Jellyfish at the Lake

On By stefrobrtsIn fishing, kayak, Me, nature, outdoorsLeave a comment

This is worth sharing – better late than never. While fishing at Battle Ground Lake last fall, I saw a little jellyfish in the water, and got it on video!

That was a pretty fun trip. I had taken a day off from work to go fishing, and I almost didn’t go because it was raining. But I put on my waders and a raincoat and went anyway, and I was so glad I did, because it was a beautiful day, with just a short sprinkles early on. I had the lake all to myself almost. No fish, but a nice day trying.

Sprinkles! The only time I briefly used my raincoat all morning. Dave left me out about 4 hours before he came back to get me. It was just a really nice morning out.

My new kayak

On By stefrobrtsIn fishing, kayakLeave a comment

I LOVE my Jackson Kilroy DT tandem fishing kayak. It is a Caddilac among kayaks – big, smooth, stable, room for the whole family. I love it just as much when I take it out alone, but on those occasions Dave always helps me launch it, because there is 0% chance I could move it by myself. In fact we would have had it out several times already this spring, except I hurt my back and didn’t want to make it worse by moving it.

I caught a couple fish from the dock already this spring, so I’m feeling more confident about this year. I just need to get out on the water so I don’t get there and find all the good spots on the dock taken.

I love kayaking. It’s so peaceful and relaxing, and good arm exercise too. So I want to get out as much as I can. So after much research I added a new toy to my fleet – an Intex Excursion Pro Inflatable kayak.

This is a tandem kayak, but can be setup as a single fishing kayak as well. Plenty of room, nice and wide so it feels stable, and not very expensive (just under $200). It is light enough I can grab it with one arm and carry it while carrying my paddle in my other hand. I haven’t timed it, but inflating it feels like it takes about 5 minutes. Not bad at all.

It has a little keel that snaps on underneath and I forgot it my first trip out and it was challenging to steer. I put it on the second time out and it was much better behaved.

So tonight I took it out after work and fished around this fallen tree not far from the dock and within 10 minutes I had caught a little perch, this little crappie, and had several bites I didn’t hook up!

Lots of fun! It was very peaceful away from the dock. I stayed out until the sunset started coloring the sky, then headed back to shore. No problem deflating the kayak and loading it into the Flex by myself. I think I’m going to get a lot of enjoyment out of it this summer.

The Rancho – 2013 – 2019

On By stefrobrtsIn TheRanchoLeave a comment

When we bought The Rancho, the previous owner had planted a row of bushes along the road as a buffer from the carnys across the street. It added privacy, but reduced curb appeal, and was kind of creepy at night.

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Two years ago we remodeled and spent last summer babying the new grass. We kept the dogwood, the japanese maple, wisteria on the porch, pieris up by the house and rose bushes (which I thought were goners, but our yard guy has saved. This spring Dave snapped a picture of the house with the wisteria in full bloom. So much nicer!

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This year’s Garden – Spring

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, flowers, garden, navi, TheRanchoLeave a comment

When we lived in the country, I had a lovely big garden that I worked very hard on. The last year I was able to do it I was really getting the hang of it, and grew lovely big tomatoes and squash and herbs and really enjoyed myself. But then I went back to work full time.

Eight years later, we no longer live in the country, but I still want my garden. One constant problem in our current backyard is the plum tree. It produces a bumper crop of plums every year, and the ones that fall on the ground get eaten by the dogs, who also chew up the pits, which are bad for them. So after surrounding the plum tree with a dog fence for a couple years, we finally put up a proper fence around it.

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And I thought, hey, this looks like a good place for a garden! So last year I did a little raised bed and put cauliflower and kale in it, and the aphids and slugs ate it up. I did a few tomatoes and basil in pots as well, and that was more successful. So this spring I decided to really go for it. I’ve always wanted tall raised beds so I wouldn’t be on my hands and knees weeding. But in order to have a nice garden in spring, you have to start well before that, by planting seeds in February.

I started out by spending early winter watching videos on YouTube, my favorite channel being The Rusted Garden . I find him very relaxing to listen to, and he makes it seem easy, gives simple instructions, and basically doesn’t add a bunch of drama to it. Just good, straightforward advice, and he’s even in the same planting zone, though on the other end of the country, so his advice on timing is pretty accurate for this area too.

I ordered seeds for a modest garden from Territorial Seeds, as I always did for my country garden. They are in Oregon, so I know they will sell stuff that works in the NW, and I’ve always had great success with their seeds (not so much with the usual garden center seed packets, those have generally been very hit or miss in germinating).

 

A month later, I was thinning them out and moving them into dollar-store pots.

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Next thing you know I was taking them out for visits to experience the wind and the sunshine, but bringing them back in if it got too breezy or chilly.

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So, this experiment was going well, time to get the garden in order. The garden area was covered in failing weed barrier. I want my raised bed plants to be able to reach down to the soil if they want to. So I pulled up the weed barrier where the beds are going. I also thought I would put a little shed in there, but once I spaced out the footings for an 8 ft shed, it was going to take up the whole garden 😦

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Chives went in pots, broccoli went in the existing bed, and we tore down the old arbor in the yard and temporarily piled it in the garden so the dogs wouldn’t get stuck on the nails in it. That sort of felt like we were going backwards for a bit.

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And those tomatoes and peppers just kept getting bigger! I planted six of each type I wanted to grow, and didn’t expect them ALL to do so well! I picked my favorites and potted them up, and offered free tomatoes to all my friends. This is mid April. Maybe next year I won’t start the seeds until March!

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I built raised beds out of 2x4s and cedar fence boards. I know they won’t last forever, but if I like them, I figure I can make them sturdier later. I filled them lasagna style – straw, grass clippings, old leaves, more grass clippings, dirt from the other side of the house, and finally 6 cubic yards (4 bags) of raised bed soil.

I should mention I had lots of help throughout the process.

 

Our yard bloomed early with Deadnettle, Grape Hyacinth, and some bulb I call bluebell. The fruit trees were blooming and the yard was alive with birds and bees and friendly bugs. I wanted to encourage this, so I just left it alone and enjoyed it!

 

Navi was doing a bit of rototilling over by the apple tree to take care of our mole problem. She got two of them!

They also followed me into the garden one day and caught a baby rabbit that was hiding in the Rosemary bush. Barclay caught it and let Navi have it and she ate the whole thing (ugh!) They will never forget that, and are always hoping to find something else hiding in the garden, so they are not allowed in there anymore.

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Finally we had a late last frost in early may, and a week later things looked safe to put my little friends in their new home! Two of the big heirloom tomatoes and one cherry variety here with two mini bell peppers, two more cherrys, a pepper, and a slicer in pots near the patio.

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Then I mowed the Deadnettle when it was done blooming, and the yard looks great! All the clippings went into the next raised bed, where I topped it off with raised bed soil, and planted greens. I know it was a little late for cool weather crops, because we started getting hot temps, but I wanted to try. Kale, Chard, Lettuce, Spinach, and Radishes.

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The pots by the patio were looking good, and I added pots full of parsley, cilantro and basil seeds.

 

About this time I realized the water by the house was a LONG way from the garden, so I looked online and found a used rainbarrel setup. This way I can fill the barrel every few weeks, and water out of the barrel.

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I added a third big bed for beans and cucumbers, and I will build a trellis for those, so I thought they could share a bed and a trellis. Then three low beds for squash, since they will need room to spread out. Zucchini, Butternut, and Acorn. I also mulched all the beds and pots with pine shavings.

I added some flowers outside the garden gate for color. Those pots inside have a bunch of different herb seeds planted, but they are slow to come up.

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The tomatoes are doing great, but I read that Marigolds and Basil are good companions, so I added some marigolds, and a couple different varieties of Basil in the bed.

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And that’s about it for spring. We are definitely heading into summer now (despite the monsoon rains we got the past week, with temps significantly cooler than the previous week which was in the 90s). The tomatoes are covered in flowers this week, and a few little tomatoes have started forming. It’s really amazing to see food growing from plants I started from seeds! It’s like a little miracle every time.

Nothing to do now, but kick back and enjoy our patio.

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Spring trailer trip

On By stefrobrtsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

We started off spring by breaking the trailer out of hibernation well before Memorial Day for a change.

Everything was ready to go, except for a very tiny leak at the new water hammer prevention device. The good news was that the device worked very well.

We headed out to Cape Disappointment. You are guaranteed a good time with a name like that!

We got a nice spot in the campground, but it was very narrow, and we could barely set up the dog yard. All the space was behind the trailer.

Barclay, stealing stuff

Dave had a talk to him about his behavior, and how we expect better of him now that he’s 11.

Navi was a good girl, as always.

No complaints, it was a very pretty weekend. We hiked up to a WWII defense installation and saw the bunker and where the cannons were mounted. Looks like a goldfish pond now.

We had lunch in town at our favorite diner – located in a caboose! We explored a bit and stopped at the grocery store. I waited in the car with the dogs and I felt a bump – someone had backed into the side of the Flex with an old pickup truck! Before I realized what happened they drove off! How annoying!

We had two lovely days and then it was time to head home.

When we got home the trailer was rewarded with its Spring Bath

I hope we get it out more often this summer!

An early start to fishing season

On By stefrobrtsIn fishing, travelLeave a comment

Last year I really stunk up the place fishing. I got skunked almost every trip out. I fished a LOT, and I think I only caught five fish the whole summer. It was really getting embarrassing.

I decided to start out the season by going to a Washington Dept of fish & Wildlife Crappie 101 class last weekend. They were holding it up at Silver Lake, near Mt St Helens, and that was on my list of places to go explore anyway. The lake is HUGE – well, a lot bigger than my home lake – but our fishing was confined to a little canal inside an RV park on the lake.

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They told us that in the winter crappie and perch all gather in this canal. In the summer they will head back out to the lake, but right now it was easy pickin’s here, and good practice for the kiddos who came to the clinic. Pretty much everyone was going to be catching fish if they threw a line in there.

I spent about 10 minutes tying on a couple crappie jigs I bought at the RV Park office, setting up a double jig rig as the instructor suggested, then headed out to the canal. My first cast was ok but didn’t quite go where I wanted it. My second cast went in a tree behind me, and broke off – so both jigs were gone. I went ahead and just tied on another jig I had in my box and tried that, and boom – first fish of the day!

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A nice little crappie. Then another, then a perch, then another perch, and another. I switched to a different color jig, they were hitting that too. Finally I went too deep and caught the jig on the bottom and lost it, so I tied on a Trout Magnet, and it was just as effective. What a joy to finally be catching fish and get to practice landing them for a change!

I was chatting with the nice family next to me, and they had driven up from my area too. One of their kids wasn’t having any luck though, so I let him have my spot and I wandered down the canal to try a spot down past the crowd.

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It was pretty, but there were no bites and if there was one thing I learned that day, it was to ‘fish where the fish are’ – and the fish were back where I had been fishing!

So I headed back down to the other end of the canal and found a new spot and started reeling in perch again.

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Most were little guys like this, but I caught one that was eating-size! Couldn’t get his picture because my hands were full! I did catch & release though, it was a long trip back home to be transporting fish. If I’d been camping there though, I’d have been cooking up some fish for lunch!

So that was a really fun day out, and I discovered Silver Lake is beautiful, and I definitely need to head back there! And it was was a great start to my fishing season, since all told I caught over a dozen fish – more than I’ve caught the last two seasons! And I met some nice folks from my area and got to talk fishing with them a bit and get some tips for the next time I hit the lake. All in all, an awesome day!

 

Winter Artwork

On By stefrobrtsIn art, barclay, cars, navi, pets, photography, snow, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Wow, it has been a long, cold, boring winter. I don’t remember a winter that has been this cold, or snowed so many times. We usually barely get any snow, and usually get none at all. But this winter…well, at least the dogs enjoyed it!

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Not sports car weather!

 

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I do love it when the trees look like this, especially against a bright blue sky.

 

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And I love the dramatic shadows cast by the low winter sun.

 

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So I cleaned it up in photoshop and made a piece of art of it. That is actually a pretty nice way to pass the time when trapped inside by winter cold.

 

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Winter Navi.

We also went to a Winter Woolies horse show and took some photos. I love doing horse photos.

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English Horse 4

 

And then for something completely different:

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This piece was made from a screenshot from Red Dead Redemption 2. I added the textures to make the sky-glow and painted it. I was really happy with how it turned out.

So that’s how I’ve been fighting the winter doldrums! Luckily it is almost over, and spring is on its way.

Red Dead Redemption 2

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized, xboxLeave a comment

After breaking my GTAV habit, I swore I wasn’t going to get caught up in another video game, but with the new Red Dead Redemption coming out in late October, just in time to give me an excuse to stay inside where it’s warm, I got sucked in. But really, they deserved it, because the game makers really made something special with this one. It felt more like being caught up in a movie than playing a game, and in spite of the action always being directed back to the story they wanted to tell, somehow it still felt like I was mostly in control.

Night view of mountains

This was a game I could get completely lost in. Trotting around the map on my horse, doing this and that, hunting for food to bring back to camp, interacting with other characters, and basically just running around and having adventures. There were surprises sprinkled throughout this game, in ways they didn’t really have to do, but they did anyway. Tons of details that made it feel like an authentic experience. Little interactions that were inconsequential to the plot, but were really cool to experience. And of course, horses just being weird.

Horse being weird

My playthrough ended up being a love story between Arthur and his faithful horse Maggie, who I picked up early on and stuck with through most of the game.

I love the horse animation so much, sometimes I just pick a point far away and send them off to it just to watch them trot along, and see the wildlife that scurries away as they pass.

Unlike most video games, where your character grows stronger and stronger, Arthur grew weaker and weaker as he was consumed by tuberculosis – a heartbreaking death sentence. So even though I was playing ‘good’ as opposed to ‘evil’, there was no reprieve for Arthur as his time wound to an end, no matter how many people he went back and did right by. It was moving and made me reconsider how I was spending my precious allotment of lifetime (paying video games probably isn’t the best use of my time, but hey, you gotta do something after work).

In spite of playing good, I had one very funny incident that was pretty bad. I was riding away from camp, and a guy ran into my horse, and then started shooting at me, so I shot him in self defense. But as I was hauling his body off the road a witness came along, and I tried to convince him not to report me, but I ended up shooting him too, and as I was dragging his body off the road..well, you get the picture. It was comical as I had to keep shooting witnesses and drag them away, and after about 6 of them, the next guy came along, I clicked the button to reason with him, and he says “I didn’t see nothin'” and rides away.

By the lake

Aside from inadvertent mass-murder of NPCs, this game was full of exploration, beauty, wild animals populating the land and sky. Some of my happiest memories are of just camping by a lake, fishing, cooking over the campfire. All things I’d like to do in real life someday. At one point my character stayed out so long just hanging out in the woods that the gang sent someone out to bring him back to the main plotline!

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After I finished the game, there was still months of entertainment in completing all the challenges, encountering stranger missions, finding little secrets and surprises scattered around the map, and even escaping the confines of the map to wander in the back-country outside the borders. There is so much in this game, I am still being surprised by little things, and only now, 5 months after I bought it, am I starting to run out of things to do.

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This article explains it much better than I could. Reading the Game: Red Dead Redemption 2 It has been not just a game, but an experience. Something amazing, and beautiful, and moving, and really unlike any video game I’ve ever played. It felt like a step forward in video game development. Not a constant shoot-em-up of bigger and bigger bad guys, but a game that required thought, and where the action was interspersed with quiet times. Now, when I’m tired at the end of a long day, I like to take John and ride out to Cattail Pond, and watch the elk splashing through the pond, fish until the sun sets and then sit by the fire and watch the clouds pass over the moon while the coyotes sing to it. It’s what Arthur would have wanted.

 

 

England – London – Part 3

On By stefrobrtsIn dave, England, Me, travelLeave a comment

After lunch we used the local wifi to call a taxi, to take us up to the British Museum. The Museum was very busy, though the line to get in wasn’t too bad. Being short, I find crowds tiresome.

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Dave could see everything.

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But to me it all looks like this.

At this point we had been walking so much for the past week and a half that I was just beat. I just wanted to find a bench to sit down and gaze at something interesting for a bit.

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Done! The Eqyptian displays at the museum were really amazing. There was just so many things to look at. And then there was the Assyrian section, and the greek section, and watches and clocks, and it just went on and on and on. So much to see. We sort of raced through it glancing at stuff, but not with enough time to really absorb much, which would have taken a lifetime.

After the museum we bought a ticket for a hop-on bus, and enjoyed the view from the top deck heading back to our part of town, but the bus driver said it was the last stop, and shooed us off in Picadilly to catch a connecting bus back to Victoria Station.

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Oh my god, SO MANY PEOPLE!

We waited at the bus stop so long for the next hop-on bus to go to Victoria Station, we were about to give up and go see about taking the underground, but finally one showed up, and we got a bit of a tour around the area until we finally were back home again.

Back at home, I was surfing through the local restaurants looking for something within walking distance, with good Indian food, because everyone said you have to go have Indian when in London. We finally settled on a bistro attached to a hotel not far from us, which seemed to have a good variety on the menu. We walked down there and went in and the lady asked if we had a reservation, and we did not, but she got us seated, and we found ourselves in a weird table with our backs against the wall, side by side, facing other tables, which is an awkward seating arrangement for a night out.

The waiter came over and showily shook out the napkins and laid them across each of our laps, and asked what we wanted to drink. I said water, and he rattled off choices, and I picked one, but I should have said ‘tap water’ I guess, because later we found that carafe of water was extra. They asked if we wanted the tasting menu at £80 a piece, or a la carte. A la carte, please. We were still a bit confused about how this had sounded very different online. The menu wasn’t as we saw online, but I found something to try, and Dave found a lamb shank that sounded good, though both dishes were fairly expensive. They brought appetizers and asked if we wanted rice. Sure. That rice was another $4. And bread was more $$ as well. Then later they brought out some sort of tomato cocktail aperitif, and they didn’t ask if we wanted it, they just gave it to us. Dave’s lamb shank turned out to be quite large, we could have just split that.

We didn’t realize it, but this was all adding up. In the US, things like rice and bread are usually included, and they don’t just bring you things that they charge extra for without asking if you want it, and letting you know it costs extra. At home I don’t expect water to cost extra! By the time we were done, the whole little meal had added up to $120! Probably the most expensive meal we’ve ever had, and there wasn’t even any alcohol involved! And it certainly wasn’t the best meal we’ve ever had, the whole thing felt awkward and weird. We had an annoyed laugh at getting snookered like a couple tourists, and headed home to our hotel for the night. We may have hit Shake Shack for a treat on the way.

Last day in London! Breakfast at Starbucks, then hop on a bus and go to Westminster.

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Beautiful Westminster Abbey. We hopped on another water bus and headed back to:

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The Tower of London. This time we decided to go check it out. We had already done everything else on our list, and Dave wanted to see the Crown Jewels. We got the tour from a Beefeater, to get a bit of history and context, then went and looked at the line for the Crown Jewels, which went around the block and through the courtyard. Now it was Dave’s turn to get frustrated and lose his cool a bit. It was a VERY long line.

We looked at getting lunch before getting in line, but the food there looked like basic cafeteria fare. We instead went to the ice cream cart in the courtyard. While standing in line, a VERY stiff breeze blew through and launched a stack of ice cream cups into the patron’s faces!

After we had ice cream in hand, the line didn’t seem so bad. It took a while, but there were ravens to entertain us.

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The raven was free to go where he pleased, but he mostly hung around this post, cawing and fussing at everyone. The ravens are part of Tower legend, that if the ravens leave, the kingdom will fall. So just to be safe they have a Ravenmaster and keep a small flock on hand.

No pics, but we did finally get to the Crown Jewels, and they were indeed very impressive. Afterwards we went looking for lunch, and walked over to a waterfront area nearby, again with no phone research to lead us, and tried a restraint that sounded good. The French host asked us if we had reservations, and we said no, and he seated us, and we took one look at the fancy cloth napkins, and remembering the previous night, got up and left. Too fancy for us, we’re not falling for that again!

I think we finally just grabbed a sandwich from a coffeeshop, and it was good.

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On the way back to our hotel we stopped by for a photo with ‘Little Ben’, since Big Ben was enshrouded in scaffolding.

For dinner we took the easy route and hit a little hamburger joint down the block and took it back to our room, and ate while watching our new favorite British show – Bullseye. Because competitive darts/trivia is just so British.

The next morning we got up before dawn and headed down to catch the tube to Heathrow.

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We had no problems in customs, and grabbed some breakfast in the concourse, bought a few souvenirs, and turned in our British money for US dollars. It was baarely light when we got a glimpse of our plane.

We had a really nice stewardess who was from Louisiana, but now lives in Scotland, giving her a Southern/Scottish accent.  We had the seats at the front of our section, so we had tons of legroom, and the stewardess’s seat was there for takeoffs and landings, so we got to chat with her quite a bit. It was nice having the room to stretch out or stand up a bit. We watched a couple more episodes of The Crown and relaxed.

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I got a peek at Iceland before the sun came up and the windows darkened. It was all just clouds after that anyway, all the way to Seattle. We had a layover in Seattle that was long enough we could have just driven home, but at least we had wifi for entertainment. Eventually it was time to fly home, and we had great views of Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens, and Mt Adams, Lake Merwin, and finally Vancouver Lake. It’s so cool to see all the local landmarks from the air! And then we were home. Sherry gave us a ride form the airport, and the pups were waiting for us at the house. Our first overseas trip was completed.

The whole trip:

England – Getting There

England – Bath

England – Stratford on Avon and Warwick Castle

England – York

England – York Part 2

England – London

England – London Part 2

England – London Part 3

 

 

 

 

England – London – Part 2

On By stefrobrtsIn dave, England, Me, travelLeave a comment

After our dinner we went to hop back on the water bus. This morning the bus we had taken took us from Westminster to the tower of London, where it turned around and headed back to Westminster. So I got the bright idea that we could hop on at the Globe, and ride it to the Tower, and then back to Westminster, initially going in the opposite direction. But this boat kept going East. So I figured, that’s cool, we get to see more of the Thames than before, and kick back and enjoy the ride. But it kept going, and soon it was dark, and we were surrounded by people who were clearly commuters, popping open beers and settling in for a long ride. We were getting a bit nervous about how long this ride was, when Dave went and asked one of the stewards how far the boat went, and he said Woolwich, which it turns out is quite a long ways!

Capture

So we got off at the next stop, which was Greenwich. By then it was raining, and dark, but we had a quick walk around town.

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Of course everything was closed as far as visiting the observatory or anything, but we did get a peek at the Cutty Sark from the outside, which was pretty cool.

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We had a front row seat on the boat coming back because there were no commuters heading INTO town. Great view! We also quite enjoyed watching the men rope the boat to each dock it stopped at, tossing the docklines skillfully over the mooring posts, quickly and smoothly each stop, then giving it a quick toss to unmoor and the boat would be off for the next stop in seconds.

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We got back to Westminster, and had a good look at Big Ben. It is not all I hoped it would be. It is under restoration for the next three years.

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We headed for the underground and stopped to listen to this guy playing beautiful violin music in the tunnel. When I posted it to FB a friend said he had seen the SAME GUY playing in a tunnel in London years before!

The next day, we decided to head out to see Winston Churchill’s War Rooms, and drop by the Queen’s Gallery and Royal Mews along the way. When we got to Buckingham Palace we heard a band playing, and noticed mounted police gathering, so we stopped to watch.

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Then we heard the band playing ‘September’, which was a surprising choice for a marching band, and when they finished they marched on out, and continued on towards the palace. There were a LOT of people gathering there, so we headed over to the Gallery and the Mews.

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The Gallery had a collection of items from India, which was all very interesting. The Mews is where the Royal horse and carriages are kept.

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We saw a groom walking this horse around the parking area, and he was getting a bit feisty about all the leaves blowing around.

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It was cool to come to one of the biggest cities we’ve ever visited, and see horses!

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Inside the museum, along with other carriages and cars the Queen uses, was this display of a carriage used in coronations – The Gold State Coach, built in 1760. It was neat they had it set up with horse mannequins to display the ornate tack the horses wear while pulling it.

By the time we got done with the Mews the crowds outside had thinned out a bit, and we headed down to the War Rooms. Unfortunately the crowd had apparently gone there, because the line was VERY long. We re-evaluated how badly we wanted some WWII history, and decided to pass for now.

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We continued walking, and eventually came to Trafalger Square. Neat architecture here as well. Everywhere in London is a mix of old and new.

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Dave was excited to see this pub since he’d just finished playing Sherlock! We passed on it, as it was just another chain pub.

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When we couldn’t walk any further we stopped for lunch at a little cafe across from this theater where Iam Mckellen was doing a show. Pretty cool. The little cafe was nice, with an open window looking out on the street, and we were sitting at the window, enjoying watching the people go by. When I ordered Fish & Chips, the guy wrote it on his order pad and said ‘fish & chips & beer’ and we were like ‘wait, what’, and he says ‘it comes with beer’, and we said ‘we don’t want beer’, which puzzled him ‘no beer?’ ‘No, no beer’ and ordered a Sprite, which is when I think we found out that in the UK Sprite = Diet Sprite. If you order ‘lemonade’ you get something like 7Up. Cultural differences, I guess!

Next up: The British Museum, and surprisingly expensive Indian food.

 

The whole trip:

England – Getting There

England – Bath

England – Stratford on Avon and Warwick Castle

England – York

England – York Part 2

England – London

England – London Part 2

England – London Part 3