only a night in london after arriving from sunny/warm alicante.... needless to say London was far from sunny/warm....rick picked us up form the heathrow which was very kind of him. Great indian feed in tooting for a pitance (relative to london prices anyway).
Martin was over from melbourne for a conference...he picked us up from ricks' the next morning and we trucked up to Quorn to visit Jane (his mum/clare´s grandmother)...
Quorn
Great to see Martin and Jane, Quorn is a beatiful little village. Spent two nights here, Jane cooked a magnificant casserole and 4 veg on our first night (she isn´t doing too badly for 89!!!!).
Did a couple of walks through the woods out the back of Janes place.... visited Curzon´s mansion (former viceroy of india)...pretty impessive....
Special dinner out at the Gray Lady (?) for our second night... had a couple of games of scrabble, lots of tea and chats....very nice relaxing time...
onto london for a night
dropped into Ronnie Jane and Patrick´s (friends of Martin´s) for a wonderful lunch and a couple of wines...they have a beautifull house in the country and it was really great to meet/catch up with them...
being the social butterflies that we are, the three aussie amigos had a dinner date in london with Dick (old uni mate of martin's) who kindly put us all up for the night also. Great indian feed and a few laughs.
Said fairwell to Martin the next morning, brief but really nice to see him for the weekend. Squeezed in a visit to the tate modern with our backpacks, before getting a train (and bumping into a melbourne friend) from waterloo station).
down south
Back to sissinghurst to catch up with Penny, Toms and the two pooches. Great to see everyone. Took a nice long walk with Penny and the dogs during the afternoon. Yummy beef and mushroom pudding for dinner (very english) washed down with a quite few montepulciano reds (for tom and mark anyway).
then to Eastbourne...
Penny drove us down and we met John (clare´s grandpa) and millie for an old fashioned pub lunch. Eastbourne is a beautfull seaside town and we stayed at John´s for two nights. Went for a walk along the downs with Penny before saying goodbye to her and the dogs.
Cooked a joint of lamb for our second lunch... with all the trimmings. Plenty of games of scrabble, an excursion down to the pier and centre of town...very lucky to be able to catch with John.
brighton on the way back up north...
Little detour to check out brightown before heading back to london. little stroll around town, then onto our super cheap MEGA BUS!!!!
london, one more time
just an abbreviated entry, we had a great week here...words just can´t capture....
da people
- eric (stayed at his joint, picked us up from the airport...the perfect host).
- jimi, adam and adam (rick´s housemates).
- katie (also from adelaide).
- jess.
- ella and tom (clare´s mates)
- james g and trin a (mark´s mates)
- brian and john (travel buddies from tibet).
stuff we saw
- tate modern
- buckingham palace
- brixton market
- camden market
- burrough market
- tooting
- natural history museum
- british museum
- victoria & albert museum
- primrose hill
- couple of pubs (hollybush in hampstead a notable specimen).
More thumbnails ...
14 votes 
This is a top pick!
