May Days « Kaija & David’s UK Expedition

May Days

Bit late in updating the blog and we have done quite a lot of travelling in May!

David met me in Cologne from Dusseldorf on 8th May – very quick train trip for him from Dusseldorf. We stayed at the Cologne Hilton, fantasic rooms, which is right in the centre of town.

Cologne is a really pretty town. We spend Saturday sight-seeing around the town. Wandered the lovely medievel streets, shopping, drinking by the river and climbing the tower of the cathedral (exhausting!!)

There were 533 steps up to the top of the cathedral and I am so unfit at the moment!!! But the view was worth it.

Spamalot was playing in Cologne and because we missed it in London thought it would be good to see……. interesting night because the whole show was in German! We had thought that the songs would still be in English but no, the whole thing was in German. Despite having no idea what was being said it was still very, very funny.

On Sunday we visited the Roman-Germanic museum which was good. They had some fanatsic mosaics in perfect condition.

Not too much else to do in Cologne so we spend the rest of the afternoon wandering through parks and enjoying the sunshine. The weather was fantastic and sunny which made a lovely change from London. We caught a cable car over the river and had a giggle when we went over a spa with naturist loving Germans thoroughly enjoying the sunshine….

There we two long weekends in May and over the second long weekend we hired a car. On the Saturday we ran a few errands, taking advantage of having a car and put together our new BBQ (finally)! On the Sunday, we drove down to Kent and visited the lovely Leeds Castle.

Leeds Castle is your ideal, liveable castle!! Comes complete with moat and not too big, I am trying to convince David that we should upgrade

We had a lovely picnic in the castle grounds, got lost in the maze and enjoyed some fantastic weather! The afternoon we spent exploring country lanes (I am suprised by how well I can reverse a car when I come up to another car on those lanes).

We stayed overnight in a pub in Ashford before exploring more on the Bank Holiday Monday. We visited the White Cliffs of Dover, had a lovely lunch at a country pub and drove around the Isle of Sheppey. Lovely and relaxing weekend just driving (not too far) and exploring the beautiful Kent countryside.

Last weekend we were back to Kent! David and Ged won tickets at the recent London Golf Show to the European Golf Open. On Saturday, David & Ged played golf back at Leeds Castle and Erin & I went shopping in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Tunbridge Wells was a lovely town and the shopping was pretty good too! We spent the night at the Maidstone Hilton and Sunday headed to London Golf Course to watch the Open.

The weather last Sunday was spectacular and it was a great day following the golf. We had a lobster lunch in the Moet & Chandon marquee (nice) and then following the only Australian playing, Marcus Fraser, around for the rest of the day. He was winning for a while but got three bogeys in the last four wholes and ended up finished equal 8th (David said that I should add that was three shots off the pace).

The only issue of the day was at the end of the day, there was no management of the carpark which meant it took us 2.5 hours to actually leave the carpark!!

David spent the whole week in London this week which was great. He is back to Dusseldorf on Tuesday and has had his countracted extended for another 3 months.

The hot weather didn’t last long but we have had a good weekend. Saturday lunch we caught up with Justin, Ged & Erin while Justin was back in London from Finland. Last night we had dinner an “English cusine” restaurant with David’s uni friend Daniel and his fiancee Anne who are heading to Australia next week to get married.

We are off to Egypt in two weeks and I am very excited! We have four nights in Cairo and four nights in Luxor and will be doing lots of sightseeing, relaxing by the pool and seeing lots of old stuff

Lindsay, good luck in Golburn!