TravelogueAlaRobynYou are on the archive wiki. The new wiki is here. This weekend was wonderful! Just simply being able to get out of London, and see a bit of England was soo worth it. My biggest regret is that we just had so little time. Next time we truck off into the country side I'll make certain to take a day or two off! On Friday, a bit late, we all gathered at Claire's and started the great trek west. Driving in London, at night, was harrowing - even more so for me in the front passenger seat, with no control over what was happening. To top it all off, we couldn't figure out how the lights worked and since the hiring agency had removed the manual from the car we couldn't even look it up. We landed up having to drive around with the fog-lights on since the 'head-lights' were to dim to see anything at all by. Eventually, miles down the road, having made many friends along the way, I managed to figure out that the damn vehicle had a separate set of 'road lights' that you activated by pulling the lights dial towards you. Ugh. Not that that made a hell of a difference... I'm pretty certain I will never invest in a Ford Focus. We got to Paul's gran alive and intact, although Claire and I were a little shattered in the nerves department - and as mentioned I hadn't even done any driving! Had a nice night and slept well, despite the fact that Claire claims that Paul's snoring woke her from through the walls. The next morning was my turn to drive and we set off west once more aiming for a wood that Paul and Chris had fond memories of. The weather got gradually sunnier and sunnier as we headed towards Devon, and it was great to be behind the wheel again, especially when that wheel involved power steering and 1.6l engine with a very easy cruising speed of 90 miles per hour (about 160k's). The woods were lovely and we had a nice walk - Claire took pics and I lamented the fact that my camera was almost out of memory (I'd forgotten to delete some pics off it on Friday). After that we went down to the scenic Abby in the village, which had apparently turned into quite a tourist trap in the last 15 years - but was nice to see anyway. In the evening, after meeting Paul's dad in Totnes, we drove through to Dartmouth. It was utterly lovely and we took a short walk to an old fort, and then walked through the viliiage for a short while. Claire and I agree'd that we felt like we were in some sort of movie set and it was all too quaint to be real. After a fantastic dinner of fish and chips (possibly the best I've ever had), we headed back to Totnes for a night containing far too much vodka and coke. Sunday morning, feeling worse for wear and promising myself that I will never again match Paul 'round for round' when drinking doubles, we headed for the moors. After the sheer torture of being dragged up the slopes of a huge tor (i.e. lump of scenic granite on top of an equally scenic hill), I managed to make my legs feel a little less like jello, get enough air into my lungs that I wasn't in danger of passing out anymore, and muster the effort to climb that last bit of rock (with the convenient aid of some hefty hints at stairs that had been cut into the rock). We wandered round the moors, stumbled through some bracken, 'oohed' and 'aahed' at a lovely old quarry the boys took us to, continued to rip of Chris in what I have come to realise is a time honoured tradition, and I finished it up with an ice-cream from the stand that had set up in the parking lot while we were up and away. We did get to see some of the wild ponies, but not at any point that Claire could stop and take photo's. I'd bought myself a disposable camera by that stage and had been snapping away cheerfully as well. From there we wended our way out of Devon, through Somerset, back towards London. The final stop of the day was Stonehenge. Paul confessed he'd never visited it before (to Claire and my horror), and we walked round and snapped shots. It was amazing to see, and fortunately it was a pretty quiet day - so there were on 50 or so other people there. We got to take our shots, freeze out butts off and hunt the shop for post-cards for friends. The last bit of the journey was given over to me and we got into London in good time. It was rather stressful to deal with the traffic after such weekend of open roads and deserted lanes, but apparently Paul gave the seal of approval to my driving and declared he's let me drive him anywhere in future - always nice to hear, especially when you're a girl. I even managed a fairly respectable parallel park ouside my place. A cheese on toast and a good read finished off my weekend rather well. Work today has been dull to the point of bursting. Taken far to many stupid on-line quizzes to fill the boredom since Mike's in New York till tomorrow. Looking forward to Blink 182 in but a few hours and seeing my Bu after the two weeks of absence. |