Our England Trip ~ Day 8

Carrie and I had packed so many things into one week, it's no wonder we were feeling a little worn out and ready for a little relaxation by Friday, day #8 of our trip.

And looky what we saw! Blue sky!!! It was so wonderful to see London with that blue sky as a backdrop, and we would enjoy that for an hour or two before heading off to spend some time with our friends in East Grinstead. Here are a few photos I took on our way to the train station.

So pretty, huh?

We were so fortunate to have the opportunity to leave London and travel to some more rural areas in England to meet up with blog friends. Our trip to Bishop's Stortford the previous weekend had been so lovely, and now we were heading south of London to East Grinstead to visit Rhona and her family. The train ride was so beautiful, and Carrie and I were both excited to see where Rhona lived.

Rhona and her youngest daughter, Emily were waiting at the train station when we arrived. Rather than head straight to their home, we parked the car and had a lovely stroll through the downtown area. The buildings were so old and beautiful - my kind of town! And there was this lovely church surrounded by a beautiful old cemetery. Dates on the gravestones dated back to the 1700's! It was so interesting to walk the grounds, and so much fun to be with Rhona and Emily.

We all gathered at Rhona's home and enjoyed a lovely lunch she had prepared for us - yummy quiche, a fresh salad, bread, and two desserts. We loved visiting with Rhona's family, we were thoroughly entertained by her little grand-daughter Alice, smitten with baby Megan, and Carrie resisted the requests to play Rhona's husband's guitar.

We loved looking through Rhona's Project Life and were both so inspired for our own. How lovely to sit in the home of a blog friend and actually hold her Project Life album in our laps and have a real look. I highly recommend that if you ever get the chance!

Rhona's little grand-daughter, Alice, really took to Carrie. When the time came for us to gather our things to go, we stood in line for a few photos. As Carrie's mom, it really warmed my heart when I saw Alice hold her arms up toward Carrie. Carrie swooped her up and held her while we took photos of our girls. I loved this part so much!

We could have spent all day at Rhona's, but alas it was our last night in London and we needed to get back. It was in our plans to get to Abbey Road that afternoon and have our photos taken as we crossed the road, just as the Beatles had done for their Abbey Road album cover back in 1969. At this point, Carrie had become very comfortable navigating the underground train system, and we made our way from East Grinstead to Abbey Road effortlessly.

So, here's a thought for the folks who live near Abbey Road: You know it's Abbey Road. You know there are thousands of tourists who flock there and take up the roadway to take that photo they've dreamed of for so long, you know there might be traffic delays, so...hm...if it bothers you, why not take a different route? Just sayin... Yeah, the local motorists aren't always polite about pedestrians impeding traffic.

Anyway! Abbey Road was really cool, and we took the photo of Carrie walking across the street. I opted out because there was a long line of other tourists waiting for the same chance, motorists were honking, I was freezing...just didn't want my own turn at it. But Carrie got hers and that's what we were aiming for.

We had noticed a nice little Italian restaurant near our hotel, and we saved it for our last night in London. I'm so glad we did because we had the most amazing meal there - delicious food, great ambiance, fantastic service, and memorable conversation. It was such a special time for us to talk about the wonderful week we had spent together. We were both filled to the brim with joy and gratitude!

Tomorrow we would do some last minute souvenir shopping at Covent Garden, and then make our way to the airport where Ruth and The Boy Child would meet us for one last visit and a send off.

This trip that we'd waited so long for was coming to an end.

We were both so happy and so exhausted, grateful yet weary for home.

♥

{I'll have one final trip post next week.}