Easter Monday found us visiting briefly with our across-the-pedway neighbors from Durham. They brought us a stack of hand-made Valentines from Eno Commons, which were lots of fun to read. Weyland would pick one up and run around making sure that EVERY adult had acknowledged and admired the card. The older boys were quite sorry when their playmates (girls of very similar ages to my boys) had to leave.
Tom returned from California bearing a new DVD, which was met with more enthusiasm than you might imagine. We have a restricted media diet here. Before we moved, we streamed Netflix through our Wii, but didn’t have live television. Here, we found that Netflix was limited — because it was being accessed through a UK IP address, but on a US region Wii player, our list of possible shows and movies was drastically limited (we had more selection when we viewed Netflix through the computer). We cancelled THAT, but we also don’t have any live television. We don’t pay for cable, and don’t pick up any stations without it. It is quite possible that the hardware of our television isn’t capable of picking up the UK broadcast signal — we didn’t try very hard. I filled out the “we don’t have a TV, we shouldn’t have to pay the BBC tax” waiver, and got an unannounced visit from the TV checker. But unless he can do some magic to make shows appear instead of static, well, we have a screen for our other media devices and not a television. We own a DVD/VCR combo machine, but very few discs and tapes. A healthy supply of Barney and Elmo, yes — back when Garrett was three I was hitting the yardsales and picking up such things — but since then I’ve avoided owning movies. In Durham I regularly checked out movies from the library, but here they are, of course, meant for a different region. Yes, we could switch the region on our DVD player — but then we couldn’t play the movies we own! So new movie, happy kids.
The next day an even more eagerly anticipated person than Daddy arrived: Garrett’s best friend, accompanied by his mom. They wanted to do all sort of things that I wouldn’t naturally do, so our adventures were rather different. We started at Madame Tussauds wax museum. We arrived just after opening, but it was a crush of people. Made it through, enjoyed the parts we stopped for, snapped some amusing photos, and who knows — maybe I’ll even take the boys back. Maybe.
Then we grabbed lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. I knew it wasn’t really a British restaurant: the sign for the toilets said “restrooms”, on the table was French’s yellow mustard, and the waitress asked whether our guest wanted milk with her tea. It was cold outside, but since we were nearby I suggested we cross two more London highlights off our list. We walked past Buckingham Palace, but by the time we got to Trafalgar Square all we wanted was warmth. We caught the first bus headed our way and rode it down Abbey Road (got to show off the world’s most famous zebra crossing!) toward home.
Thursday was cold. Cold and wet and sometimes snowing and often windy. Miserable weather, especially since Garrett’s best friend only wears shorts and short sleeves, all the time, and only packed a light sweatsuit at his mother’s insistence. At the Tower of London he huddled inside while my boys and I joined Colonel Blood’s gang attempting to steal the crown jewels (same set of actors that we enjoy at Hampton Court, reenacting an actual heist from 1671). What could have been fairly serious and frightening was made hilarious by Colonel Blood’s inept son (photo left) who “recruited” us to join the gang, and in the end got caught with unloaded pistols.
Yes, it really was snowing that hard. Springtime indeed! Harumph!
The next day Tallis stayed with friends while I drove Garrett, best friend, and his mom on a whirlwind tour of the English countryside. Stonehenge first thing in the morning: freezing cold. Freaking freezing cold and windy and yuck. Old Sarum, same thing. Only we were up higher and the wind was blowing even harder. Almost blew us off the walls, and no I am NOT kidding.
Then an unexpected stop in Wilton, because I drove past a church that made me go “Hey! Wait, I haven’t seen anything like THAT!” and since were making great time (since we had no desire to stay outside anywhere) we stopped. The church is called the Italianate Church with good reason — besides being Italian in style (built in the 1840s), they have imported lots of interesting old things like columns from a Roman temple and medieval glass from the continent. They also moved many of the windows and brasses and memorials from the old church that was being replaced, so it felt worth the visit.
We continued to Old Wardour castle, which was our favorite stop that day. It had warmed slightly, and the site is mostly the roofless shell of the keep (destroyed during the Civil War). No furniture, no velvet ropes, nothing we couldn’t touch — just run up and down the stairs, in and out of the huge old rooms, laughing and being boys. Perfect. Then on to Farleigh Hungerford Castle — a nice enough ruin, but we just didn’t have much energy left to enjoy it. Well, I did, but the boys…they were tired of old buildings. Unfortunately we headed from there to Bath, too late to enter any churches or businesses (except the fudge shop passing out samples…we did go into the fudge shop, and leave with goodies) but in time for pizza dinner. Yum. How unfortunate, after such a long and exciting day, that I had to stay awake to drive home!
Back in London we rested a day, then spent a day on the Thames: checked out Big Ben, the Houses of Parliment, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, and a sightseeing boat down to Greenwich. I know that all the boys wish that our friends could have stayed longer!