Good grief, the Americans are coming...

I had been looking forward to the 27th December for a while. It was the date when an American invasion was due to take place, the like of which hadn't been seen in those parts before. Elvetham Heath became the hosting base for Kevin, Lauren, KC, and Rich (who although not American did speak with an American accent a lot of the time.)

I really don't know where to go from there. There's so much I could write about, it was a lot of fun. One of the continuing highlights was the fact that Kevin wanted to keep surprising Lauren with where we were going. There were so many times where we came close to giving the game away, and a couple of occasions where we actually did. There was always a great sense of relief when Kevin did tell her what the next part of the trip was going to be.

We finally managed to find the New Forest, but not many trees. The Americans were taught the essential British values of perseverance and endurance whilst walking round a pond that never seemed to end while it was freezing cold and getting dark. I hope it was a lesson well learnt.

The following day saw us in Oxford, only an hour or so from my home and yet I'd never visited. We felt suitably intellectual as we sat in the Eagle and Child, the pub that CS Lewis and Tolkien had made their favourite. Then we ended up in Blackwells, which is ENORMOUS!! At the second time of asking three of us had come away with CS Lewis books, and a mystery package (it was a mystery to me anyway.) The rest of the day featured KC drinking man beer, Rich learning what spooning was, dinner at my local, and then a trip slightly further afield to my favourite pub, which is an amazing old mill complete with water wheel.

It was a hard prospect to follow a day like that with one equally as good, but we did. The omens weren't good in the morning, it was a beautiful English winter day, apart from the darkness and freezing rain! We were joined for some of the day by Anna, a friend from Relay! (Yeah, RELAY!!) Highlights: walking to Westminster, made me feel very patriotic. British Museum, boy oh boy did we rob a lot of places. It really is an amazing place, the building, and everything in it. Dinner at a fantastic little Thai cafe, YUMMY! Scrooge the Musical (where we were sat on the very back row, about 2 miles above the stage), made me remember why I love going to the theatre, and given me a burning desire to see more plays! Touch my robe! After 8 McFlurry, cultural. It really was a brilliant day.

And finally... with 5 of us and luggage packed into Rich's Punto we did manage to get moving back to Liverpool. The mystery package turned out to be a Marmite Cookbook, hahaha, there will be no mercy! We stopped at Warwick, a town packed with history and a castle, which initially appeared to have become a McCastle, so commercialised did it seem. I did really enjoy it though, despite a lot of loud Americans (some of whom we'd brought with us). And so we came back to Liverpool, and the Breaking of the Fellowship. Thanks guys, it was ... awesome.