Heather and I just got back from a couple of weeks in England visiting her family. Not too much to say other than we had a great time and her family is all doing well. I will say that as I get older, I’m finding traveling much harder than it used to be. Distances seem further, suitcases heavier and the effects of jetlag much worse. Still I love being there, just don’t like the traveling to there part.

Here are a few pictures:

One of the things we did was attend The Three Counties show — An English county fair. Animals, food, shows and fresh air. Nice day altogether.

Here they are getting ready for the horse jumping competition:

A couple of days later we took a walk on the hills above the show grounds and I got this picture of the from high above:

Turns out that the show grounds covers around 80 acres and looking down at it, I doubt we walked more than a 10th of it.

We had another nice day out walking around an old country house. Brockhampton House is managed my the National Trust. Here’s a picture of the outside. I didn’t take any pictures inside. I should have but didn’t

After visiting the family in the midlands we traveled down to London and took in a show in the West end:

Yup, the Lion King. Fun show and just plain good entertainment — nothing intellectually challenging just music, dancing and a few bad jokes — loved it. We went on a weeknight and discovered a lot of school groups joining us for the show. Their young excitement just added to the energy of the evening.

On our last day we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. Heather had been wanting to see this for years and we weren’t disappointed. We took a guided tour, had lunch in the cafe and then walked around until we couldn’t walk much more. I was so interested in the exhibits that I only took this one photo of an exhibit on marquetry (one of my favorite woodworking arts):

We also managed a walk through Kensington Gardens, had dinner at a nice place near Paddington station. The hotel in London was small and overpriced but that’s true for most things in London. Still, we had a great time. I will admit that age is slowing us down a little and instead of trying to get around on the underground, we mostly opted for taxis as they got us point to point with the minimum of walking, stair climbing and rushing around.

That’s it for this week. Now it’s back to garden, woodshop projects, and all those quilt blocks I promised to make. If you need me, I’m studying my todo list.