High Tea, Matlock, and Gantham

High Tea

Lori took her Mom and Dad to High Tea at Horsley Lodge with her friend Agnus.  Vintage Tea with finger sandwiches, desserts, and scones with cream and jam.

Matlock

Lori and her parents took a day to go to Matlock in the Peak District. It's a small borough on the River Derwent, established when thermal springs were discovered in the 1600's.  Good hiking..

Nice walk along the River Derwent

 nice view from above ground

Walking Up

Riber Castle in the distance

The hikers

View heading up to High Tor

Grantham, UK

Home of Harlaxton College

A reunion of sorts.  Lori went back 15 years (or so) to her college days in the UK, when she and Joan spent a semester at Harlaxton College (about 40 miles east of Derby).  Enjoyed showing Mom and Dad where their $$ went.... 

Long Drive from the road to the castle/college

Harlaxton College - Lori's first UK adventure 

Main stairwell ceiling

The back yard... Lori always liked the lions

Lori's college room.. if those walls could only talk........

 Nice entrance to the college

London

London

We spent a long weekend in London and dropped off Mom and Dad near Heathrow for their flight home.  The weather was very consistent (rain/drizzle, 50's for highs) throughout the weekend.  We stayed near Heathrow and took the tube into the city each day.  We were professional tube-riders after the first day.  

The building is the background is the "egg".  It's London's City Hall.

Inside the grounds of the Tower of London, with the Tower Bridge in the background.  Saw the Crown jewels.

The Tower Bridge

More tower of London

Legend has it, that if the Ravens leave the Tower of London, the Monarchy will fall.  Just to be on the safe side, they keep 6 of them roaming around the grounds.   This one was particularly bold and vocal.

Guards protecting the crown jewels

Tower Bridge and the River Thames.  No sunny pictures this time

View from the tower Bridge

The Eye of London.. Each capsule holds 30-40 people and it takes 30 minutes to go one revolution. It doesn't stop when they let people off so only the agile don't go for a 2nd loop.

Tim and Lori by the River Thames, with Parliament and Big Ben in the background

The building housing the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.  It was closed or I'm sure we'd been ushered in for tea and crumpets. 

Buckingham Palace

London activity - aboard a double decker open-air bus

 St. Paul's Cathedral

Memorial to the great fire of London, September 2-6, 1666 which started in a bakery and burned most of London's buildings.  The tower was placed so that if it fell, the top of the tower would land on the bakery where the fire started.  The positive of the fire, was that it killed the rats that were carrying the plague at the time and stopped the outbreak. 

Countdown to the Olympics.. 2012  

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben and Parliment

 Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

 View of the Tower of London on a Thames boat cruise

Tim and Lori by the Lady Di Memorial, in Hyde Park

Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace

Stratford Upon Avon

Visit to Stratford Upon Avon

Lori and I stopped by Stratford upon Avon on the way down to Oxford during Easter break.  Stratford Upon Avon is the birthplace of William Shakespeare.  We also visisted Anne Hathaways cottage, the family house of the wife of WS.  

The childhood home of Anne Hathaway (WS's wife)  built in the 1400's

Family Kitchen

Clothes Washing - I'm not sure things have improved very much in this area here over the centuries

Portrait of WS, circa 1600

Wallpaper in the Shakespeare house.. some fashions are timeless 

As well as the bedroom décor

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she".
(Lori looking out the window of WS's childhood home)

In the Shakespeare gardens

Shakespeare's House from the street

Walk along the river Avon