(this narrative began from when I first landed in London on September 3, 2016)
Thursday
September 8, 2016:
We got up and had a hearty breakfast at 7:00 am in
the dining room at the Hilton Avisford Park in Arundel, England. I noticed that the dining room tables had
been rearranged for breakfast as opposed to the previous evening’s dinner
arrangement. An English breakfast
consists of eggs (scrambled), back bacon, sausage, baked beans, toast and jam,
coffee, orange juice and fresh fruit. It
certainly filled me up, especially I don’t usually eat much breakfast, except
during my holidays.
At about 8:00 am, we boarded the bus and took off
for Stonehenge and arrived at about 10:00 am.
This very mysterious series of rock formations or arrangements has
significance in different ways:
religious (the Druids used to worship inside their “temple”), mortuary
(there are several dozen bodies buried under the site, but nobody knows who
these people are or how important they were), and time (the summer and winter
solstices can both be seen from certain angles of the sun shining on the rock
formations). I think of it as some kind
of huge sun dial with magical qualities.
In fact, nobody knows what it does exactly or how it does it. And, there have been many changes and stages
of development over many, many years. But, tourists flock here, marvel at it, take
pictures, and listen to its history using the audio aids given to them.
At about 12:00 pm, we left Stonehenge and headed
toward Plymouth, stopping only for a brief bathroom break of ten minutes or
so. Some of us also bought some snack
food or sandwiches, etc. from the café there.
But, there was no mention of a lunch break, so it was probably a good
thing we ate a hearty breakfast this morning.
Finally, just after 3:00 pm, we arrived at Plymouth, a beautiful town
situated at the southwest tip of England and settled into our hotel, the
Holiday Inn Express.
Plymouth has a beautiful harbour filled with
sailboats. While our driver, Joe, was
driving us in, I noticed how hilly this town is and that just makes it more
charming. Tonight, we are going to see
an old church and nearby prison in Darkmoor, England a.k.a. Darkmoor National
Park. After that, we are invited for an
evening of storytelling and dinner at a pub in Darkmoor (I don’t remember the
pub’s name). The pub fare is excellent
and includes a couple of drinks and dessert – our choice. I’m having a glass of white wine and a rye
and ginger ale drink. That means I won’t
be feeling any pain by the time we leave.
At about 9:00 pm, we’ll be back at our hotel.
Tomorrow morning at 7:00 am, we’ll have breakfast at
the Holiday Inn Express’ penthouse restaurant and then take off for a cruise
around the Plymouth Sound and enjoy our brief time in Plymouth. Alternatively, if people on the tour don’t
want to go, they can stay back and wander around the village streets on their
own. However, I think I’ll be going
because a cruise appeals to me very much.
I’d been wondering what direction we’d been
travelling in because the English Channel was always on our left, so we must
have been travelling along the southern coast going westbound. Somehow, I’d had the initial impression we
were travelling eastbound up the east coast.
But, to check this out, I am going to buy a map of Great Britain
tomorrow and chart our course myself.
Nobody else on our tour has mentioned this anomaly to me, so I guess I’m
the only one who thought we were travelling eastbound at first. They probably already knew that we weren’t
and I was the one who was in the dark.
Oh well!
I’m busy writing postcards to my family and some
friends, including the staff of Albert Campbell C.I. In fact, I hope my ex-colleagues are as
jealous as hell that I am vacationing overseas while they’re hard at work! I also want to assure Brent, James and Dave
that I’m fine and not to worry about me if they don’t hear from me on the
phone. No news is good news in my
mind. I hope they see it the same way.
My cell phone was driving me crazy; I can’t use it to communicate here with
anyone so, I’m just going to use it for picture-taking, and in that respect, it
does the job I need it to do.
copyright 2016 - Anne Shier
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