{"id":4040,"date":"2015-08-30T16:47:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T15:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=4040"},"modified":"2026-05-21T08:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:43:09","slug":"and-another-zigzag-around-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2015\/08\/30\/and-another-zigzag-around-england\/","title":{"rendered":"And Another Zig-Zag Around England"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s up to you to have fun and be happy; you can\u2019t wait for it to just happen.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Thatched<\/p>\n

Thatched cottage, complete with thatched pheasant\u00a0in Heydon, Cambridgeshire<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

And that\u2019s what we have done as we\u2019ve travelled around England in Eileen.\u00a0 It has been a somewhat zig-zagging route, but we\u2019ve filled\u00a0our days with as many friends and family as we could. And everywhere we\u2019ve gone, we\u2019ve talked and chatted and nattered and had a lot of laughs.<\/p>\n

\"Dinner
Dinner at Picture with Emma, Fred, Kevin and Christine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As soon as we arrived in England, we forlornly packed away our summer clothes at the bottom of our suitcases and lifted the jumpers and jeans up to the top.\u00a0 The boots started walking again and the suntans faded away.\u00a0 Rodney enjoyed being indoors glued to the TV at Sheila & Jacks’ and was overjoyed when the England team grabbed the Ashes from the record breaking (not in a good way) Australian team.<\/p>\n

\"Laura
Laura at Lords<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been wonderfully well fed and watered by numerous folk and also enjoyed some very\u00a0hearty pub fayre, good Thai meals, tasty pies and mash, lovely fruit and veggies fresh from gardens of friends, some fish-n-chip dinners and of course that other well-known English food, the Indian curry.\u00a0 I may have overly gorged on fresh cherries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries, but they are so very delicious at this time of year.<\/p>\n

\"Christine,
Christine, Fred and Rodney enjoying the match and the drinks at Lords<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cousins
Cousins Michael, Martha, Rodney, Sheila and Jack in Suffolk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rupert
Rupert, Rodney and Rose in The Smugglers Inn in Sussex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We managed to keep up with a bit of culture seeing \u2018The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time at the Gielgud Theatre, a Sonia Delauney exhibition at the London Tate Modern, and a slow stroll around the Stoke Bruerne Canal Museum in Northamptonshire.\u00a0 Special thanks to Fred and Christine for taking us to Lords Cricket Ground to watch Middlesex v Surrey in a 20\/20 match; my first visit to the hallowed ground.\u00a0 Thank you to everyone who provided us with baths, showers and washing machines, enabling us to be not-too-smelly on our travels and many thanks to everyone who has looked after us.<\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney looking for…..?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"a
a narrow boat…….at Stoke Bruerne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

One particular day worthy of singling out was Sunday 16 August.\u00a0 My brother Neil cooked us a full English breakfast; there\u2019s a theme starting here\u2026\u2026..\u00a0\u00a0 We wandered around the lovely historic English town of Oundle after driving through some lovely Northamptonshire villages full of beautiful thatched cottages.\u00a0 We then followed the signs to Lyvedon New Bield, an English National Trust property.\u00a0 The three of us joined a guided tour around the very English garden full of ponds, a grassy green labyrinth and a huge fruit orchard, with the tour culminating in the house itself. The building was never completed, but it is quite an impressive ruin of an English Elizabethan summer house.\u00a0 After the stroll we stopped for a Cornish clotted cream tea and finally completed our day with bangers and mash with lashings of gravy.\u00a0 All in all, a thoroughly, quintessentially, completely, English day.<\/p>\n

\"Lyvedon
Lyvedon Hall in Northamptonshire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"now
now there’s a good street name…….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for Eileen, she has been treated to a new dinner service, a gold service, an MOT by her makers and also a shiny new exhaust pipe.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been approached by a couple of men, one in Horsham and one in Castle Acre, asking if we were interested in selling her; now I wonder if that will happen next year when we will<\/u> be wanting to sell her.\u00a0 Ooo, I don\u2019t like typing that, it makes my shoulders rise and makes me feel a little sad.\u00a0 I have a feeling it might involve tears when we do finally part ways with her in July 2016.<\/p>\n

\"Broadway
Broadway Tower in the Cotswolds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"An
An unreal hole in the wall in Notting Hill, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

So with our zig-zag around England almost complete, we\u2019re now busy packing our bags for another two weeks in France.\u00a0 On Tuesday the Eurostar will hopefully whisk us through the tunnel from London to Paris for four nights staying at Kevin and Julia\u2019s apartment in the 7th<\/sup> Arrondissement. On Saturday 5 September, we will then travel down by train to Chatillon sur Loire with seven Aussie friends, for a week of cruising the Upper Loire to Decize.\u00a0 Another two nights back at Kevin and Julia\u2019s will complete this year\u2019s second European vacation, followed by three nights at my brothers to mothball Eileen and pack our bags yet again.\u00a0 Then a flight straight back to Sydney should have us finally arriving home on Saturday 19 September.<\/p>\n

\"A
A classic view of London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite having yet another amazing year travelling in Eileen, I have a very sneaky feeling that I, for one, will be very happy to be back home in Sydney again\u2026\u2026….for a while\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

\"Windmill
Windmill under repair near Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s up to you to have fun and be happy; you can\u2019t wait for it to just happen. Thatched cottage, complete with thatched pheasant\u00a0in Heydon, Cambridgeshire And that\u2019s what we have done as we\u2019ve travelled around England in Eileen.\u00a0 It has been a somewhat zig-zagging route, but we\u2019ve filled\u00a0our days with as many friends and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-the-road-in-great-britain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8272,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions\/8272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}