UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 12 Today we travelled to Stratford, the home of William Shakespeare. His family were quite wealthy and William didn't go to school until he was 11. He left at 15 with very little education as he wasn't interested in school. He liked to watch the traveling players and to dabble in poaching. He was married to Anne Hathaway when he was 18 to her 26. Within several months Anne was pregnant, and Will Shakespeare got spooked and ran off and was...

UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 11 Still blowing a gale but we ventured forth and headed out of Edinburgh to make our way back into England. Travelled for a while through the Scottish mountains with the tour guide prattling on about English history. I've learnt to tune out. Hey I like history as much as the next man, but talk about overkill. Anyway back to our trip. We travelled for about an hour and a half before stopping one last time at a small village of Jedburgh....

UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 10 Later start to our day today. Breakfast was at 8 o'clock before we headed into Edinburgh for a tour of the city. It was windy and raining, which we have been told is pretty normal. Keith pointed out the huge monument to the bard of Scotland, Robert Burns. You could climb up the 287 steps to the top of the monument if you had the stomach for it. Next he showed us an abbey and the royal residence. We saw the bath house of Queen Mary, wher...

UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 9 We left Liverpool and headed towards Scotland. It was a long day of traveling. We had a bit of a scare this morning with one of the passengers complaining of chest pains. We pulled over and called an ambulance. Wayne was taken to hospital and we continued on our way. We later found out that he was fine. It wasn't a heart attack and that he and his wife Judy would be joining us when we reached Leeds. This was awesome news. We were behind...

UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 8 Up extremely early today as there was a change of boat plans. The ferry we were meant to return to Wales on was cancelled due to the wind over the last several days so we had to come back by ferry. Three and a half hours of rolling in the waves, however this time there were cinemas and the girls went to see 'The Groods' and I went to 'It's a Good Day to Die Hard". Loved it. We left the ferry in Hollyhead and travelled towards Chester. A...