So...we are moving to England!: John and Sandy Visit England

John and his partner Sandy (that is what they call 'girlfriend' or 'lady pal' over here) were kind enough to visit us in September. They ran the English tourist gauntlet - Big Ben, Parliament, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Windsor Castle, St. Paul's Cathedral (climbing all 530 steps to the Golden Dome), Ye Ol' Cheshire Cheese, Covent Garden, Chinatown, Cambden Market, Big Bus Tours, Marlow, Turville, Fingest, Hambledon, etc.

Here is John, Sandy and Beth enjoying the sites of Marlow.

Hambledon and sheep.

Turville and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill

Hangin' at Higginson Park.

John tending to the boats...

...and reading about the history of Marlow.

Sir Steve and the crew.

Uncle John and Batman (Henry)

Batman leading the way to the infamous "tunnel" (a/k/a what Lord Davenport called the "smuggler's cave") under the Wittington House Estate which is located outside our back gate (famous visitors include Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill and the Bowers Family). Side note, the Wittington Estate is next to the Danesfield House where I brought the boys geese herding on Easter and is where George Clooney is having his 'local' wedding reception later in the month.

Wittington House Estate (this is what the tunnel runs under)

Danesfield House

On Saturday we headed to Cambden Lock Market. Cambden Lock is a truly unique area of London with over 10,000 indoor/outdoor shops that seem to sell mostly the same things - inappropriate t-shirts, food, Doc Martens, drug paraphernalia, hemp clothing, and also offer an array of tattoo and piercing services.

After escaping Cambden we fled to Chinatown for a delicous dinner.

"I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.

Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain.

He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fooks.

Going to get a big dish of beef chow mein."

(from the song Werewolves in London)

Lee Ho Fooks was jammed so we went to the restaurant next door.

After dinner we went to see the critically acclaimed, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" It is a story about...well, just Google it, its too hard to explain.

Despite the date on the calendar Sunday brought a bright sunny day in the mid-70's. As Sandy is a flower aficionado (or nut) we headed to the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. Kew Gardens is the world's largest collection of living plants. Founded in 1840 and located in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. Kew Gardens is so big that it has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847 (from wiki).

View from a unique tree top walk.