Up early this morning, on the 7.39am train to London. We had to be at Victoria Station by 8.30am (we were there 8.05am) to be collected for our Evan Evans tour. We were taken by coach firstly to Windsor Castle. We were shown through the chapel where the Queen's father and grandparents, & Henry VIII and Jane Seymour are buried. We were also taken over the State Apartments and saw where they had the fire 2 years ago. It destroyed 100 rooms!! Only a few have b...

This morning we slept in (we all needed it), so we didn't leave until 10.30am. We took our washing to Borough Green (three pound 80 for 4 bags of dirty clothes) and dropped Shannon's film into to be developed (five pound and a free film). We then drove down to Dover to explore the castle more thoroughly. We also had a guided tour of the tunnels under the cliffs (well, a couple of them - there are miles of tunnels). They were used in WWII and before. It was reall...

This morning we had the alarm set and got up early - we drove to St Mary Cray and bought "off-peak" travelcards to London. It was only 1/2 hour and took us to Victoria Station. We then took the underground to Oxford Circus, bought tickets for a bus tour (with head phones) and walked to Picadilly Circus (past the Liberty Shop) to catch the bus. We then had a 2 hour tour of London - the traffic was heavy because the Queen was opening Parliament and some streets w...

A slightly earlier start today (10.30am or so). We drove down to Bodiam Castle. When we were filling up with petrol I found a 10 pound note under our car (about $30!!). The villages we passed through today, and the little lanes we drown down, were soooo beautiful. The autumn trees are lovely and losing their leaves all the time. Bodiam Castle was really nice, it's been well preserved. It was free for us to get in to, because we're National Trust members. We h...

Everyone slept in this morning, so we had a very late start. Herstmonceaux Castle was closed so we went straight to Chawton and found Jane Austen's home - lovely old house. We toured the house and saw where she wrote her stories, and the room where she died. We found the Museum of Airborne Forces (on British Army land, guarded by 2 soldiers with machine guns) - it was well done with lots of models and a room of medals. On the way back we found a Tesco super st...