Last stop... London...

Here we are in London, well, South Kensington to be precise. We packed up our zillion bags and had a lovely drive down the M3 to sunny London this morning. Where we're staying is very nice, lots of beautiful old buildings and trendy shops and restaurants. Haven't done too much exploring yet as Jason took the car back and was gone most of the afternoon and I had laundry to do. Took the kids for a walk around the area but it was bitterly cold so we couldn't walk too much.

To recap... On Thursday we picked up Jason's cousin Diane and her friend Pam and we all drove to Chichester to visit Diane's other daughter Carrie. Carrie and her boyfriend are renovating a houseboat at Chichester "marina" (not a marina as we would know it) and it was really interesting visiting the houseboat and going across the canal on a little raft thingy (for those of you who know how "adventerous" I am, you would laugh at my face when faced with this prospect). Then we drove through some very lovely "typical" English country roads (narrow with dense hedges on either side and quaint cottages peaking from behind the hedges, occassional pub around the corner) to her current house. This was a lovely place called Dolphin Cottage - again very typically English (Jason had to duck not to bump him head on the doorways and lightfittings).

Carrie put on a lovely lunch for us and then we set off to visit Chichester proper. This is a lovely historic town and we visited the very old (11th century?) Chichester Cathedral. Beautiful and amazing. Then we had a very quick walk through the town which was beautifully lit up for Christmas, with a quick stop to buy JB another little pressie. As it gets dark here at about 4:00 pm our days are always cut short.

Thursday night we went around to Jason's nanna's for a final family get together. All the aunties and uncles (except for Stephen who we saw on the weekend and who lives too far away) came over and we had a very nice evening. It was sad to say goodbye as we know we won't see them for some years (who knows when really).

Friday we picked up Jason's nanna and took off for Surrey to visit his cousin Glen. It was mean't to be a straightford journey of less than 1 1/2 hours but due to heavy traffic took more than 2 hours. It was lovely to see Glen and his wife Mim and their two boys. Of course Will took straight off to play with their toys and we had a cuppa while we decided what to do. We ended up going into their local tiny town for lunch at The Crown which is apparently one of the most haunted pubs in England. We didn't see the headless ghost (I'm sure they have more a problem with legless people, rather than headless ghosts) but we did have a nice lunch. Then we again headed off to visit a beautiful old country house set on huge parklands with deer. Will was very happy to see some reindeer but we couldn't hang about too much as it was so cold I couldn't believe it and the wind was bitter. So we said goodbye and headed back to Portsmouth.

Now it's Saturday late afternoon and I've popped down the internet cafe (luckily there are plenty around here) before we have dinner. We're going to have a famous London curry tonight. Hopefully tomorrow won't be quite so cold and we can do some exploring. I'm looking forward to pottering about Harrods as it is only up the road from here.