Time to finish this blog once and for all and in order to do it properly, we need to pretend that I am still travelling and giving updates along the way, that way the magic of travel will still be alive, if only while you read the blog.

Today I am embarking on a day of bus travel to parts of England that typify the English experience, we shall visit Stonehenge, the city of Bath and the historically recorded birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon. When we set out from London the weather was overcast,but this is England and by the time we got to Stonehenge the wind and rain had caught up with us and it made the Stonehenge experience not so enjoyable. When you arrive at Stonehenge, you disembark from your vehicle at the visitors centre which is about 2 miles away from Stonehenge itself and you have to catch one of their smaller buses up to the rocks, which I will call them from now on. Once you get to the rocks, you have the option to walk right around the circle to get views from many angles, but I for one was not really interested in doing this, the wind and the rain were making it a very miserable experience and my pitiful little umbrella that I bought from a cheap market stall in Hong Kong was not really up to the task of keeping me dry, in fact no umbrella known to man would keep you dry when the rain is coming at you sideways, so I stood and reflected for about ten seconds, took a couple of pics to prove that I had been there and hightailed it back to the bus and back to the visitors centre for a hot cup of tea. That was my Stonehenge experience, I have heard many stories from people about how mysterious and comtemplative this site can be, but I would wager that if those people had visited on a day like today, they would have been comtemplating a hot cup of tea back at the warm and sheltered visitors centre just like I was, not standing in the wind and rain in an open field trying to find some meaning in a circle of large monolithic rocks. As I walked back to bus, I mused with a fellow passenger about the possibility that Stonehenge might have been created by a bunch of drunken peasants with nothing better to do way back when, just to mess with the minds of future generations. If that was the case, it was working, good one guys!

Next stop, the city of Bath, which I thought was very apt considering the shower I just had at the rocks. We drove through the Cotswolds to get to Bath, which on a sunny day would have been lovely, but let's not forget this is the England in one day experience, so the weather was living up to all the stereotypes we have heard about it. So onward we go through wind and rain to arrive at Bath, which again on a sunny day would have been quite lovely, but on this particular day it seemed to make the buildings look that little bit more medeival, which again added to the atmosphere of the England in one day tour. One thing I know for certain is that all those episodes of Escape To The Country I had watched set me up for a fall, LOL. It was a very historic city and the architechture was stunning, particularly the churches and older public buildings and the bridge lined with shops was very different. after a while of walking around looking at old buildings, I found a small pub called the Ale House and had myself a hot plate of Bangers and Mash for lunch, can't get more English than that. From Bath, we drove to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the house where William Shakespeare was historically reported to have been born and while it was interesting to walk through a home that that was still furnished and set up just as it was back in the times of Shakespeare, I have to admit that I was not in awe of it like some people were, to me it was just a house where someone well known was born. The weather was still being English and it was cold and wet, so all in all I was more interested in getting back on to the warm, dry bus and driving back to London to get ready for the next day when out tour would make it's way across the English Channel by Ferry to meet up with our tour guide in France.