We were once again cursed by the weather on our Cornwall trip – it rained every day until about 2 PM, after which time the sun did its best to break through the clouds (though it didn’t always succeed). Still, you have to take the good with the bad, so we did our best to see as much as we could!

On Wednesday, we headed out to Falmouth, which is on the southern part of the coast. The town itself was ok – nothing too spectacular, though we loved the little store called “Kit”, and had we have had more room in our suitcases, I suspect we would have gone a bit crazy with some purchases. But by far the highlight of the town was lunch at Risk Stein’s fish restaurant, where I had the best fish and chips that I think I’ve ever eaten.

The fish was sea bream, which has such a delicious flavour; not to mention that they use “beef drippings” (whatever that means) in their deep fryer, which gives a very “Sunday roast” flavour to the chips. It was just amazing!

In the afternoon, we headed to The Lizard, which is the southern-most point of the British mainland. We were lucky to have the best weather of the whole trip for the 40 minute walk out to the viewpoint and back!

The coastline was beautiful, and it was probably one of the nicest villages that we saw for the whole trip, simply because it was a bit quieter, and not quite so touristy.

We polished off our time in Cornwall with an early dinner at Senor Dick’s in Newquay. We managed to get to bed by 9:30 PM, which was a good thing, as the alarm was set for 4:45 AM to get an early start on the 5 hour drive back to London!

A few years back, Mom threatened us by saying: “Don’t bother coming home until you’ve seen St Ives”. And, I have to admit, that the number one reason we decided to spend our last days in England in Cornwall was simply to prevent Mom greeting us at the airport, only to send us right back again!

Once again, we had trouble finding a park – school holidays is not a good time to be in Cornwall – but finally we did, and we hiked down the hill to the beach. It was a lovely town, and walking through all the narrow streets and then emerging at a scenic viewpoint reminded me a lot of Corniglia.

We had planned our meals for the day quite badly, and somehow we managed to miss out on lunch. So come 4 PM, we found ourselves famished, and wandered into a little beachside restaurant called The Hub. We were desperately hoping that the kitchen wasn’t closed, and we were extremely pleased when our waitress assured us it wasn’t. The news just got better when I saw crab fettuccine on the menu, which I promptly ordered, and then thoroughly enjoyed!

“Thoroughly enjoyed” is actually an understatement; before it was served, I had said to Kristy, “This fettuccine had better be good; I feel like my whole life has led up to this moment, for me to eat this crab infused pasta”. Yes, it really was excellent, and yet so simple! I’ll be making that one when we get back to Australia. Anyone want to volunteer to come and try it?

Kristy had read about St Michael’s Mount in the Lonely Planet guide, and it sounded like something that was well worth a visit, so we ducked out to see it after the Minack Theatre. We were a little discouraged at first because parking was quite difficult – we tried two different carparks before finding one that would let us in – but finally we got a spot and headed out to the beach.

Basically, there’s two ways to get to St Michael’s Mount; the first, and by far the easiest, is by boat.

For the more adventurous souls though, there’s also the option of walking over – though this is obviously recommended only at low tide. There were loads of people attempting it while we were there, even though I suspect the tide was on its way in.

Unfortunately, this was as close as we could get to the castle, given the amount of time we had available. Had we have had more time up our sleeves, and perhaps more appropriate clothing on (Kristy was in jeans and a jumper, absolutely adoring the English summer weather!), I would have loved to wade over and check it out!

Overlooking Porthcurno bay in Penzance, the Minack Theatre is quite possibly the coolest thing that I have ever seen, ever! And I’m not even a theatre fan!

Basically, it’s an outdoor theatre built into the side of a rather steep hill, overlooking a rocky outcrop into the ocean. It was built largely by one woman – Rowena Cade – over the course of her life; she was still toiling away at it well into her 80s! This alone is an achievement in itself, but when you actually see the result of her handiwork, it redefines the word “impressive”.

Pictures don’t really do it justice; you need to see it for yourself! Honestly, it’s amazing, and at only £3.50 each to visit (not to mention that it’s the only place in Cornwell where we haven’t been charged for parking) it scores extremely well on Julian’s admission price:interest ratio.

Preparing for a move is always hard. There’s the packing, the admin, the goodbyes, the mental adjustment to your new life, and the regrets about whether you’ve really made the most of the time you’ve lived in a place.

With that in mind, we’ve been trying to indulge in as many only-in-London activities as possible during the past months. Here are a few things I’ve checked out, other than steak and ale pies. It was only when I came to write this story that I realised it’s all about houses! Here’s a quick review of each, in case you’re ever looking for something a bit different to do in London.

Dennis Severs’ House

This Georgian terraced house in Spitalfields (east London) has been turned into a museum of sorts. I visited with Ariella during one of the Silent Night tours (12GBP), where you walk about the house by candlelight, immersing yourself in the sights and sounds of the house as it may have been in the early 18th century.

“Woven through the house is the story of the fictive Jervis family (a name anglicised from Gervais), originally Huguenot (French Protestant immigrants) silk weavers who lived at the house from 1725 to 1919.”

Sounds (hoofbeats) and smells (fresh bread) are pumped in to help your imagination forget the modern world outside. It’s quite cool to journey through time, and experience a London very different to the one we’ve come to know and love!

I struggled with inconsistencies through the house though: notes about a queen’s inauguration on one floor, and clippings about her death on another. Ariella struggled with their insistence on silence during the visit, but it was a fun and quirky experience!

Chiswick House and Gardens

During our time as members of English Heritage, we would have been allowed to visit Chiswick House and Gardens (in our own suburb) free of charge, but we somehow never got around to it! It’s plagued me, so I recently shelled out 5 quid to check it out.

“Created by the third Earl of Burlington, who was inspired on his grand tour by the architecture of ancient Rome and 16th century Italy, Chiswick House is a stunning homage to the work of Renaissance architect Palladio.”

The thing that’s always entertained me about this place is that, although we think of Chiswick as a London suburb and commute daily, in 1729 when the house was built it was a country estate that the Earl entertained at when his friends wanted to escape from London. As slow as the District line is, horseback much be an ever slower way to travel.

It was also interesting to learn that the ‘house’ has no kitchen, and little room for beds, as the family continued to live at an adjacent property (using a link building to move between them), and used the villa for conducting business, receiving guests, and displaying their art collection. Critics found this ridiculous and said that it was: “Too small to live in, and too big to hang to a watch”. Gotta love 18th century humour!

The audio tour was quite short and manageable, which I was pleased with given my short attention span for names and dates about architecture and art history. Getting lost in the gardens actually took up more of my visit time!

2 Willow Road

Jump forward 200 years, and you get 2 Willow Road (admission 5.50GBP), designed in the 1930s by Erno Goldfinger (awesome name). This Modernist home was equally controversial in its time, chiefly for its unapologetic use of raw building materials like concrete.

Goldfinger too used his home to show off his art collection, but made it distinctly more liveable. Designing a home for your own family is certainly the way to go if you want it to be flexible, liveable and reflect your personal style! Of course it helps if you’re a trained architect.

Most of the internal walls here fold back to create massive entertaining spaces, and there’s a platform/stage in his wife’s painting studio so that models could sit for portraits (though I imagine his kids would have interrupted their parents’ work to put on impromptu shows). A lot of furniture designed by family members was used and is now exhibited in the house, and the work of master artists is exhibited side-by-side with a framed picture of a car that Erno’s grandson made by typewriter keystrokes.

Every little feature of the house is carefully considered to be as efficient and functional as possible. There’s no traditionalism, and no assumptions about how things should be done. Skirting boards are abandoned in favour of extending the flooring a few inches up the wall or, in the case of the bathroom, all the way up the side of the tub! Apparently it’s a trick used in hospitals to avoid the hassle of keeping the floor/wall join germ free.

This was my favourite of the three houses, probably because I know nothing about architecture or art and found this much more accessible than the others! My opinion may also have been influenced by its proximity to an awesome coffee shop…

Yesterday, we joined Aubain in Ingrid in a lovely boat trip along the Thames. We picked up our boat from the boat hire company in Datchet around 11 AM, then set out “uphill” towards Windsor and Maidenhead. It was perfect boating weather, and the temperature by the water was just lovely!

We stopped and enjoyed a delicious champagne picnic for lunch on the grounds of Oakley court. We chose the spot based not only on the lovely scenery, but also on the sign which clearly stated that non-guests were welcome. It was only when we pulled away after lunch we read the other sign which said, “mooring for hotel guests only”. Whoops!

We also had to master the art of “locking”. OK, admittedly it wasn’t exactly difficult to master, but it was still a big part of the experience! We went through three separate locks on our day trip – I wonder how many you’d have to go through until you made it to Manchester?

Here’s a short video of our day on the water. Note that the maximum speed of our boat was a hair-raising 8km/h (or perhaps 9km/h when we were going “downhill”); consequently, parts of the video have been sped up for your viewing pleasure (including the 6 minutes of footage of one of the locks draining!).

View the Boating along the Thames album on Picasa or Facebook.

Dean, Lea, and Kylie had never been to the Cotswolds for a clotted cream tea! And since Dean and Lea are making their way back to Australia (taking the very, very scenic route!) we had to remedy this situation yesterday. We had an absolutely gorgeous day of sunshine, so it was a perfect day to be out in the country!

We started at Bourton on the Water – “The Venice of The Cotswolds” as they say, simply because it has a stream. Creative. We made the others take the Dragonfly Hedge Maze challenge, and they came through victorious.

Next, we hit up Stow on the Wold for some lunch. Having been there before and remembering the abundance of shops that were there, I thought we’d be loaded for choices of places to eat. But after walking around most of the town, we didn’t find anything that jumped out, and we eventually settled on a hotel who served us a fairly ordinary meal (or at least I thought so). This was certainly not the highlight of the day! We made a few obligatory purchases in the local chocolate shop before trundling off to Chipping Campden for the main event – Clotted Cream and Scones.

Oh man, they were so good – and so big! Usually two scones is the order of the day, but each of us could barely get through one!

It’s a bit of a hike to get there, but The Cotswolds always makes a lovely destination for a day trip. And now, I want some more clotted cream…

Almost three years living in London, and we still hadn’t seen the changing of the guard! Well, all that changed yesterday when we met up with Weezy and Kylie outside Buckinghuge Palace to see what it’s all about. It was a gorgeous day yesterday, with temperatures reaching 20 degrees in the afternoon! And yet, I was still quite surprised at how many other people who had the same idea as us, and worse yet, had got there before us and taken all the best viewpoints! Even the cops came out to enjoy the show!

Truth be told; the ceremony was a bit of a non! All that happened in the 40 minutes that we were there, was:

• The new troop of guards marched in to the gates on the left;
• A band marched in to the gates on the right
• Some dudes on horses trotted past

That’s it! Admittedly, there seemed to be a lot of action inside the palace gates which we couldn’t see from where we were, but from what I could see, it looked like it was just people marching back and forward. Whiz bang.

Oh well; no real complaints, that’s one more thing ticked off the list – and watching the police yell at all the misbehaving tourists was a bit of a laugh. Plus, the girls all looked like celebrities in their dark sunnies.

Nice.

Little did I know that writing to your local member and requesting a tour of the Houses of Parliament was something that pretty much any UK resident can do; but Kristy somehow stumbled upon this information and did exactly that. We were allocated a slot for last Friday morning, so along we trundled to the home of HP Sauce.

On the sucky end of the scale, you’re not allowed to take any photos once you get inside, except for in this room – the name of which I almost instantly forgot. “The Great Parliamentary Hall”, or something like that, I think.

You’ll notice – as I of course did – that the room is one of the largest examples in the world of a particular type of architecture, the name of which I have also forgotten, along with all the information about what makes it so great and unique. It’s something to do with the way the wood holds up the roof.

See, our tour guide – and yes, I’ve forgotten his name too – wasn’t exactly great at talking at a volume that everyone could hear, so for the most part, the information came in dribs and drabs. Moreover, he was more of a fan of telling us stories about his time working in the Houses of Parliament, rather than actually supplying us with information that had any historical relevance. By contrast, we ran into loads of school children who were touring around the joint, and eavesdropping on their guides made me regret – as usual – that I wasn’t on the kiddie tour.

See that throne there? It’s really old! Queen Victoria would sit on that when she used to visit here – and you’ll notice that it has a little footstool there as well – that’s because she was really short!

Now that’s interesting! I wonder if Vicky’s friends used to call her “Queen Shorty”. I’m sure that nicknames for the Queen was another tidbit of information that the kids were furnished with, and yet another topic which was completely bypassed for us.

Anyway – the tour took us through heaps of places, including the House of Lords (red seats) and the House of Commons (green seats). There’s loads of differences between the two, like who is allowed in either house, and how the house’s delegates get elected, but guess what? I’ve forgotten all of that as well, save for the all important detail of the colouring of the seats. In my credit here, the nuances of each house wasn’t discussed all that heavily, but we were provided with an old wartime story or two (and yes, of course I’ve forgotten them as well).

One thing about the tour which I do remember is that you aren’t allowed to sit anywhere. It was like every seat that you saw had its own political importance, and sitting on it would be an insult to the demographic fabric that this country was founded on. Coupled with the fact that there was barely any airflow through the place, as well as our guide’s classic “old timer” voice, it made it very difficult to retain consciousness for the whole tour. I was feeling a little faint and woozy on my feet; poor old Kristy went up a level and nearly passed out before entering the House of Lords! Thankfully the security staff were very nice, escorting her to a non-political chair for her to sit on, then turning on a party-neutral fan for a bit of airflow. Good times!

Despite my complaints, the tour was actually quite good, simply for the fact that it’s a little bit out of the ordinary. I’m still a bit dirty that they wouldn’t let us take photos of anything (“there’s plenty of photos in the books available at the gift shop!”), but whatever – it was still a very memorable morning.

England has quite the collection of murals of horses on hillsides, and the oldest of these is the Uffington White Horse. No-one seems to know precisely how old it is, but Wikipedia puts it at over 3,000 years! We ventured out on Saturday with Julian and Shelley to have a close-up look at it for ourselves.

As it turns out, the close-up look isn’t quite as impressive as the Google maps top-down approach, but it does give you an idea of just how big it is. Pretty big.

Right next to the white horse is Uffington Castle, however this one is a bit of a conundrum. See, all that actually remains of the castle is the site upon which it was built – a huge circular landmass surrounded by a ditch (most likely an old moat). But, there’s really no signs of anything actually having ever been constructed there. What’s more, apparently it wasn’t even a castle, but instead just a hill fort!

Still, a huge ex-moat-like-ditch can be rather entertaining, as Julian proved to us. See, he has this great trick which you can use to traverse from one side of a ditch to the other, by simply running down one side as fast as you can, and then expending your built up momentum to effortlessly ascend to the other side. Sadly for him, the uphill journey proved slightly steeper than he had anticipated, which threw all of his calculations off, and saw him running face-first into the grass. Oh, if only I’d been videoing…

While we were in the area, we also took a short wander down to Wayland’s Smithy – two words which when combined somehow mean, “old tomb”. Apparently there were 14 people buried in there, but they’ve long since departed (heh heh) and now it feels more like a man-made cave.

Truth be told, it wasn’t all that exciting, but the walk in the sunshine and fresh country air was delightful! The company wasn’t too bad either, though we had suspected that would be the case when we started out.