It's always good to stop and smell the roses

We were all up early as we looked forward to sitting on our balcony patio to watch the sun come up over the mountains.

Pogradec is a popular beach town in the summer, even though the beach is on a lake and not the sea. Beach season here has pretty much passed though because Pogradec gets a little cooler by October whereas the seaside is still warmer.

We're on holiday for the next two weeks!

Sunday morning, we were up at silly o'clock (3am) for the two and a half hour drive from Tony and Helen's place to London's Gatwick airport in order to make our 9am flight to Tirana, Albania.

What a great day to be leaving England. It rained most of the way to the airport and was pouring down as we got on the plane.

We had a fair bit of travel expenses for the month

Well, another month has gone by and here we are at October 1st!

Just a recap... we started September in Nova Scotia and then flew to Ottawa for a ten day visit. From there, we flew Montreal to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to London. We spent 4 nights in London, then took the bus to Leeds where we bounced around for just over a week. Then took the bus to Bristol and spent a week in the village of Keinton Mandeville.

5 Fun Activities to Do in Ontario During the Fall Season

Summer may be over, but that doesn’t spell the end of great outdoor activities in Ontario. The province boasts plenty of fun things to do that are specific to the fall season. 

Discover a few of the awesome activities autumn in Ontario has to offer!

We love visiting castles!

So with our new English Heritage pass in hand, Helen drove us all over to Old Wardour Castle near Tisbury, England. 

Just to give you some basic history of the building... Old Wardour Castle was built in the 1390's. It was partially destroyed and abandoned during the English Civil War of 1644. 

What's a castle without a moat?

We had been to the town of Sherborne before... when we visited Helen and Tony way back in 1987. But that was 35 years ago! So we wanted to return.

Tony is still working this week, but Helen took us for a drive. Our first stop was the old castle ruins. We have a few photos from when we were there in 1987, and it probably hasn't changed at all, but we like castles.

The cliffs on England's Jurassic Coast

England's Jurassic Coast is a 95 mile (153 km) stretch of cliffs on the south western coast of England. It is so named because of the number of fossils and rock formations that date from the Jurassic period around 150 million years ago.

There are a lot of walking trails in the area, in fact you can walk the entire 95 miles if you wish, staying at accommodation in villages along the way. 

Good news, and glorious views!

We'll get the good news out of the way first! The tax refund credit for our new laptops that we bought in Norway finally came through. 

One of the reasons we bought our laptops in Norway was because we could claim back a credit of the big 25% tax rate there. It turned out that because of the forced involvement of a third party company (Global Blue) that supposedly makes things easier, you only get back a portion of what you should have got back. But it was still enough to make the final purchase price better than what we would have had buying the same items in Canada.

Great food and lots of laughs

Sunday was roast lunch day, so we spent the morning visiting with Helen and Tony and their son Stu and his girlfriend Harriet. Then their daughter Kelly showed up with her boyfriend Wayne.

The roast pork was smelling delicious and we were all hungry when lunch was served!

I had just about given up

On Saturday, we did the long bus ride from Leeds to Bristol. But first, we had to get from the village of Wyke back to the city of Leeds. So at 9:45am we said goodbye to Steve and Glen, and their daughter Claire and her husband Richard. We had a great week, thanks again for having us! We wonder when and where we will meet up again!

Our bus came on time and it was £2 ($2.95 CAD, $2.20 USD) each for the one hour ride back to the Leeds city bus station.

Sights around Halifax, England

The four of us were on the bus just after 9:30am heading east to the small city of Halifax, Yorkshire (pop 88,000).

On the outskirts of Halifax is an estate property called Shibden Hall. The original part of the house was built in 1420, and it was continuously occupied for over 500 years from 1420 to 1933.

Reuniting with Max

It was a rain day yesterday, and I had to work for a couple of hours so we never left the house. Even sat and watched a few trivia game shows on the television in the afternoon! 

But, I also got our trip back to Germany organized.

A good day sightseeing around the city of Bradford, England

We went with Glen and Steve yesterday morning and took the local bus into the city of Bradford. It's £2 per ride, but they have a full day pass for £4.50 ($6.85 CAD, $5.10 USD) each so we bought two day passes with the idea that we might do more than two rides.

We started off with a walk in Peel Park, then a wander around the central downtown area, then lunch out, then a walk up to Lister Park and Cartwright Hall.

You have to watch out for these things

So we're out for another walk yesterday afternoon and a young guy rides up on a bicycle and asks directions to somewhere. He's got no backpack or things with him, so he's obviously local. 

My immediate response was to say "We're not from here, sorry I can't help you". 

But there was no way I was taking my phone out. 

The curry capital of Britain

It was a bit of a drizzly morning here in Wyke, England and with the Queen's funeral taking place it seemed like a good time to do some computer work while glancing up at the television every now and then.

It was interesting watching the procession running through areas where we had been walking only a week or so ago.