Castle Cary

Yet another cloudy day yesterday, but it didn't start raining until the afternoon. Tony was going into the village of Castle Cary to get some new tires on his work van, so we followed along in the car just for something to do.

A surprisingly nice day!

There's been so much rain here that it's become kind of expected. It's pretty much a given that it's going to rain tomorrow. Even the forecast didn't show any sun. So when the clouds disappear, it's a nice surprise.

How do we research a trip?

Not much to write about this morning because it rained pretty much all day yesterday. Reader Joe in Indiana had asked the other day if we would talk a little about how we research a trip and he's right that our upcoming Czech Republic and area excursion makes for a good example.

Nine mile hike in the rain

While much of Canada and the U.S. experiences summer, we here in England have been left behind. July the 6th felt like mid April! But that didn't stop us from going out for a nice hike at Burrington Combe.

A Tower on Top of a Tor

Well I tried to go to work yesterday, but when we got there our third helper cancelled on us. So it's now been put off, possibly until next week. I guess I just wasn't meant to get in a full days work! Oh well, that's my lot in life.

A rare post from Ruth

Well today you will get a post by me, Ruth.  Kevin went out the door this morning at 7:30am with Tony to help him put up the ceiling at Kelly and Paul's place.

Next stop, Czech Republic!

My older sister Elaine, was the correct one to guess Czech Republic yesterday. And no, she didn't have any hints. Other than the fact that she knows I like to do family history research, and that our paternal grandmother was born in that area.

Went to Bath and had a shower

My uncle and some of his family are having a vacation in England just now, and it turned out that we were getting fairly close to each other. So we drove up to Bath to have lunch with them!

Scrumpy Cider

Spent the morning on the internet researching our next destination, and in the afternoon went for a walk and then had a look at some British motorhomes.

Finally, a nice relaxing day!

As much as we've enjoyed touring London, Leeds, and Bristol over the last two and a half weeks, we were due for a break. Pretty much all we did yesterday was to go for a two hour walk in the country.

June expenses

June came in at $1,570.10. About $250 over budget, and a big chunk of that came from eating out. We include eating out under the "Entertainment" column because it is somewhat discretionary, and we did that far more than normal in the month of June.

The S.S. Great Britain in Bristol

We said goodbye yesterday morning to our couchsurfing hosts (thanks Cynthia and Nigel!) and took the bus from there into town. We dropped our bags at a hostel near the bus station where they looked after them for a cost of £2.00 ($3.28) each.

Chairs are more dangerous than sharks.

Hmm. That title's a little different. I'll explain in a moment. We had such a busy day that we didn't get everything done that we wanted to. But it was a beautiful day. In fact the locals were saying that yesterday was the best day they've had so far this summer.

Bristol!

I've never been to Bristol, and Ruth was there many years ago as a child so it's pretty much all new for us. There's quite a lot to see here, so it's going to be a busy two days!

Haworth and Saltaire

Yesterday we visited the villages of Haworth and Saltaire. Two distinctly different villages, each famous for entirely different reasons. Yet they are only about 8 miles (13 kms) apart.