Holiday in Blighty

Just got back from a great holiday back in England which we really enjoyed. It was great to meet up with so many people. Having been away for so long we also got to see things with a fresh set of eyes and we realised that some things were much better than we remembered about home which we'd previously taken for granted.

We'd been missing roast dinners and fry-ups (hard to find good pork sausages, beans, bread and bacon here) so we went a little OTT and had at least one roast or fry-up every day which was rubbish for our hearts but great for the soul.

Another thing we'd missed was the colour GREEN which we saw for the first time in a few months. Everything is Minnesota is either covered in snow or snirt (snow and dirt) and brown, black or white.

Here we are walking back from Richmond towards Ham on Dan's birthday (in case you didn't know how old he is he's giving a hint here).



And this is a view over London from Richmond Park (you have to click to view the larger image, see how many London landmarks you can identify).

One of the highlights of the return trip was getting to have a bonus Christmas round at Denise and Bill's. Dad managed to make the trip down which was great, he is recovering slowly from his heart op and we even got to see his scar (would have posted it but would have got reported for inappropriate content). We had the full roast dinner and presents afterwards plus we got to see some of the Dorset crew which was a bonus ball.



Toby is all perky now that he is out of his cast


Becky's favourite at the moment is her very own lip salve , not to take any chances she regularly covers her entire face with it.By the end of the day the kids were exhausted as you can see from this opium den-like shot.

We got to lots of our favourite local haunts, such as Richmond park, here is a shot, not of the park but of the view through a public telescope of St Paul's cathedral, one of the few protected vistas in London which is remarkable considering its across 14 miles of the most expensive real estate in the world.


We also got to the RHS gardens at Wisley to see the new greenhouse



Of course one of the primary reasons for going home was for Dan's birthday.




On the day after his birthday we had a party for various of his friends at Horton farm which was a great way to catch up with lots of people - some more pictures to follow.