Sweet nothings

Monday's adventures :)

Today we went out to one of my most favourite photo backdrops. A 13th century Abbey, later converted into a Tudor Mansion and now ruined but cherished. It has nothing there - no car park, no toilets, no cafe, no ticket office, no guide books. 

But frankly, why would you need any of that?

During King Henry V's reign, it was a peaceful monastery, but by the time of King Henry VIII, monasteries were being quashed. As a reward for helping in this, the Earl of Southampton was given the place to turn into his grand home.  Nice huh? Makes for a stunning background anyway! This is one of many....

I could sit here all day, but that was not to be....
After here, we went to the sea front at Lee on Solent, to see the boats and walk along the pebbles. 

Across the water you can see the Isle of Wight, and the boats taking part in Cowes week. It was rather windy tho... makes for fun hair photos!!

I am sad to say yesterday, day seven of the trip, I have no photos!!!!!! The girls were out without me and promised to take iPhone pics. Yeah, that so didn't happen.  One more adventure tomorrow, some packing and a meal out.... before an early start to the airport on Wednesday. I cant believe tomorrow is our guest's last day... that went so fast! Such a lot more we wanted to do, and see and experience... ah well, she'll just have to come on back, wont she?  :)

a little behind with posting....

Ah, the feeling of trying to catch up. A familiar feeling - hello my entire life- I'm so behind on my projects, my writing, my scrapbooking, my dusting,  my editing - oh no- wait; I am NOT behind on my editing! woohoo! {Its good to acknowledge the little achievements dont you think? ;) } Hey, I'm also pretty up to date with the laundry {- major thing- } 

Yesterday, I gave hosting over to my teen, who took our America guest out shopping with her friends, and then sunbathing with her friends. Apparently it all went well, and everybody is happy. They are currently setting fire to melting cheese over crisps. Fingers crossed for my kitchen here folks... ;)

I had a daytime to catch up on laundry, hoovering, editing, and sitting down ;) :)  Tomorrow they are back to being dragging around taken out by me :) Gotta love 'em. 

This is a fav shot from London - the Tower of London to be exact. They are posing with a Beefeater, a keeper of the keys. And he's pretty much only posing with us because he's trying to close up and lock the door, its that time of day.

Since the 'essential sights of London', we have been to the New Forest, a traditional beach, kind of somewhere near a castle, and numerous extra little places. 

Like out for real fish and chips....

which, in case you dont know, have to be eaten out of paper, with lots of salt and vinegar. yes, even if you dont like vinegar/salt/paper. {Luckily our guest liked them very much :) }

Should you be wondering, planning on visiting me soon, or your name is Jan and you are very very sweet to me ;), then here is how we have done our local and London tour...

Day one - Seeing how teenagers apparently need a mere 11 minutes to recover from a transatlantic night flight {where as I always need a week} we hit our home town centre, Southampton, Hampshire. Here we have the usual shops and restaurants plus the docks with the cruise ships and cargo ships and our Old City Walls.  Its very old - the lions have been guarding the walls since the 1600s. Yes I do need a picture of said metal lions to put here.  I'm working on it ;) Shakespeare played here too, with his travelling theatre. Cool huh? 

Day two... *trying to remember what was day two...* Ah yes, you remember it was climb a hill/do some shopping; day of contrasts :) The hill I personally like to drag people to the top of, is Butser Hill, a perfectly easy climb to do but ending at a great height, with outstanding views of the countryside. 

Shopping from here is easy - Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth. Outlet style with marina views. Enough bargains to easily make a girl happy and enough coffee and eating spots to easily park a husband ;)

 

Day Three, four and five began with a train to London. Top tip - when booking a train, book in advance, online and always use National Rail Enquires. They saved us about erm... £300!!!!! 

We, we as a couple, often go to London and have favourite hotels to stay in, however,  we as a family go less often. So- another top tip, {I could write a guide book!!}  as we are large family, most decent hotels wont let you sleep more than two people per room -costly! Finding a nice hotel that let us sleep three in each room was fabulous. And like all hotels it runs special offers all the time.  

There is a billion great things to do and see in London. All we could do really was do some classic touristy things and throw in a  few favourites of our own until our time ran out...

We book fast track tickets - no lining up- for the London Eye. This big wheel is just wonderful for sightseeing and photo taking :) 

It doesnt go fast, it isnt at all scary - take this from someone who truly FREAKED OUT going up the Eiffel Tower...- and its absolutely 100% got to be part of your London trip. 

We shopped Oxford Street. Regents street too, if you have time. Selfridges is my favourite store to just experience.
Fortnums and Masons, back over near Picadilly, are a long standing store since the 1700s. Their hampers of fine foods are world famous - and taking afternoon tea there is delightful. And they have three different restaurants to dine in - one being touristy ice creams and such, one being super fancy meals and one being classic high tea. Its wonderfully cool and calm in there. I recommend your gift shopping to their gifts and food floor. Never mind shopping at Harrods. Okay, we did go to Harrods too, just to jaw drop at the fancy displays, and mostly to enable our guest to say ' I've been there' . 

We took the Palace tour, and saw that dress...It was truly lovely inside, but no photos allowed and lots of cordoned off areas... plus it was SERIOUSLY raining and the only exit is thro 800m of palace garden. Probably lovely on a hot day, but not when you are squelching thro four inch puddles in muddy sandals. Top Tip here, that I sadly didnt know, is once you are there get a staff member to sign the back of your ticket and get in free for repeat visits that year.  Everybody picks up the audio tour and the route around the state rooms is funnily quiet as nobody is talking just listening. I wasnt...audio tours bore the heck out of me, I am a visual person and I like to read and see, thank you very much. 

We saw the Crown Jewels, which are indeed stunning, however I get much more excited by the buildings they are in. I'm old history happy there, and Mr Britguy is jewel happy there, so its win win ;) I LOVE telling the girls the stories of things that happened there, if you go and dont know any stories, you can buy a book or two in the shop there. Or you can be a super googler of places you visit - thats how I roll :)

Trafalgar square is easy to find, and you can see Nelson up on his column, and the Lions that arrived later. Note the big pictures plaques at Nelsons feet - they made those form the french canons they seized in the Battle of Waterloo, -and look out for the worlds smallest Police Station, nestled in the corner of the square. 

We like Nelson, he's a favourite Duke in our house :) Here are the big girls climbing on the column base...

and there are the two fountains of course... much hysteria over the wind blowing the spray :)

We also walked in St James Park, across the blue bridge over the serpentine lake. You can sit in the deck chairs here, feed the geese/ducks/pelican/swans and admire the view of both the Palace and the Horseguards Parade.  
There are red phone boxes all around London to take the essential tourist shot in front of, there are also black phone boxes in Westminster {serious government area you see} Catch a double decker - but dont pay the OMG prices for a tourist one, hop on a real one - the actual ones that are often as old as the 1940s, and take billions of Londoners to work and home again. 

Here are the girls on a 'real ' red bus. Do mind the stairs; its lethal :)

Hail a black taxi, visit  Picadilly Circus, walk through Leicester Square {altho I hate it there, so busy} oh, and get a water taxi 'clipper' boat up the Thames from one tourist attraction to the other. Being a taxi its much, much cheaper than a sightseeing boat but of course, goes along the same stretch of water...

Make sure to note that an American once bought the London Bridge ... and apparently rebuilt it brick by brick in Arizona. You will have to google this to believe me. 

Visit South Bank, just a stones throw from the Eye and Big Ben. Its always got something quirky going on - currently a traditional fairground and seaside theme - and theres plenty to eat there. 

We stood on Hungerford Bridge and I managed to get three red buses, the Eye, House of Parliment AND Big Ben in the background! Tourist photo score!!!

Somehow, most times we hit London we tie in a visit to the V&A. The Victoria and Albert Museum is wonderful. a heavenly place to lose yourself in, if you have half and hour, two hours or all day. I took so many photos here.... the ironwork is a display not to be missed,

the vintage show posters,

the silver, the stone pillar bigger than nelsons ;) and the fact the entire build itself is detailed beauty. So far, I have never paid to see one of the visting-pay-per-view exhibits. No need, the free 95% of the museum will keep you more then entertained.  There is also a gorgeous courtyard garden and paddling pond in the middle, to pause in on sunny days. 

 

Have I covered all we did in London? Oh wait -

We posed with the Horseguards too :) - Word to the wise, there is NO room here, with the tourists shoving for a picture I do wish I had more room for my fixed lens angle!!, the horses may bite, or more likely; shake their head up and down in boredom and smack tourists on the nose. Its not funny, I know, but it is kinda funny when you see it... Do not waste your time talking to the Guardsmen, they arent allowed to answer you back, so they wont. Poking or touching them is an arrestable offence. We did make our guardsman grin a teeeeny tiny bit tho, when the big girls were shrieking about horses/getting so close and then Daisy just waltzed right up, petted its nose and said Hi, - you can see how tiny she is against him here.  That's my girl :) 

 

OKAY - Day erm... six! - We drove to a traditional beach. Swanage, in Dorset. Horrible traffic gives way to green hilly lanes, takes you right by Corfe Castle -

and onto the beach..

 Where we educated our guest to walking along beaches in Wellies, eating those fish and chips and Punch and Judy. 

Then we stopped off in Lyndhurst on the way home, Lyndhurst is often on my blog, being the first part of the New Forest from my house :)  We ran about, kept out of the way of the Cricket match, petted the wild ponies, pottered up the little high street, stopped off at the old fashioned sweet shop, had some dinner and came home. shattered! 

 

iPhone London part two

Hot hot hot in London! A little Oxford st shopping followed by a trip on the London Eye, and a traditional merry-go-round ride for all four girls:) South Bank, London, has a fab traditional fair at the moment. Real camera pics being uploaded and edited as I write :)

Via my iPhone.

We're in London...

It's amazing what we assume tourists want to see, and what they actually do... Who knew riding a doubledecker bus was thought of as cool? Or that no, London black cabs aren't as 'famous' as we think. Phone Boxes are tho!

High tea (such as scones, tea, sandwiches, finger cakes) in Fortnums & Masons. Lovely :) All our old well known stores take some explaining... Explaining why such classic stores or expensive stores are SO special isn't easy....

sometimes things just are a classic, it's somewhat refreshing to have a teen be totally nonplussed by Harrods, and sometimes you realise when you explain things out loud, how strange they seem!

Via my iPhone.

indulging the two sides....

The deal was if you come and climb this hill, see the view, admire the wild flower meadows and enjoy the fresh air {and rare UK sun!!}  there will be shopping later.

You see, I speak perfect teenager :)

Day one...

Teen daughter's American friend, Kelly,  is here, she and Teen Daughter made it safely home together :)

Despite the fact they have been running about non-stop over there for ten days, and then flew transatlantic thro the night  they both insisted they were not tired. 

Having stayed up late to get the text that they had got on the plane okay, and then, personally, worrying so much about picking them up on time I found myself jolting awake all night -sheesh!- Mr Britguy and I were shattered... LOL

So we hit town for some lunch, some money changing, and the girls were keen to do some shopping too.
All the while Daisy didnt let go of Kelly's hand. Kelly currently thinks its very cute. but this may wear off after ten days of intense Daisy love ;)
After a few stores we dragged them home - via the old town walls - history absorbing is compulsory on this trip ;) - and suggested a rest.  15 minutes after telling us they really were wide awake, I found them both fast asleep :) 

There were fellow teenagers to hang out with later, pizza and laptop time :) then showers and bed.

matching Mollie shot

To go with the shot of Daisy yesterday :)

now to work on pairs lighting... and convince adults to stand here. and to source affordable but not rubbish softboxes and posing tubs {thats a posh stool to you and me} and diffusers, and hair strips. and reflectors that arent actually bed sheets. and bulldog clips {dont ask} Am I giving away the magic here?? ;) LOL LOL

OH and to await excitedly the new backdrop. 

Seeing afresh...

For the love and help of very dear friends, who take the time to go over {and over} lighting with me, and share their thoughts and help. I am so grateful. For lovely Sam in South Africa, and for the entire Pertiet Family in America.  Incredibly grateful I have these people in my life. {and not just for lighting!}

Slooooowly, I can start to see results that I am thinking of and trying for. Amen.

And here is to some of the busiest and best days of my life.... the next ten days we are host to a 'fresh to the UK' visitor.... and we get to go everywhere and do everything we love, plus everything touristy that we never got round to doing before, and everything that happens to sum up the best of our area. Which means this blog may become even more erratic than usual, and will be filled with crazy photos and to-die-for photo opportunities. OH YEAH! 

lets go!