Leeds Castle I'd planned to head off to Leeds Castle by myself on Saturday but by the end of Thursday night, I found myself being joined by a great group - Joel, Matt, Kel, Ray and Cath (Matt's parents who are here on holiday). We booked tickets with National Express which included bus trip and castle entry. So we were on a bus leaving Victoria bus station at 9am and at the castle at 10:30am. The castle itself didn't open until 11am but the gro...

Basingstoke, Winchester and Surrounds - weekend with Emma and James After many months of emails, I finally organized to catch up with Emma. She'd moved in with James a few weeks before at Basingstoke, about 45 minutes from London by train. The weekend before, they moved into their own house so we decided I should go visit for the weekend. We decided during the week to meet in London and go see a theatre show first. I met Emma and James at the theatre...

Wimbledon As I'd wanted to go to Wimbledon last year but couldn't go due to work and plans already made for the weekends, I was determined to get there this year. So I took a day off work and headed off with Meg earlyish one Tuesday morning, catching the tube and bus to Wimbledon before walking through the town to tennis centre. Access to the centre, 1st and 2nd courts operates on a ballot system but to get in to watch the outside courts, you need to q...

Wonderful Windsor and Eton Yep, I finally got my butt in gear and headed out of London for the day and with no train mishaps (like last weeks adventure of making it onto the train only to have it get delayed for hours due to a fatality so my trip was cancelled that day!). I was on a train at Clapham Junction just after 9:30am and in Windsor 40 minutes later. My first stop, naturally, was the castle, home of the Queen when she decides to visit - which h...

The Lovely Lakes District Seeing as it was a long weekend, Lis, Joel, Craig and myself decided we'd head up to the Lakes District in North Western England. Thanks to Joel's connections as a travel agent, we were able to hire a car very cheaply, with Joel and I being the designated drivers due both us having manual licences. The car was brand new, a Renault Laguna, with only 9 miles on the speedo when we got it. And call me crazy but I was excited that it ...