From Buckingham Palace to Bath & in-between

The last day of London for us was just magical.  A visit to Buckingham Palace was definately on the cards, and although the Queen didn't bother to come out and say hi to us, it was still awesome to know that she was in there somewhere doing her "Queenie" thing of running the country and possibly trying to talk Scotland out of a referendum of being their own..

I am still amazed at just how detailed carvings/buildings/statues are in this country.  Look at this:

Just the detail in this - don't you find that absolutely fascinating?  It blows my mind to think that someone so many many many years ago did this by hand.  We just got in a few more photo's before it started to pelt down with rain, so on the Sight-seeing bus again to keep going around the loop.  Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Kensington Palace & Gardens and much more were seen on the tour.

We dropped the car back off at Heathrow, just in time for Jeff to remember that he (and I) had forgotten to take our own car keys off the hire car key, so off he went again on the shuttle bus back to Europcar to get them.  Meanwhile, Chloe & I had a great time looking around Terminal 3, watching the passengers come through the doors - wondering just where they have come from.

We have moved to a small country village west of London called Somerford Keynes, and it literally is a small country village.  Somerford Keynes is near a town called Cirencester, which is kind of half way between Gloucester & Bristol.  The house is nice - very rustic looking, and everytime we want to use our phones or the internet we have to take the plunge into the cold outside as there is double-glazed windows and there is no signal..  So I'm writing this at 9.10pm, outside with my trusty ugg boots, jacket, beanie & scarf while my fingers go numb because it's so cold.  We will be here until one of us gets a job and I hope that's soon!

Today we went for a drive to Bath.  We didn't make it to Bath last time we were here, so was looking forward to it very much, and I have to say that I wasn't disappointed at all.  It's an amazing place - and if we could afford it, I would love living there.  Of course, the main purpose of going was to see the Roman Baths and if Chloe's eye wasn't acting up, I could have stayed there for much longer.  We are battling to get her conjunctivitis right, and tonight has been the worst.  She has a huge gunky thing in her eye that we can't get out, plus it stings we she pees so it's off to the dr's tomorrow and get that sorted.  (sorry if that was too much info!)

I, like everyone else has seen this on travel shows in Aus, and it looks amazing on TV, but to actually see the Roman Bath in person was just as good as seeing it on TV.  To walk around the baths where Roman's had once walked before, thousands and thousands of years ago - but it's actually quite hard to get it into your head that they did.  We are looking at the bath that the Goddess Sulis Minerva bathed in (the first century of AD) was incredible. 

Hadrian







The statues of the various emporer's etc still standing - Hadrian who made those Walls bare handed - oh the history.  A few little facts of the Baths:

Temp: 44oC,    Rate of Flow: 13 litres per second,    43 minerals in the water,    the bubbling in the King's bath is caused by exsolved gases escaping,   the water is colourless but acquires it's distinctive green hue from algae growth caused by it's heat and by daylight,    the water is love in dissolved metals except for iron which causes the orange staining,   civilians including women were visiting to pay their respects to the Goddess and to seek a cure in the healing water,    those requiring divine intervention made their wishes known to the Goddess by performing a sacrifice or make a gift in anticipation of a successful outcome. 

This place is just full of awesome history.

Love to you all.  xxxxx