Birthday Wander...

Christmas time and it's our last evening to tube travel before things shut down for a few days.  So we headed off to the high streets of London to see the festive decorations.

We started our journey in Soho and passed down Carnaby Street.

Stumbled across "The Warwick" on Warwick Street. (Not to be confused with  "Warwick Way"! )

There was a table waiting just for the two of us. :)

Then we made our way to Trafalgar Square to see the big tree!

Happy Holidays everyone!

'

Rome in 3 days...

Relaxing on the farm in the warm sunshine. :)

Cheeeeewwwyy!! (on guard)

After our quick but quite successful trip back to Canada to visit friends, family and Chewy we returned back to England with Monica. (Susan's sister)   A few days in London for Monica to do some sightseeing before jumping on a plane to Rome!

Click here to see more photos!

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The trip went really well with a slight hiccup when Monica lost her camera likely due to pick-pocketing while crammed into a city bus.  Public transportation is remarkably unreliable in Rome but choosing to drive is nightmare on it's own.  (It makes driving in London look casual)   Walking is what we mostly did anyway and really that's pretty much all you need to see all the major sights in Rome.  It is a really interesting city to explore with so much history that we were only able to skim the surface in our 3 full days.  

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Watching the traffic in front of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II

Climbing the Saint Peter's Basilica. Notice how curved the walls are as we approach the top of the dome!

Batman AC: Wrap Party!

All because of this thing...

8:30am and we're loading into a Coach to go off to some unknown location.

Three hour drive later we arrive at our first event; Go-karting! - Suited up and briefed on the rules of the road.

After a few practice laps our 11 teams of 7-8 begin our 250 + lap race.

And it was a pretty awesome track for my standards. :D

Our team was "The Penguin".  Right at the end of the race they put me in for a second round of laps and we got the fastest lap of the day!(We also moved from last to 8th!) * btw the track record was 24.10 :p*

After a stopoff at our hotel to got cleaned and changed we set off to "The Dark Knight Rises Wayne Manor" also known as Wollaton Hall.

We were accompanied by some violinists throughout the evening!

Our area backed out into this garden

We had our dinner in this hall which we're hoping we'll recognize in the upcoming batman film.

There were many museums which looked eerily similar to penguins museum in our game.

We were allowed to see some of taxidermy wildlife.  Apparently there is much more in storage being preserved for future generations.

Lots of exotic wildlife like this tiger and even a full grown Giraffe!

Then we had to head back to our hotel but not before spending a few minutes playing with the bat symbol!

And of course as all excellent team jolly's end there was much dancing, drinking and ... human pyramids to be seen.

Wollaton Hall - Google Map
Wollaton Hall - YouTube video
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South West England Trip

See the rest of the photo's here!

Wolcott Society
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We had to do something worthwhile during England's record breaking heatwave that passed through.
Our trip was originally only supposed to be 2 days but as we were heading out we quickly realized we should really make the most of it and pushed our rental to 4.   The roads were pretty busy as everyone else had the same idea as us but I honestly don't think we could have had a more enjoyable time seeing this surprisingly beautiful part of England.
Susan had been planning on coming out to these parts since we moved here as she has ancestral roots within Exmoor Park.  On our last day we managed to get a hold of the gentleman who takes care of Tolland church. This is the church which the original Wolcott family would have used and still has tomb sites on the church yard from the 1600's!   We received a lot of interesting information about the area and were even given instructions on how to walk to the original manor where Wolcott's lived. You can read more about Henry Wolcott and the history here.

One of the many miniature steam trains driving around Exbury park.

Quick tour of the church in Tolland Somerset.

Lea Valley Canal (Heading south)

Susan has been wanting to show me the ride along the Lea Valley canal to the Thames since she's gotten her new bike.   We had a sunny weekend and made the best of it. 

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Heading out from our place in Walthamstow

One of a few interesting bridges and tunnels along the way

Looking at Three Mills where a lot of Stop Motion productions are done. (Including the new Frankenweenie movie)

Lea Valley canal merges into Thames water (Tide was out)

Bending around before meeting up with Regents Canal

Just finished having a sandwich in Victoria Park

The new athletic Olympic stadium which is next to Victoria Park

View Bike along Lea Valley canal in a larger map