The Grand Tour Part 7 : Nottingham, Sudbury, London, and Disasters Aplenty

  I have been extremely stressed, worrying about trying to get the damage to the house fixed, and all the things that are ruined, or ruining from being wet, in the house. I guess it's lucky it's cold in the house, because there's no heat, which will prevent mildew and mold at least. I have felt stupid even doing posts, but maybe it will take my mind off things. I am going to be 61 soon, and I think this stress is going to kill me before I get there. On top of everything else, Ken has lost the memory cards with our trip on them. I have one left, and it's only from Paris to the end, so about 2 days of our 5 week trip. He retrieved them from the house, and doesn't know where they are.

  But I have some pictures on my computer, and I still have our phones, so let's make the best of things.

  Our trip picks up with us in Huddersfield. Ken's sister Diane has a very small cottage, so she kindly set us up with a room at an old pub which is now a bed and breakfast. The pub is still there, although unmanned. They use the trust method of sales...and also have a security camera. Ken enjoyed playing publican and sent this picture home to friends and kids.

   It was a nice place, but I found the  shower stall opening to be so narrow that I could hardly get my giant butt through it. It was quite uncomfortable.

  The day after Halifax and the Piece Hall we hung around Huddersfield with Diane, her daughter Jane, and Jane's fiancée Toni. We went to a museum, only to find it closed. It was still good for some cool photographs.

Of course, I can't show you the cool pictures I took, because I don't have the memory card. But here is me taking some of them, from Ken's phone.

  Then we went to a 'farmer's market'. I put that in quotations because it was actually a store. It did carry a lot of farm fresh items, and Ken was excited by the meat counter. I said to Ken, 'take a picture for Mick.' My sister was bored and lonely, so I was frequently sending her pictures of me and Ken at various spots. I thought 'Castle Hill' in the background would be interesting.

But Ken cut the tower off the first two times.

The tower Ken. That was the point. I'm getting frustrated.

Okay, gross. Not what I had in mind, but you're done Ken.

 I finally gave up and just took a picture of the hill myself. Of course, we don't have my memory card now, so settle for one of Ken's.

  I bought another Bakewell Tart...

I got overexcited and forgot to take a picture until the next day, as I was finishing it.

...some full cream chocolate milk, and some gooseberry yogurt. My idea was to try things we don't have at home. When's the last time you saw gooseberry yogurt?

  That evening we spent with family. We had sort of a mini Christmas, as I passed out a bunch of the presents we had brought. There were two kids there, so it was a bit more fun than when we just handed out a few adult gifts, Kids are where the real fun is in gift giving. They seem to be so much more excited than any adult ever gets. I love it.  

  The next day we were due to meet the girls and AJ in Nottingham and have a look around there, since that's where Ken's mom and her family were from. Ken still has cousins there and we were due to meet them for dinner. Ken hadn't seen any of them in nearly 40 years, and we weren't even sure how many of them might show up. But first, remember how we had brought a curse on everyone we knew, that started with the trip? Well the curse reared it's ugly head again this day.

  Emma and company had landed in Germany and flown into Birmingham. There Emma rented a car to drive herself, her boyfriend, AJ, and Ivy to Nottingham. We were driven to Nottingham by Diane's daughter Jane, and Diane and Toni came along. When we got to Nottingham we had trouble meeting up with the kids. Finally we located the parking garage they were in, only to find someone hooking up their rental car, in preparation for towing it away. Emma had tried to avoid a pedestrian and hit a curb, blowing a tire in the process. She then had no car, so there was no way we could all go see the castle, and the Robin Hood statue. We didn't want to run off and leave the kids, and Emma had to get the car taken care of anyway, so we all hung out, having hot chocolate, (me anyway) and snacks, and waiting to check into our airb&b.

  Emma was so sleepy once she slowed down that she could barely stay awake at the family dinner with the cousins that evening. And a BUNCH of cousins came. I was so pleased for Ken that so many of them came out to see him. He had a great time. AJ decided that he was too tired to attend the Dave Gorman show they had tickets to, with Emma and Ivy that night, so I got a free Dave Gorman show. Yay me. But poor Emma kept falling asleep. I kept poking her to wake her up, and no, she actually appreciated it. Ivy was wide awake. She must have gotten a lot of sleep on the plane. Emma eventually went up and stood at the railing, so she couldn't fall asleep. 

  The next day we  were originally going to drive to Sudbury to see the prison where Ken was born, when his dad was a prison instructor and the family lived on the grounds. There's a diner there, outside the grounds, run by prisoners, and I thought it would be interesting for foodie Ken to eat there. Then we found out the diner was closed on the day we were to be there. Sudbury ended up being a bit out of the way for the time we had anyway. We were also thinking of visiting Bakewell, of tart fame, and getting  some goodies, on our way to visit with Ken's former boss, from way back in the early 80's, Les. Then we were to go on to Birmingham to return the car, and catch a train to London. We ended up driving straight to see Les, because there wasn't time to stop in Bakewell. Les is a lovely man, in his 90's. He offered us cake and mince pies he had baked himself. His tiny mince pies were perfect! I can't make things look like that. But Les is an artist. He paints and draws beautiful things. 

Ken with Les. Those are some of Les' paintings on the walls behind.

He painted a couple of Christmas cards he sent us over the years. They're gorgeous. Some day I'm going to frame them and put them up. When we got home he sent us a little cat painting. Ken has talked about Les all these years, and we got to know each other a bit through letters and Christmas cards. I'm so glad I got to meet him. I cried when we left.

  After we left Les' house we headed to Birmingham  to return the car and catch the train to London. We had been very lucky with the train strike, that had started about the time we got to Britain. It was only on scheduled days, and they all fell between days we were supposed to be travelling. The same went for this day. But... 

  The curse continued. Someone sadly chose to end their life that day, by jumping on the tracks somewhere between Birmingham and London. How did that affect us? The train to London was cancelled. We waited quite a while to see how we were going to make it to London. We had to take two buses and a train, and got to London late at night instead of about 5:30 in the afternoon.

  The next day was Ivy's birthday. Em had planned a lot of stuff, but we got a late start because everybody was exhausted, So we started the day with cake to celebrate Ivy's birthday. Emma had planned a trip to a bakery called Cutter and Squidge. 

Me, Ivy, and Aj at Cutter and Squidge.

The cakes were beautiful, and tasted great too. We all got something different so we could try several cakes.

And I got more hot chocolate. Bad me. That's AJ, Ivy, Emma, and me.

  After the cake Ivy wanted to do some shopping in Carnaby Street and throughout Soho a bit. Ken had really wanted to go on the London Eye the last time we were over, and didn't get to, so Emma arranged the schedule for her, Ivy, and I to go shopping, and Ken and AJ to go on the London Eye. So off the boys went, and we went shopping. 

The birthday girl in Carnaby Street.

  While we were in Carnaby Street we went to the best place for socks and awesome photo opportunities, Monki.  

Emma and Ivy in Monki.

  I bought a bundle of socks with eyes and some cool black and white checked ones. They have stuff besides socks, but I'm a bit old and fat for it. But I love their socks!

  Now, this is where the curse kicked in again. We shopped a bit too long and were running a little late for  a surprise Emma had planned for Ivy: a tea cruise on the Thames. The boys got off the London Eye, where Ken was disappointed that the constant rain had ruined most of his photo opportunities. On the ground, things weren't perfect either. Ken attempted to take a picture of something, and missed a step on a curb. He fell and his camera flew. When he was righted by AJ and some friendly passers by, he found that his camera was not working. Not much is going to upset Ken more than not eating except breaking his camera. But, the guys headed to the pier for the cruise. Emma herded Ivy and I toward Piccadilly Circus. Ivy had no idea where we were going, and Emma was trying to surprise her, so she just said 'go ahead of me. Go straight'. She was trailing behind trying to arrange an Uber. I was still limping because of my bad leg. Ivy turned a corner, but I was close behind her. But when I turned the corner, she was gone. The only place she could have disappeared to so quickly was the tube station, because the stairs were straight ahead. So I ran, sorry, limped, down as fast as I could to see if I could catch her. I didn't see her, so I kept hobbling up and down the stairs, trying to be a link between Ivy and Emma. Emma showed up, panicking because Ivy was nowhere to be seen. The curse had also meant that nobody's foreign phone service was working properly. So we couldn't just call Ivy, or even message her. Emma ran down to the platforms, at my suggestion, to see if Ivy was there. She didn't think Ivy would have gone down there, because she didn't know which platform to go to, but I said she probably went the area where all the platforms spread out from. In any case, she didn't see her, so she came back up. Somehow Emma finally got hold of AJ, who was able to get hold of Ivy. Ivy had gone down to the platforms, waited, and then came back up. and kept going straight, ending up at Trafalgar Square! Em  told her where to meet the guys, and arranged an Uber for us. By this time the guys were having to try to get the boat to wait on us. This was a prebooked, very expensive tea cruise. Our Uber cancelled. Em arranged another Uber. We waited. That Uber cancelled. Finally the third Uber came, and we jumped in. We still arrived too late. We all missed the tea cruise. So everybody was upset about that. It was a thing.

  Ken was super upset about his camera, that was no longer taking pictures. He was forced to use his phone and my camera after that for the rest of the trip. He was not pleased. The good news is, after we got home, one day it suddenly started working again! And it survived the fire.

  Eventually calmness prevailed. We walked along the pier or whatever it's called. We took some pictures. 

We walked down to the edge of the Thames and picked up some interesting lumps.

  

Not sure what they used to be. (Thanks to a reader for telling me, they are lumps of flint, once used as ballast on ships.

  And we ended the day by eating some expensive cheese. It doesn't get much better than that.

  Next time we'll see more of London.