Saturday 30 June - Monday 2 July Little Ballinger

Three nights with Uncle John and Aunty Jo in their beautiful, peaceful house ‘Little Ballinger’. Once again, John & Jo provide a wonderful welcome that immediately made us feel at home. We had a nice relaxing Saturday evening, and then Romy, Kia, Jessa and I were up and away early on Sunday morning to visit the one thing that Romy had put in a special request for on this trip - a visit to Warner Bros studio tour at Leavesden. This is a recently opened attraction, that has only been going for a couple of months, and which is hugely popular. Warner Bros have constructed a huge facility to house hundreds upon thousands of the props, costumes, sets, green scenes, masks, animatronics etc etc etc that were used to make the Harry Potter series of movies. It was all encompassing, and absolutely fascinating. It was great to get an insight into the massive amounts of time and effort that were bought to bear to bring this fantasy world to life, and give a feeling of realism to it sll. It was especially interesting coming hard on the heels of our visit to Oxford, making comparisons between the worlds of Oxford and Hogwarts inevitable. We ended up spending around five hours there, and only just got back in time to see James and Linda and co, who turned up for tea and a game of croquet. Meanwhile, Jeremy, Danae, John & Jo had been to visit Miss Tiggywinkle’s home for injured or ill wildlife, where they saw, amongst other things, several hedgehogs (of course), and a ‘truncated’ fox, born with abnormally short legs.

Monday saw us head into London for the first time, for a ‘kids day out’, to make up for missing the theme park visit that was to be a part of our cancelled Paris trip. This day involved a visit to M&M’s world in Leicester Square (who would have thought that you could construct a five storied shop, entirely dedicated to a type of lolly). We only managed two floors before the bright lights, rampant commercialism and relentless perkiness drove us out. Covent Garden was an interesting mix of shops, markets and street performers, but again the ‘tourist trap’ aspect of it was a bit overwhelming, and the street performers were sadly nowhere near the standard of those we have seen in Barcelona in particular. Finally, and best of all, we stopped in at Hamleys, a massive toy shop right in the middle of Rgeent Street. The best thing about Hamleys is the toy demonstrations, which are little mini-shows in their own right. We spent a lot more here than we intended!!

Ready for the tour! We were on the first tour of the day, and arrived early -
I don't think you would ever see this place so deserted otherwise.

Gryffindor dormitory

Item on table of make-up artist

The Burrow

Casting Floo powder

The Monster bok of Monsters

All aboard the Night Bus

Outside Ollivanders

Snape in the Potions clsssroom

Playing croquet

In the garden at Little Ballinger

Regent St

M&Ms World

Lego Queen at Hamleys

Friday 29 June Oxford

The dreaming spires of Oxford. The one thing even better than a day spent wandering the beautiful streets of this lovely town, is a day spent wandering the streets with a member of the Oxford University staff! Not only does Tom know exactly where we needed to go and what we should see, but he was full of interesting stories and anecdotes about what we were seeing, and was able to skip the line at every single place. We saw a heap of the well-known sights - Christ Church, Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian Theatre, etc etc - and also spent some time in some fascinating museums - the Pitt Rivers Collection, the Natural History Museum and the History of Science museum were brilliant, could have spent a whole day at each one of them. We also visited Wadham College, where my dad and uncle John both studied, and Keble College, which Tom is now a part of. Had a very entertaining evening with Tom and Katerina in their lovely new house, and then went out to the Meadows the next day for a picnic lunch with James & Linda and AKG, and John & Jo. Good to catch up with Miriam and Joe later on as well. The lifestyle that Tom & Katerina live here is so completely different to our own - it is amazing that the two of them are probably the only couple I know that do not own a car, and yet the two of them are also the most widely travelled people I know (Tom mentioned that he had done around 35 overseas trips last year). I really enjoyed spending some time getting an idea of their life, and it is so good to see how much they love what they do and appreciate the wonderful place that they live. 

Oxford street scene

Oxford - full of history - here is where Mary had three church elders burnt at the stake in 1555 because they refused to recant their newfound Protestant beliefs and return to Catholicism.

Hereford Briage - ten points for anyone who recognises where the design of this bridge has been copied from - there is a photo of the original in this blog somewhere!!

Edmond Halley's house, with observatory on roof. Halley never actually saw the comet that he predicted so accurately.

The magnificent Christ Church college.

As well as having amazing histroy lying aound everywhere, Oxford also has numerous links to more recent literature. This starcase at Christ Church features prominently in the Harry Potter movies, when the kids first arrive at Hogwarts ...

... and this road features in the opening scenes of Northern Lights, where Lyra escapes from her pursuers.

The Natural History Museum

Dinosaur tracks outside the NH museum

The Pitt Rivers Museum - an amazing and fascinating ethnographic collection, with all exhibits grouped by type rather than date.

The pub where the 'Inklings' regularly met to dicuss the books  they were writing -
JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis being two notable members.

At the History of Science Museum - a visiting lecturer scrawled these notes on a blackboard back in 1931. The top four lines explain how to measure the expansion of the universe. The bottom line gives the numeric value for the size of the universe. Gosh, you would have to be an Einstein to understand that, wouldn't you!!!

Picnic at the meadows

James doing what James does best

Danae finally getting her fringe trimmed (Thanks, Uncle John!)

Thursday 28 June Pembrokeshire to Gloucester

Travel day today - drove from Pembrokeshire all the way across to Gloucester. 

Stopped at the Big Pit on the way, an old coalmine that has been opened up to the public. Unfortunately we were too late in the day to go down the pit but we had a good look around their displays and info, and went into an audiovisual recreation of pit conditions that was actually very good. Don’t think I would enjoy being a coalminer.

Coalming equipment - a toothed wheel that bludgeoned away at the pit wall - reminded me of the film Total Recall.

More coalmining equipment - sort of a big rock chainsaw.

Monday 25-Wednesday 27 June Pembrokeshire

Steve & Sue Watkins were our first stop in Pembrokeshire, after a long day’s travel to reach them. We finally arrived around 4pm, to their dairy farm in South Wales, near Fishguard. They have the most amazing series of houses - their main farmhouse, which was built in 1240 and has been continuously occupied by Sue’s family ever since, plus a lovely big home for their son and his family, as well as a gorgeous, 3-bedroomed stone cottage that we had full use of. So comfortable! We had a good look around their farm, and Steve took us for a tour around the local area, telling us all about the farms and the farmers. Next day we visited Castell Henllys, a reconstructed Iron Age hilltop fort, and Workshop Wales, a gallery of work by local sculptors and painters.

Next was Dale, where my mum grew up. We stayed with family friends Caroline & John Potter int heir lovely house right on the beachfront. It rained just about the whole time, but that really didn’t make much difference. We walked out to Dale Fort, and to Bompi’s grave at the cemetery, took a fantastic boat trip out to Skomer to see the puffins (my camer battery went flat, dammit, so no photos!), and went out for a pub meal one night at the Griffin, along with Steve and Sue, and another local couple who had lived in NZ for some years in the 1970s. Great fun - and we even managed to come 3rd in the pub quiz that night - all about fish, no wonder we were beaten by a team of local fishermen!

Steve and Sue Watkin's beautiful house

Our cottage at the Watkin's

Castell Henllys

Sculpture at Workshop Wales

Misty pier at Dale

Black Rock and the Potters'  house, Dale

Pembrokeshire lanes

Visiting Bompi

Sunday 24 June North Wales

Back in the late 1200s, Edward I of England had an ongoing problem with keeping the Welsh in line, particularly in the mountainous northern regions. After two rebellions he became tired of having to repeatedly address this issue, so he decided to build a series of castles, encircling Snowdonia, as a demonstration of his strength. Today these castles still stand, and the names evoke the history of these places - Caernarvon, Harlech, Beaumaris, Conwy . . .

We visited two of these magnificent monuments to the English Welsh conflicts, Conwy and Caernarvon. Both are still largely complete, and you can go inside them, climb all over them, scramble up the stairs and stand in the high towers. Caernarvon has a more recent history to it, as this is where the investiture ceremony for Prince Charles was held in 1969. When your idea of castles consists of Larnach’s castle, the length of history that these two embody is a revelation.

Later in the day, we drove across Snowdonia, the ‘mountain’ region of Wales. Yes, it was rugged, and yes, it was wild, but gosh was it tiny! It took us about 40 minutes to drive right across it from one side clear across to the other. How on earth do walkers manage to get lost in a wee neighbourhood like this?? It seems like you are never far away from a decent road and a pub serving hot food and real ale. 

Spent the night at our second hostel of this trip, Lledr house near Pont-y-Pant. Beautiful, remote, and almost completely deserted - just us and two other inhabitants that we only saw once. Had a nice evening stroll down to the creek and amongst the sheep. Almost reminded me a little bit of Makarora in some ways. Maybe is was just the type of accommodation - bunk beds rule!!

Llandudno - Bristish beach resort under the Bristish summer sky

As the sign says - Smallest House in Britain - yes, it is a real house, and yes, people did live in it, up to about 20 years ago.

Goat on Lladudno Heads

Conwy Castle

Guard at Conwy Castle

Conwy Castle interior, from the tower

Ancient stained glass in the Conwy Castle chapel

Conwy town - can you see the stone walls that encircle the entore town?

In a tower at Conwy Castle

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Jessamy with cannon at Caernarvon 

High pass travelling through Snowdonia