that the English are so crap at?
dear dear margo, restrain youself
just because we beat some other colonial team from south er south well it doesnt matter we gave them a good thrashing, and you know what? they were grateful. Cold showers and a good thrashing...thats what they like.
well to level the series..
Well, there's a new English captain, Michael Vaughan.
At least he's decorative, and was fairly useful here earlier this year, as well!
This is all a bit disturbing. The very thought....women being interested in cricket? Whatever next?
margo's quote, "Just re-orienting this thread to talk about that truly English game, cricket, that the English are so crap at!"
It's a good thing margo has made her visit to England before she made this statement! LOL
Hey! I'm baaaaaaaack! Had a wonderful time. Loved, ~LOVED~ meeting Gautam, Steve & Mrs. Steve in London and it was super to have a welcoming card from McTag and text message from Margo while we were at the restaurant. Thanks everybody.
Waaaaaaaaaaah. London was so beautiful yesterday as we left. <sigh>
Piffkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!
Hope u had a fab journey home !! Missing me already ?
Welcome back, Piffka!!! (And I'm really sorry that I had to go to a 90th birthday
)
Of course I'm missing you, Gautam!
Walter!!!! I didn't realize you were so old. Good grief -- NINETY? No wonder you couldn't make it to the dinner.
Well -quiver, shake, tremble- friends on A2K keep me young at heart
(And those from A2K as well - although some [I'm not name-calling] enjoy only because I'm not there :wink:)
Well, I'm glad to "see" you, ninety... or not.
Well. c'mon - get with the trip report!
We're waiting!! <tap,tap,tap>
I've seen the dinner report - what else did you do?
Pics? Sheesh!
Hi Margo! The trip was even better than I expected... no horrible glitches -- the worst was a three-hour delay in Inverness. The thing was we decided to take the earlier train out of Edinburgh, expecting that the "emergency" number for the car hire shop that I'd been given for just such a circumstance would work. God knows, everything in Scotland except the public houses close down on Sundays. Anyway, the emergency number was a total bust. The manager said it was a new cell phone and he never got our messages... there was also a big Scottish Premier game on that afternoon (Hearts 0/Rangers 4), and another one -- Man U vs Arsenal -- that we watched for a while. Boy oh boy, was it hard to find a pub in Inverness playing THAT game. Later found out it ended nil/nil. In the end we got a great car out of the deal -- a Honda CRV automatic that made driving around the bonnie single-track roads much more enjoyable.
We had gorgeous places to stay -- I'd worked hard to find some really good hotels. It kept us from that awful B&B search -- I hate that "no room in the Inn" feeling. Scotland was wonderful -- our son loved it. Edinburgh was good, but in the end it IS just another city. We did some hiking above Loch Alsh, some more hiking in Glen Coe, and we had a most interesting experience visiting with the man who now owns the steading in Leanachan that belonged to Mr.P's ancestor pre-1745. There's local folklore about the witch of Leanachan and her dealings with this ancestor, in fact, lots of information about this guy, a lot of which was collected by the new owner. We were given a guided tour of the old place, just a ruin now, quite large, with Irish moss that was literally two feet high. Oh, I hope those photos turn out! We've been invited to come back and stay so that we can "look around some more." I'm champing at the bit to do just that -- he was my kind of guy. He raises red deer at the place and has two young Clydesdale horses in training and a Shetland pony for the fun of it -- we had a lot to talk about! He gave me a kiss when we left him.
That was one of the high points, the other two being church on Sunday at Westminster Abbey and the dinner which I've already chronicled with Super G and Super Steve41oo. Mr.P enjoyed that so much. Being with Gautam and Steve and Ros was like being with old friends. Just a great time!
THe first night that we arrived in Edinburgh was spent with our daughter & her bf who left for the states that night. Went to a club called Two Sisters where we were the oldest there by about twenty, possibly thirty years. I ordered a Coffee Nudge & then had to talk the bartender through making it. Said goodbye and woke to a gorgeous morning -- visited E'burgh Castle and made the rounds of the Royal Mile. We DID go to Ensign Ewart's pub -- a very small place, lovely -- had a good ploughman's lunch there. Our hotel was on the far side of Calton's Hill which made for some vigorous walking. Met a young girl from Korea who badly needed friends -- she was on day five of a 33 day-trip by herself to Europe and was so lonesome. I hope she calls our son when she returns to London.
Spent our night in Inverness in the very fancy Culloden House -- good grief, what a gorgeous place. Walked the grounds as though we owned it, had fancy meals, slept like royalty and went, the next day, to visit the battlegrounds... then took in Clava Cairns.
Let's see -- we enjoyed the heck out of the westside of Scotland -- just driving and stopping. Had our hiking boots on and got out whenever we felt like it for a stroll. Took our son to the Commando training grounds. He & his dad met the Lochiel, head of the Cameron Clan while we were at the museum there. We checked out the lochs, visited in Ft. William, Oban, Plockton, Kyle of Loch Alsh, and, of course, Dornie. (Mr. P. said that when he left Culloden House, they asked where we'd next be going and were shocked when he said Dornie. Guess it was too much of a comedown for them.)
The Caledonian Sleeper was a little more uncomfortable than I expected -- I hardly got any sleep. We had two connecting cabins for the three of us, so we had a little extra room. Fun, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way to do it again.
In London, we spent most of Saturday visiting Greenwich, most of Sunday visiting Kew Gardens. Our hotel suite was v. nice, if a little out of the way -- we were by the Pimlico station which meant we had to go to Victoria station to get anywhere else... like an appendix. The original Tate museum is in Pimlico so we did have close access to that. I think it was a near genius idea of mine to attend church services at Westminster. So many things were closed on Sunday... argggghhhh... it can be frustrating, but we found the service to be a very emotional & beautiful experience even for a Taoist (such as myself) and an apostate (like Mr.P). Did him good, I'm sure. We didn't go to any shows -- none of them reached out and grabbed us except for an Umbrella Dance at Sadler Wells which Mr. P did not want to attend. Too bad, Mark Morris was there.
The trip was too darn short but it's good to be home -- the animals were anxious when I left this morning to do errands. Poor creatures didn't know just when I'd be back again. The sun is shining and all is nearly right with the world.
Hmmm, I read that over and realize it is more than a little disjointed. Sorry, I blame my jetlag! I'll be myself again in a few days, I think. yaaaaawn.
Would love to hear more about your visit to Greenwich and the 'original' Tate.
Thanks for the descriptions, effort to make them while lagging...
Thanks, Piffka, for that report.
Yeah, we are rather oldfashioned here in Europe - you'll still find some countries, were only churches, pubs and petrol stations are all hours on Sundays.
I'm not sure, evryone thinks the same about Edinburgh (e.g. I don't). But I really don't know mayn of such cities, since I haven't seen many besides some European :wink:
Thanks again for that report!!!
Hi CI -- More about Greenwich & the Tate? A glutton for punishment, huh?
Thanks for the kind words Osso & Charli. No, not a travel writer, but wouldn't that be a great occupation? I used to write technical manuals, hideously long & complicated things. Now I write for pleasure and don't mind so much if I'm sloppy.
Walter -- I didn't mean that Edinburgh wasn't a great city. It is. I'm just not a huge fan of them in any form. I find the things most appealing about cities are the "rural" areas they offer... Calton Hill & Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, all the parks & Kew Gardens in London. My prejudice is that I don't like to walk on sidewalks, I'm not much of a shopper, and I prefer to breathe clean air. What's in a city for me that I truly love? Museums and people. People I can find anywhere, so I go to cities for their museums... which are often closed on Sunday. argggh.
Greenwich happens to be a very nice part of London (that is... it has a great rural area!). We arrived by the first Thameslink of the morning, a great way to get there, except it takes more than an hour each way. I assume going by tube would be half that time. Cutty Sark was looking wonderful in its dry dock. We walked first thing up to the Royal Observatory and were there for the noon bells. It seemed so RIGHT to be there at noon. I very much enjoyed that part of the museum and was probably most stunned to see the changes in Harrison's designs of ship clocks from H1 to H4. In fact, we had to ask a museum guard where H4 was... in its compact silver case it looked nothing like its huge brass progenitors. The difficulties in creating a reliable timepiece by a carpenter are just so huge! They had some great interactive displays there to help explain latitude, longitude & why time is so important. Wonderful for me. I loved the shape of the Royal Observatory and its amazing views, I think I could have lived there. (As a sidelight... at the Tate I was pleased to see Turner's "View From Greenwich" showed how much the city has encroached down the Thames towards Greenwich.) That sort of science is very appealing to me, the Camera Obscura, the ladder to adjust the telescope angle... loved it.
Mr.P was more fond of the war exhibits in the Maritime Museum... I skipped a lot of that & enjoyed the art section. I do enjoy a seascape! I did go with him through the Nelson wing -- what an interesting character and apparently a genius at strategy. It was of real interest to me to read about how some of the exhibits came to be there -- those large & ornate royal barges that were put away for a hundred years or more, the bowsprits that were the last remains of a ship gone to the "knackers."
As you may be able to tell by the time on this post, I'm all out of whack -- wide awake now at nearly 2 am after having slept most of the afternoon. Gads.
I can be frequently found in the Greenwich park, jogging or paying the football or just lying on the grass reading a book !
- all female, from 3 different parts of the country. Yikes - they can talk! They all arrived yesterday and were here when I got home last night. I'm out looking for some neutral accommodation for me today! :wink: 
