Visiting Henry

April 18: Visiting Henry
Today’s adventure was a walk across the river through the huge Bushy Park, to Hampton Court Palace. As some of you may know, Hampton Court was one of the primary residences of Henry VIII and a smattering (in more ways than one) of his wives, and then of Elizabeth I. A generation or two later it became the home of William III.
The weather has turned fair, though it was very windy walking through the park. Bushy Park is literally right across the river from Erik’s flat, so we only had to walk 10 minutes up to the Kingston Bridge and across to enter the park. It is a huge green park in a loop of the Thames, and more than a kilometre either way. It is mostly rough grassland, grazed by herds of red deer and roe deer. There are not paved walking trails, but just mowed grass paths to follow. As we approached the Palace at the far end, we realized there would be a large pond with fountain in our way. Enquiring of a stroller, we discovered a passage around to the side via the horse paddock. That was a bonus, because we got a close up and private look at three of the beautiful horses. Not sure what breed... they were fairly stoutly built, but not tall, a beautiful dark chocolate colour, with longish mane and tail.
The palace itself is a great glimpse into the incredible history of the Tudor and the Georgian monarchs. I particularly enjoyed the Tudor era great hall and the historic tennis court. There were two players having a match while we watched. “Real Tennis” is a sort of hybrid between tennis and squash, with wall rebounding as part of the game.
We were to take the boat ride back home, a 15 minute cruise down the Thames. When the boat arrived for what was announced as the 4pm trip, the crew closed the boat down for a break, saying the scheduled trip was 4:45. What followed was an understandable and very British kerfuffle where the customers insisted that the trip was supposed to be 4pm as announced, and the crew stubbornly ignoring them. The crew won the round, so we crossed the nearby bridge and caught a train home.
One of the delights of staying anywhere with Pats brother Mark, is wonderful and meticulous cooking, so we are eating well.

April 19: Bath time
We all 5 piled into the little Vauxhaul Corsa rental car and set off westward, the goal of visiting cousin Sarah near Cardiff, Wales. Today though, the first stage was Bath, stopping at Stonehenge along the way.
The weather has become very nice, so the stop at Stonehenge was beautiful and sunny. Due to its popularity, it has become a well contained comprehensive tourist compound operated by Heritage Trust. Having parked in the large lot, one is first faced with a large steel and glass museum and ticket building. At the ticket booth (19.50 pound each) we were casually informed there would be a delay due to a protest, apparently a fairly regular event, protesting the commercialization, or the appropriation of the spiritual significance or what not. So we had a good look through the museum for 30 or 40 minutes before catching the museum bus to the site.
The site itself is, of course, quite spectacular, Andy is kept clean, bright and well trimmed, despite the heavy tourist traffic.
Then on to Bath, arriving at the Old Mill Hotel at about 2 pm. The hotel was a pleasant surprise, out in the countryside facing sheep fields, and alongside a pretty little river and ancient bridge, with a large working water mill. We unpacked then drove 10 minutes into town to for a 30 minute walking tour, and for an hour and a half or so in the Roman baths complex. The baths complex is very well laid out with audio guides, videos and historical placards describing the more than 2000 years of developments.

April 20: Neath the ground.
We drove all morning around Bristol Channel into Wales and eventually to the Big Pit Mining Museum in Blaenavon, to meet up with Pats cousin, Sarah. Sarah had stayed with us for a few months as a 20 year old, back in 1991, and we have kept in touch since then including visiting her and her new baby about 14 years ago in Wales.
The museum was very good, way up on top of a somewhat bleak plateau. It was a working coal mine for most of the 20th century, so the approach buildings are the actual old wooden mine offices. After a bit of a wait while some French school groups went through, we were fitted out with helmets, electric lights and gas mask kits. The fitters are retired miners, dressed in their overalls and helmets, seeemingly enjoying themselves. Eventually our group of about a dozen joined up with Chuck. Down we went, 300 feet in the real deal mining cage. Chuck then toured us through the tunnels, giving very informative descriptions (in a very interesting clipped Welsh accent) of the hardships of life in the pits. At one point we all switched off our lights to experience the absolute darkness that enveloped the workers, some of whom (as young as 6 yrs old) were assigned menial tasks such as opening bulkhead doors, requiring them to sit amongst the damp, the rats, Andy the absolute dark for hours on end.
Following the mine tour, we followed Sarah home to her delightful house and family in Neath, for dinner and an evening of chat and catch up. Sarah’s baby is now a handsome athletic young 15 year old boy, and she has added Ella, a bright and pretty 11 year old. Mark enjoyed chatting with Kev about the ongoing house renovations.
Mark, Erik and Nyah retired to a nearby hotel for the next night while Pat and I appropriated Charlie’s bedroom for the night while he generously retreated to the couch in the living room.

April 21:  Cardiff and Avebury
Sarah came with us to have a peek around Cardiff for the morning. She knew to park in the gardens so that our entree to town was through the lush, beautiful garden, past the dramatic Cardiff Castle and into the quaint Victorian shopping galleries. She has an aquainatance with a family who had just opened a tiny boutique style pure food eatery. We shared some delightful cheese plates, cured pork charcuterie. To quote Mark, who knows his food, “it was really f......’n good!”.
Early afternoon we set off homeward, but detoured a bit north to Avebury, which is another world heritage prehistoric stone site, but delightfully lower key and authentically sited than Stonehenge.

April 22: Last day in Kingston
As a delightful little serendipity for Nyah, one of her best friends was visiting her Grandma right here in Kingston upon Thames. So they arranged a meetup in town this morning. We were going Tom just leave them to their devices for a couple of hours, but in the end they decided to come along with us for a little ferry ride up the Thames to Hampton Court....about 35 minutes up and 20 minutes down. We had lunch at a riverside restaurant... a nice riverside patio and good food, but an almost hilariously disorganized wait staff....ala Fawlty Towers. It must have been the first day they were open, and they obviously had no training. It even got to the point where they produced a second version of our order from the kitchen just as we were leaving.