Back in the land of tea drinkers and mad drivers

Back in England again after a 2 year gap. We had a very smooth flight from down under, and apart from getting treated like terrorists at L.A airport in transit, it was pretty painless.

From door to door it took us 42 hrs of travelling to reach our first stop: Truro in Cornwall. This is the spot where Charlie's bro, Gavin, lives with his wife Trish and two lovely kids, Rosie and Wilf.
Rosie had grown to a big girl and she probably thought that uncle Charlie had grown as well :-)

Wilf was only a little dribbling toddler last time we saw him. Now he was a Abba-loving tennis fan (totally brain washed by the parents :-). Wilf had a lot of Charlie's and Gavin's old playmobil toys and Wilf was delighted when uncle Charlie could show him secret doors that he had never found. It is pretty amazing that the at least 30 year old toys are still in good shape. No wonder Charlie is so particular about all his stuff even today... :-)

Cornwall is famous for their ice cream, which is made from milks from their colourful cows. The area also has the most famous surfing spots in England. To battle our jetlag, we headed out to the beach the day after arriving. Heavy rain started pouring down as soon as we got onto the sandy beach. Welcome to England! Instead of getting soaking wet, we pulled on the wetsuits and lept into the water. It was lovely and warm (with a 7 mm wetsuit).

Charlie borrowed a Burt-Reynolds wetsuit and managed to acquire an interesting sun burn after an hour in the water. Charlie looked almost as sexy as Burt below.
I wonder if anyone uses these any more?

Here follows some pictures from our last stop of the trip: London.

We stayed with Chris (Charlie's mate from way back) and Becks and their three energetic sons in their newly renovated house. It was great to get to know them all a lot better. Last time I saw Chris for a quick beer in a pub.

We had a chance to also catch up with Nick and Clare, who left NZ in March to try out the big city life. It was great to see that they are enjoying it. - I love it! as Clare always says.

I wanted to get a good dose of art and culture in London, so we all headed to Tate Modern, which is a re-built from a disused power station in the heart of London. It is a pretty impressive building with lots of fascinating modern art.

We had a total of 2 weeks in England and I think we managed to meet almost everyone we had intended to meet. I had seen a bit more of England and made it to the pretty Truro in the south west.

England is a pretty country (note that this is summer time) and not at all as crowded as I expected (excluding London). I think people in England are very friendly and chatty. They are also very apologetic for things they have nothing to do: -I am so sorry about the weather! Why? Don't be. They have nothing to do with it.

It was time to leave to the next country on our tour, Sverige - Sweden. We took farewell of England - land och the tea drinkers and mad drivers.