London Calling

Well it’s about timeI I updated you all, yes I know I’ve been slack when it comes to blogging. Well where to start? A few weeks back we went to London for the weekend to visit our family over there. It sounds weird saying that, but when you live right in the centre at Europe, you can travel to any of the famous cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague or London just for the weekend. We were leaving from Lamazia airport at 11:30 am on Friday morning so we had plenty of time, it takes about one and a half hours and Marco was good enough to drive us there.

When we went through the passport check I got straight through but when I got to the other side I stood there waiting for Dianne. Time ticked away…. five minutes…. 10 minutes…. and I was starting to get worried because we had already been in the country longer than the maximum three months by then and we had forgotten her temporary residence identification. I had these visions of them carting di off to some back interrogation room. Anyway after some fancy talking we manage to get past the passport check without incident and we were on our way. We flew a budget airline called Ryanair. You can get a ticket to London for as little as £10. Ours cost a little bit more than that but it was still cheap. Anyway we flew over the Italian alps and got a spectacular view of the snow capped peaks it was a beautiful sunny day as was the whole weekend in England (funny that) although quite cold well below zero at night and about 4 or 5 degrees by day.

My cousin Helen was dutifully waiting for us as we exited the customs area and took us to her place in Sandhurst a journey of some 1 and a half hours from Stanfield airport in London. They have a really nice house with a huge conservatory which is just like a glasshouse so even though it’s below zero outside you are comfy and warm inside.

Really the trip was just to visit them but we did manage a trip to Windsor Castle. I really like it around there. Although we didn’t manage to see any Royalty, we did know that she was in residence as her flag was flying from the castle. It was a beautiful sunny day.

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We were joined by Bethan who was home from university where she is studying law normally she wouldn’t be home as she lives in London but her Lecturers were on strike so her classes were cancelled and auntie B my favourite auntie, hang on she is my only auntie. 

Chris and Helen are very hospitable, we were treated like royalty. One thing I have been missing in Italy is a good breakfast of bacon and eggs, all you can get here is something sweet and a coffee but I have to tell you, my cuz delivered. Checkout the feast she and Chris did for breaky. Bacon, eggs (poached or scrambled), hash browns, sausage, mushrooms and grilled tomato. It doesn’t get any better than that for breakfast.

On the day we left we had to get up ridiculously early to get a 7am flight back to Italy, they were expecting snow that day and I was kind of upset we weren’t there to see it, as we pulled out of the driveway there were light snow flurries falling but we didn’t get the chance to see it settle on the ground, this is a photo of Helens back yard the day after we left.