Our 2023 England Trip Overview

It was May of 2022, last year, when we last visited England, to be with our Shutterchance's photoblog friends, so it felt good to keep the every-year schedule, even if at a different time of the year.

Like last year, we split up our 10 days between two friends:  first it was Lisl and then Bill (with wife Ange).

1.  With LISL in Winsley, Wiltshire, England, from September 4-11:

As we always do with Lisl, we take walks.

This (Sept. 5) was a Winsley parish-church walk that we didn't do last year.

And, yes, we hit the wild-blackberry bushes along the way big time!

The next day (Sept. 6), after that walk, we took a 2-hour train ride, each way, to Abergavenny, Wales,

to visit the city with Lisl's childhood friend, Marie, who lives nearby.  Besides walking through city

center, we visited St. Mary's Priory church from 1070 as well as the nearby castle from 1175.

Signs of the times inside churches these days, I'm afraid.

(sigh)

Obviously the pigeon doesn't know how to read!

But can you blame him/her on a hot day?

By now it's Sept. 7, with no moss growing under our feet, even though we were in a heatwave.

This was the day friend Chris (with friend Katy) took Astrid and me to Great Chalfield Manor. 

The gardens were incredible!

Still can't find who built that but talk about scale!

Astrid and Chris enjoyed hobnobbing with the nobles.

Because of the heatwave, the next 2 days we basically stayed at home playing games!

Oh, yes, and eating good food, like from Lisl's favorite fish-n-chips place.

We called off the parish walk planned for the 9th with Chris, because of the heat.

Sometimes you just have to be sensible.

But Marie from Wales drove over to enjoy the Sunday roast on the 10th at Winsley's pub,

just like she did last year.  It's now a tradition to include her!

2.  With Bill and Ange in Droitwich Spa, England, from September 11-14:

 Monday the 11th was our transition day from Lisl's to Bill and Ange's home in Droitwich Spa.

But first, we had a mini-meetup of 9 of us at Chad and Norma's (where we stayed last year), for

a morning coffee/tea in their garden, followed by a meal at the nearby pub outside of Corsham.

From l-to-r (center):  Astrid, Chris, Lisl, Alan, Ange, Bill, Chad and Norma.

I'm a huge fan of Norma's art studio in their garden...

as well as her accessorizing finesse.

Did I mention how much we love England's hard ciders?!

AND their drystone walls, even when damaged!

Because it rained the next day, the 12th, we changed original plans to visit Warwick

to stay put around home, visiting the Droitwich Sacred Heart church's incredible mosaics,

a coffee stop at an incredible antique dealer's store, followed by another pub meal.

Are you noticing a theme here???

On the 13th, Wednesday, our last full day in England, we had another mini-meetup,

this time at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, with 7 of us:

Bill, Ange, Alan, Astrid and 2 new ones, Martin and Elaine.

It's not call BLACK for nothing!  Fossil fuel at it's worst?

This is Astrid's photo collage of that outing.

Our meetups were cozy groupings this year, without all who sometimes come.

Those bigger groups usually happen every other year, so this was an in-between time.

By the 14th, Thursday, we were ready to fly back to Amsterdam!

Thanks to Bill and Ange's generosity, we left on the happy note of a full-English breakfast,

joined by Bill and Ange's oldest of 2 daughters, Kathryn.

And just like that, another trip to England came and went so quickly.

We call England our second home away from home, our first being Atlanta, USA, of course.

Speaking of which, that's the last big trip on the 2023 calendar, starting October 19th with my kids.

I always tell Astrid that once we hit September, I feel like we're sliding down to the New Year.

I'm saying that, of course, just 6 days before October.

See what I mean?

Our England Trip Overview

 

It was a month ago that I posted our ICELAND trip overview, after which the next day we left for England!  It's been that kind of whirlwind, from which we're still catching our photographic breath.  Seriously.

Not that I'm complaining!

Our England trip, a week after Iceland, came in two distinct parts because of being hosted by two different Shutterchance friends.  Still, it was all ENGLAND, and that's what counts:

1.  With LISL in Winsley, Wiltshire, England, from May 24-June 1:

From the get-go, she's the hostess-with-the-mostess!

After her husband died 2 years ago, she moved from Bath to Winsley, 6 miles away.

It was a move from the big city (ca. 100K pop.) to a village of ca. 2K pop.

Besides Five Crowns, a new game for us, we played Qwirkle almost every day.

We're all walkers, so, of course, we took walks!

This one was from her house in Winsley to Bradford-on-Avon, 2 miles away.

The center weathervane is on Lisl's garage, a gift from friends for her 80th birthday last November.

The fish vane is of a gudgeon...a new fish for me.

Lots of impressions along the way for my Shutterchance (SC) photoblog.

These are just some of the flowers I saw on that walk.

And this is just one of the irises in bloom all along the way.

These were in Lisl's garden.

Speaking of which, she's been working on making the garden what she's used to from her past,

but her challenge is getting rid of all the rocks, she says, of which there are boatloads!

Another special walk was up in the Cotswolds where Lisl's husband's ashes were spread.

It's also where Lisl will be "spread" when it's her time, so it was very touching to feel the moment.

Surprisingly, in all the years we have visited friends in England, this was our first time there.

Unbeknownst to us, Lisl took this photo of us!

Nearby, we visited 2 long barrows (burial chambers) from approximately 5,500 years ago.

The first one (top row) no longer has the "hill" covering it, but the second one does.

When I see something like this, I know I'm not in America...or the Netherlands, for that matter!

It so happens that I call Lisl my Big Sister.  

Our fellow Shutterchancer, Chris (bottom-left), calls Astrid his Little Sister.

So to mix things up a bit, one day Chris picked us up to take us to the Steam Museum in Swindon,

32 miles from Winsley, where we were joined by his friend, Katy.

Guess where we ate lunch!!!  WAGAMAMA.  

It's one of our favorite restaurants of all time but a first for them...and they loved it.

Chris took us there because it's a photographic paradise.

I haven't even begun to work on those images for SC but what a heyday that was!

Speaking of Chris, one day he, Lisl and Astrid took a walk without me

because I was under the weather with a cold.  I slept all morning to restore myself.

But these are Astrid's photos that I put into a collage.

Once restored, I continued with the activities, this time with another SC friend, Suzanne,

with whom we met up at the Chief Trading Post in Bristol.

What a crazy, quirky place, full of ins and outs, twists and turns, all stuffed with...stuff.

It was a great place for a coffee break before we drove to Suzanne's for fish-n-chips and Qwirkle.

On the Sunday we were with Lisl, her childhood girlfriend from Ireland, living now in Wales,

came to visit Lisl so as to meet us.  How special is that!

After a fabulous roast pork lunch/dinner at the nearby pub, we walked around Winsley to work it off.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

2.  With CHAD and Norma in Rudloe/Corsham, Wiltshire, England, from June 1-4:

The day we switched home base, Chris picked us up to go meet his partner Jackie at her farm, 

from where she took us to see the Norman parish Church of St. Christopher in Ditteridge.

The front arch/porch is Saxton, which means it's older than a thousand years!

This was when the switch took place...to Chad and Norma's house...who joined us at the church.

They live just 8 miles from Lisl!

A view in the back yard from the church.

Chad and Norma, with whom we have stayed before, had also recently moved, 

so it was time to get acquainted with their new environs.

Fun fact:  Corsham has 15 resident peacocks who are free to roam the town wherever they want!

As you'd guess, we, too, went on walks.

We even stopped and waited for the train to come through the Box Tunnel after we ate at a pub.

Then one day we visited visited the Fox Talbot Museum at the Lacock Abbey in Lacock,

known as Britain's birthplace of photography.  How fitting for us photographers, of course.

Chad is one of our fellow Shutterchancers. 

I used this ceiling boss from the ceiling of the 13th century Lacock Abbey cloisters 

for my birthday greetings on June 13th:  from my heart to yours!

These are just some of the flowers seen on the grounds there.

While at Chad and Norma's we watched most of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee,

just as we would have done if we had been at home.  We loved it!

If you could sum up all the time we had with Lisl and Chad (and Norma), 

you could say it was all around great food and fellowship.  Kinda like how I picture heaven!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Now, for the main reason why we went to England so soon after Iceland:  our Shutterchance Meetup in Oxford!  It happened while we were staying with Lisl, who, sadly, wasn't able to join us because of a funeral memorial she attended.  

It was an all-day trip by 3 different trains, coming and going, with Chris, who orchestrated the entire travel, thankfully.

There were only 12 of us this year, 9 of which are SC bloggers. 

Normally our meetups have been at least twice as big, but it made this one extra cozy.

After a delightful walking tour of the Oxford campus, we all stopped at a pub 

to have a drink/toast to say good-bye, until the next time!

Astrid and I come from these people we have grown to love, having met each other virtually

on our Shutterchance photoblog back in 2007, and then, against all odds, getting married in 2010.

These are the friends who love and support us, as we do them.

Does life get any better?