Tuesday, 19th September 2023 As newbies to cruises, this was likely to be the day when we’d get a better idea of whether it was for us or not. The Queen Mary 2 was still somewhere in the English Channel and would be very slowly heading towards the North Sea and then Hamburg, so we…
Category: England
Travel 2023 – Cunard Queen Mary 2 – Day 1 (Southampton)
Monday, 18th September 2023 We’d never been on a cruise of any sort before, assuming you don’t count long ferry trips to and from Finland or overnight journeys between the UK and Europe. But we have friends, John and Janice, who have been many times and love the whole experience. So much so that we…
Staycation 2021 – Day 7 (Stanwick Lakes, Deene Park)
Wednesday, 23rd September 2021 – Stanwick Lakes, Deene Park Wednesday we were in pretty much the same territory as on Tuesday. There are a number of castles, stately homes and such over towards Corby, along the Nene Valley. We were planning on visiting another one we’d never been to (and in fact until I started…
Staycation 2021 – Day 6 (Rockingham Castle)
Tuesday, 22nd September 2021 – Rockingham Castle Tuesday morning we made a late, slowish start (A had stayed overnight so we had breakfast together before heading off in our respective directions, she to visit a friend further north, us eastward towards Corby). Today’s destination was Rockingham Castle, another on the “we really should go there…
Staycation 2021 – Day 5 (Dojima Sake Brewery, Fordham Abbey)
Monday, 21st September 2021 – Dojima Sake Brewery Did you know that sake is now brewed in the UK? No? Nor did we until a couple of weeks ago, when I was hunting around for interesting places to visit on our staycation. It looked intriguing, and was over the same direction as Ely. We were…
Staycation 2021 – Day 5 (Ely)
Monday, 21st September 2021 – Ely After returning from Goodwood on the Sunday, Monday morning saw us getting off to a slowish start and heading east towards Cambridge and beyond. Our destination was the city of Ely, in Cambridgeshire. Now you may think “city = large centre of population” but actually what it means is…
Staycation 2021 – Day 1 (Tinwood Estate)
Thursday, 16th September 2021 In the face of Covid, and the resulting price hikes for any form of accommodation in the UK (because the owners/landlords know they have a mostly captive audience), we decided we would have a genuine staycation and would spend a week or so at home, going out for the day to…
Food 2020 – The German Gymnasium, London
Tuesday 10th March, 2020 – The German Gymnasium, London This was the last meal I ate out prior to the Covid-19 lockdown kicking in. And it wasn’t planned at all. I’d been in the office rather than working from home, and had walked back to Euston from the City as per usual. I arrived at…
Food 2020 – The Oxford Kitchen, Oxford
Saturday, 29th February 2020 – The Oxford Kitchen, Oxford We haven’t been to the Oxford Kitchen since it got its current – and much deserved – Michelin star, partly because we’ve not been in Oxford much, and partly because as a result of the award it’s a lot harder to get a table now than…
Food 2020 – Pompette, Oxford
Thursday, 27th February 2020 – Pompette, Oxford, Alsatian Wine Dinner Sometimes, when doing other things, you blunder across something unexpected but welcome. Such was the case in Oxford the other weekend, when we went to a talk at Blackwell’s bookshop and then needed to find lunch afterwards. There was a place in Summertown that had…
Smtfhw's Travels 
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