This is going to be a real challenge. Long stories short, covering two days. This being written sitting in the bar next to Ches who is halfway through a Yorkshire Rhubarb and Giger Gin with Fentiman's Ginger Beer. I'm into my third Pilsner. We left Edinburgh after a sad goodbye for now, to Alison and journeyed to Alnmouth where her GGrandfather (my GGUncle) went to school. For some strange reason, when James, Mary and the two boys James and John Hamilton retu...

Ches and I were only in Edinburgh for a few hours before we reached the conclusion that we far prefer smaller cities to the large such as Paris. Even with Edinburgh's population of just under 500,000 swollen by tens of thousands of visitors for the Fringe Festival, it's just more comfortable. Alison met us at the airport where we waited for over 30 min for the worst rental car company in the world to provide us with a pre-booked car. Their customer service rea...

We've just returned home at 5.00pm from our last afternoon in the Cotswolds. We've waited all week for some sunny weather and we almost got it. We had begun to think that we would need to stay here for three months from the beginning of June if we wanted to experience a week of summer. Not exactly summer by our standards, as 20c with cloud and sunny patches was the best we have experience today. It was however a day when we got to see the Cotswolds from high ...

The things we do to continue to bring you some summer delights from the UK to brighten your cold winter gloom in Aus. We planned on a morning at Blenheim Palace and the afternoon in Oxford. The weather forecast was for occasional showers, primarily around 3.00pm and rain at 4.00 pm. Should be plenty of time to explore the Capability Brown gardens. We set off on the 40min drive to Woodstock, a pretty village beside the Palace, which we also planned on explorin...

We spent all of Thursday in "Stratford upon Avon" You might remember that we visited Bradford on Avon last week. There are lots of towns up around the Cotswolds that are on the River Avon. Occasionally they are named "…. On Avon". Stratford isn't "on" it's "upon." "Upon" is the formal term for "on". There was more traffic entering this town than any other we have visited so far. When a parking spot appeared, we immediately dived right in, and it turned out...