to our list. On the Saturday we returned to Brownsover where we had arranged to meet long standing friends David and Frances Hawkey, who now live in Coventry. James had first met them properly in Bombay in 1971. It was good to introduce them to Maggie and Clive. Maggie had not seen them since our wedding in 1975. The Isambard incident. While we were chatting, the boat opposite, Isambard ...

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Took us a couple of hours and we got the audio tour included in the price which made it very interesting. It is a ruined castle and huge. It used to have a moat and lake around it. The Norman Keep is huge and walls were 8' thick. We saw the kitchen with huge fireplaces and bread ovens. Robert ...

... rolls from a French patisserie for lunch. We got back to Stratford about 3 pm and read a book for a few hours. We went to the "Dirty Duck", a Black Swan pub for dinner. Had a great day – love walking the public footpaths and plan to do lots more in the future.

... come home.






We walked around Holy Trinity Church looking for Shakespeare's grave. Didn’t find it, but had fun reading the headstones. Found out later that it is inside the church. Bought some duck food for 50p ($1.15) and fed all the swans, ducks and geese.






Then into the info centre and booked our ...

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All the way home we looked for a bakery to buy some sausage rolls for lunch but couldn’t find any. We had a late lunch when we got home at 3.45 pm. Tonight for dinner we bought Indian from Tesco’s Supermarket and heated it up. Really no cooking and so nice.

... picked us up and we went food shopping for dinner. Had a piece of pork and egg pie. Stephen cooked us duck with orange sauce and veggies. We put the dinner on and walked around to his local "The West End" and sat by the fire and had a drink. After our delicious dinner we watched a DVD – “Nanny McPhee” which was fun.

... and ducks and beautiful big old trees and willows, past the Shakespeare Theatre up to the locks and then into town past lovely stores, pubs, Shakespeare's birthplace and lovely Tudor buildings .










We stopped at the Crabtree & Evelyn Tearoom for a hot drink. Tried a warm apple juice with cinnamon – bit ...

... Mews. They have a lovely one bedroom upstairs apartment. Nathan and I sleep on a blow-up bed behind the map divider in the lounge. The map divider is great – wallpaper of the map of the world. Makes you want to explore the world. Had a dinner of Roast Chicken and veggies – all premade and just heated up. So yummy! In bed asleep by 8 pm UK time – 12 midnight Dubai time.

... know and knew that it was important and appreciated, as we all did. Roger would certainly have appreciated the night we enjoyed and laughed at how we fell and where we slept! It was a new and strange feeling, because we were amongst friends we trust and whose company we always enjoy, and yet there was a bitter glee of schaudenfreude in the embarrassment of people asking in the bars if we were dressed as the ...