However true to form, the second and third week of August see a complete change as the temperature is back down to the late teens and it rains practically every day!
The seagulls provide the soundtrack to the summer, their endless warbling driving us to near suicide!
This summer we manage to hit the Salsa dance floor twice, now we're really getting somewhere...
On our first weekend we manage to see the Rainbow theatre's performance of Shakespeare's 'A Comedy of Errors' at Highdown gardens, we take Annette's mum, Mavis and it doesn't rain!
London
On the first and second Saturdays I get to go up to London for free! In fact I'm being paid to take some goups of students up on an excusion, so I get to do the touristy bit.
On the first Saturday during our free time I spend some time in the National Gallery... it's only my second ever visit, I came here in 1996 and remember seeing the Leonardo da Vinci cartoon, Michelangelo's paintings and Van Gogh's Sunflowers. I revisit these pieces with several students , but lose them somewhere in the 1900's... while I'm enjoying Seurat's Bathers and Monet's Water lillies! There are some Italians checking out Piero della Francesco's Risen Christ and San Sebastian, who is still being pierced with all those arrows!
I sit back and lose myself in the blue, grey mist and cloud of some Turner masterpieces... oh, is it time to go already?
Cambridge
Always one of the highlights of our trips back to England to see Annette's brother Phil and his lovely six-year old daughter Leonie...
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Annette trains up to Cambridge on the Saturday morning (while I'm trudging round sunny London) and spends the afternoon at Phil's local country club pampering herself! I meet up with them in the evening for dinner at 'the Back street Bistro' restaurant.
Phil is off to California in a few days, so after a pain au chocolat/raisin/apricot feast for breakfast, we head out for a wander round Cambridge... it's a beautiful, hot, sunny day and everyone's lazing in the parks, on the river Cam and generally enjoying themselves...
We walk through Phil's college and oldest in Cambridge, Peterhouse, past Christchurch and cool our feet off in the river! If only every day of summer in England was like this...
Family musings...
It's only been eight months since we've seen most of our family, others we haven't seen for two and five years! Here are some highlights...
We stay with Annette's mum and dad, Charlie and Mavis, we have dinner at my mum's and see my two sisters, Rita and Cassandra and also have lunch out with her and at her house. I go for a drink with my dad and with Annette to his house.
I have lunch in Worthing with my sister, Rita, Michael and Holly and Annette and I go for a curry round their house. We see Annette's sister, Ruth and Joe on several occassions and Rory and Bernice at Salsa and for drinks. I pop in to see my brother Alan and family, but don't get to see my other brother, Carl, who's in Somerset.
We take my grandmother out for a 'Tex-Mex meal in Worthing , see Annette's auntie, Alison and family before their move to Hong Hong and the rest of my family... auntie Tina, Frank, David and families at my auntie Lisa's house and Annette's neice, Felicity and son, Stanley!!! Phew!
Oxford
My third Saturday and Annette is joining me on a special school trip to Oxford. A nearly three-hour coach ride there and back meaning time in this most ancient and famous of English cities is of the essence! Unbelievably it's the first time here for both of us, so we're quite looking forward to it...
First stop is punting on the river and with 40 foreign teenagers this is no mean feat! The river Ouse is a bit out of the historic centre and not quite as pretty as Cambridge...
After lunch we go on 'the Oxford story' tour - a tour of the 'actual' city would have been better! However we have a pleasant enough day, there is some beautiful architecture here, my personal favourite being the Palladian inspired 'Radcliffe Camera', which is a real gem! The surrounding countryside is very beautiful too
The Parsonage
Now here was a pleasant surprise... We decide to take Annette's mum and dad out for a meal to say thank you for having us. We choose the Parsonage an Tarring high street for its traditional, quality and reputation and it doesn't disappoint! A beautiful 500 year old, so 'actual' Tudor, house that was converted from a museum into a restaurant in 1987 - when I was growing up in nearby Thomas-A-Beckett and would cycle past on many occasions...
We have a very enjoyable evening and the food is excellent!
And that was that... four weeks in the UK. Some sun (and some flooding!) some Salsa, two trips to London, two days in Cambridge, Oxford, lots of family, a bit of work, getting paid to drink beer! Bacon and eggs, grape nuts, hot java lava (it's the only coffee I can now drink in England) crumpets and England beating the West Indies at cricket... for a change!
Rule Britannia!
(Original journal entry 18/8/04)
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