On the evening of the 23rd we departed Heather’s and Wales via train bound for our Christmas destination of central England. After having to switch trains and wait 2.5 hours in Cheltenham, we finally made it out to Worchester. Little background note: Being around 5000 km from home turf, Lisa and I were to spend Christmas with complete strangers. I had arranged for us to spend the holidays with Bryn and Felicity Hopkinson’s and their family of 5 children plus significant others and grandchildren. The connection – Felicity is my Grandmothers goddaughter and my Aunt Gail is Felicity’s daughters (Susan) godmother. Confused yet? That’s fine, so were we. Lisa had never met any of them and I had only met Bryn for about 30 minutes while up visiting my Aunt Gail a few months back. But none the less Gail vouched for them and said how they had become a second family to her over the years, so we were in for Christmas. As it turns out they were nothing short of incredible! We arrived in Worchester and were greeted by their youngest son Chris. Being only a few months younger than myself and a sport enthusiast we got along great! To Lisa’s enjoyment I am sure, we spent the next hour relating “Footy” to Hockey and sharing war stories about our lives in our respective sports. We spent the night at Bryn and Felicity’s incredible country home which could have been the set of a movie. The originally home was built in the early 1600’s and is perched on a hill with a backyard that opens over the valley below. Surrounded by farm land that has a mix of crop and sheep, the whole place was unreal. Not to mention the mint condition 60’s porch in the barn!
Christmas eve Lisa and I accompanied Chris and his girlfriend Emma into town as Chris had some last minute shopping to do and Lisa and I seized the opportunity to explore another town. We saw the Cathedral were I think I secured my place in Hell and took in the town’s main drag. I didn’t exactly burst into flames at the cathedral but I probably should have. What happened is that as Lisa and I were walking around looking at the architecture and reading up on how it had changed throughout the reformation. I was taking pictures of everything as I regularly do and so I had my camera out of its case and was holding it while the string was around my wrist. As I was looking up at the ceiling and some of the incredible stained glass I took a step back to more of the stained glass into the photo and knocked into this glass display case which held some old holy document (I am still not sure what). Well the display case was on wheels but I did not know that and as I knocked it I felt it moving which I thought was it tipping over. I spun around to catch it and in the process slammed my hand into the corner of the glass case. Consequently I dropped my camera and as I had it around my wrist it dropped about 4 inches and then swung around banked off the leg of this case. The bottom piece that holds the batteries in broke open and the batteries slide out and rolled across the floor, as this is all occurring I may have muttered a few words that I am sure would not have gone over well if the group of nuns setting up for Christmas Mass had overheard me. Lisa proceeded to hit me and ream me out for cursing in a church and nearly breaking the place. Again we felt it was a good time to get out of there. On a plus note, my Camera is still in working order but to take a photo I have to hold the batteries in place.
Following the cathedral we saw town, grabbed a coffee and headed back to join Bryn and Felicity for the annual Christmas Eve town gathering. Were better to hold a town gathering than one of the town pubs? There were about 20+ of the neighbours and friends from the area and we all sat around drinking bitter pints and eating glorious amounts of food. I decided to make it an all English experience and went with the lamb shanks and neeps. Delicious! It was at this pub that I found some of the best named beers I have ever seen. A patron has the option of a pint of “This,” a pint of “That,” or a pint of “The Other.” They were traditional English beers and a little stronger and more bitter than the lagers I am used to but with names like that how could I refuse! Following the pub Chris, Lisa and I drove down to Susy’s where we met the rest of the gang. Susy and Alex live just outside of Oxford with their two little girls in a house that is just as spectacular as Bryn and Felicity’s. Everyone became instant friends as Lucy and Josie took a quick liking to Lisa and she was more than grateful to have girls around again. Well as it turns out there is really only one thing to do in Central England on Christmas Eve when everyone is getting together and in the festive mood. You guessed it – off to the local pub we went! There we met up with Alex’s family who are a special breed, and the big event of the evening was when Lucy was washing her hands and dropped her diamond ring into the sink. Alex and I fished it out without much doing but it was entertainment for a few minutes that’s for sure.
Christmas day was a very full day of food, presents, food, drinks, food and some more food in the evening. I was spoiled with gifts from both home and abroad. Through my parents I had gifts reach me from all over Canada. – I will take an aside here to thank everyone because I have been pretty terrible at getting thank you notes off to anyone as of yet. I have not even thanked my own parents well enough yet and as bad as it is, didn’t acknowledge my older brothers gift until about two days ago. So thanks to all of you! I greatly appreciate the assistance with my travels and for thinking of me while I am wandering the globe. – I was also spoiled on a local note as Bryn and Felicity gave me a pair of Paul Smith dress socks (Greatly Needed!!), Josie and Lucy gave both Lisa and myself fancy body washes and Susy and Alex gave me a book on the abbreviated history of England. So I made out like a criminal! When I made the decision to not be home for the holidays I was a little concerned what Christmas was going to be like and if I was going to be in a hostel eating fast food or something microwaveable. Nick always tells me not to worry so much, because as it turned out I ate and lived like royalty for those few days. With a turkey dinner on both Christmas and Boxing day and left over turkey sandwiches as late night snacks, it made up for all the terrible meals on the road and for eating café food for the past 4 months. On Christmas day, those of us who were not cooking were shooed from the house so as to not disrupt the chef’s. So we went to the pub, home sweet pub.
Originally Lisa and I were scheduled to take off on Boxing day and spend the night in Portsmouth, on England’s south coast, but we were enjoying our time and the company so much that we switched our bus tickets to the 27th and cancelled out hotel for the night of the 26th. With a little sweet talking and a few white lies we avoided paying any cancellation fees for the hotel and only had to pay the difference in price for our bus tickets. So Boxing Day evening the kids left the parents at home and we all went to the pub only to find it was closed. There were varying degrees of shock amongst the crowd, none more astonished than Chris who could not quite understand how or a why a pub would lock its doors. So instead we watched the footy game and lounged at home. On the 27th I watch a pheasant hunt in full march, watched the replay of the Can
ada Junior hockey game from the night before (Congrats Boys), took a walk with the whole gang through the valley, went to the pub with the boys, and took a ride in an Aston Martin. Ohhhhhhh Baby! 0-60 in 4.2 seconds and cornered like a dream. Alex and I took a rip around the English country roads and I could have sworn we were in a Bond movie. Brilliant, simply Brilliant! If I ever have 100 and something thousand dollars to play with I am going to pick up one of those darlings. We said our goodbyes in the afternoon and made arrangements for me to see Chris, Lucy, and Josie in London in mid-January. With that we were on a bus headed for Portsmouth to catch our cruise ship to Spain!
ada Junior hockey game from the night before (Congrats Boys), took a walk with the whole gang through the valley, went to the pub with the boys, and took a ride in an Aston Martin. Ohhhhhhh Baby! 0-60 in 4.2 seconds and cornered like a dream. Alex and I took a rip around the English country roads and I could have sworn we were in a Bond movie. Brilliant, simply Brilliant! If I ever have 100 and something thousand dollars to play with I am going to pick up one of those darlings. We said our goodbyes in the afternoon and made arrangements for me to see Chris, Lucy, and Josie in London in mid-January. With that we were on a bus headed for Portsmouth to catch our cruise ship to Spain!
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