One month to England!!! Squee!!!!

[fenchurch]

It's been hitting me a lot lately. We're going to England. I mean, REALLY ACTUALLY going to England. Not just talking about it, not just wistfully dreaming about all the stuff we could do there, we're doing it!

And today was the big one... It's September 4th, so exactly one month from this moment, we'll either be boarding or already on board our flight to London. Eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

There have been a number of things lately that have really made it hit home, though...

sueworld2003 has been trying to organize a group visit to Highgate Cemetery and proposed October 7th as one of the days to go... and after very nearly passing that entry by, it hit me that we're actually going to be there for that date!!! Squee!!!!

Pinhoe Egg, the latest book from Diana Wynne Jones, hit the shelves today in the UK and is set to release in Canada at the end of the month, while the US version is due out on October 1st. I'd much prefer the UK edition and normally I'd either order from Amazon UK or plan a shopping trip up to Vancouver, BC. But ordering it from the UK at this point would get it here anywhere from 1-4 weeks from now... odds being on the side of the four week end of the spectrum. And wait a minute! We're going to be in the UK then anyway!! Squee!!!!

Yeah, there's a whole lot of squeeing going on.

Today we picked up a few travel guides... one for London and one for England, as well as a very large roadmap (which also includes the Isle of Man, so bonus!). I've tossed Notes From a Small Island back on the Teetering Pile (which is no guarantee it'll get read before we leave, but it's worth a shot) and we're scrambling around to locate the copy of Where Was Wonderland?: A Traveler's Guide to the Settings of Classic Children's Books that we picked up several years ago on babyotto's recommendation, for the "someday" when we'd eventually make the trip. Of course now "someday" has arrived, it's nowhere to be found.

So, to sum up: SQUEEEEEE!!!!

Comments

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

we're scrambling around to locate the copy of Where Was Wonderland?: A Traveler's Guide to the Settings of Classic Children's Books that we picked up several years ago on babyotto's recommendation, for the "someday" when we'd eventually make the trip.

Ahh. You're going to actually do one of my life's ambitions: to visit the locations of favorite books. I'd go to all the places in Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence (Cornwall, Buckinghamshire, Snowdonia in Wales), to DWJ's childhood home, etc. etc. Sigh. Maybe someday I'll get over my insane and debilitating fear of flying.

I squee along with you, though. You can actually go to Neal's Yard and the Borough Market! And see the Wheel of Fish in Harrod's food halls. And have tea at Fortnum and Mason, or at the Ritz, or at the Connaught, or the Dorchester. Yes, my mind always turns to food. Gastropubs in the country! Rick Stein's fish restaurants in Cornwall! Jamie Oliver's new 15 in Cornwall! Packet crisps! I'm a sick human being. But don't forget to buy a salt pig -- they make the best ones there.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Maybe someday I'll get over my insane and debilitating fear of flying.

If you do, please let me know how! There are so many places I would like to go, if only I didn't have to fly to get there.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I've made a note of all those places... At this rate, we're going to be spending all our time eating!! Even my physical therapist had recommendations! (It's a cafe in an old crypt -- she couldn't recall the name, but was able to tell me what travel guide she'd found it in originally.)

There really is a Wheel of Fish?!?

Packet crisps! I'm a sick human being. But don't forget to buy a salt pig -- they make the best ones there.

Heh! Well, you know how much I love British food... although I must admit that I have no idea what a salt pig is.

*off to investigate*

[yav-14.livejournal.com]

I am so jealous! Have a fabulous time. If you want any suggestions for London I'd be happy to give you a few. It's such a fantastic city.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Oh definitely!! We've been trying to gather as many suggestions as possible. I figure it's better to not have enough time for everything than to get there and realize you have no idea what to do next!

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're going to be very busy!

[shapinglight]

Heh! Wish I get so excited about the thought of boarding a plane.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

You'll have a fabulous time, I did. Take lots of pictures.

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

You might like this website (http://www.storybookengland.com/) - I just found it today, it looks at settings of classic children's books. It leaves out Mevagissey in Cornwall from Susan Cooper's books but is still worth a visit!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thank you! I still wish I could find that book though. It's really annoying me... and I'm starting to suspect that we won't find it until the day after we get home from this trip!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Squees along with you!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm jealous too, but I hope you have a wonderful time and PLEASE take lots of pictures and email me some of them so I can see all the exciting stuff you did. Try to get some taken of you and Mitch together while you're there too.

Holly

[gillo]

Have you planned an itinerary? Don't try to cram too much in, because there's a huge amount to see even in small towns you've never heard of...

And The Pinhoe Egg is just wonderful. I got mine on Saturday - so bang went Sunday. Chrestomanci vague in dressing gowns, and lots of Cat. What more could you want?

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

We're just starting to work on more of the details for our itinerary... the basic plan had been:
Stay in London for a week
Rent car and drive north
See choir stalls carved by rackham's ancestors in Whalley
Take ferry to the Isle of Man
Take ferry back to London
Fly home

We're starting to gather together all of the recommendations we've gotten for places to visit and plot out locations to add at least a little effeciency to the whole thing. We're not all that stressed about trying to see *everything* because we know it's not possible. We try to approach these sorts of vacations with the idea that if we can make it over to England once, we can always do it again. :-)

We are planning on at least one day just at the British Museum, since I hear it takes several days to get through, we're going to look over some of the guidebooks ahead of time and decide what we most want to see there.

We're not terribly sure where else we're going to stop after we leave London. I'd love to just leave it up in the air, but I'm not sure how feasible that is. In the US, I wouldn't have any qualms about just heading out and finding a hotel wherever we wind up going, but I'm not sure that method would work as well in the UK. Our next door neighbors have done that sort of thing on their trips to England, but did point out that they have the added advantage of having family all over the country that they could fall back on in a pinch (he's originally from Devon).

And The Pinhoe Egg is just wonderful. I got mine on Saturday - so bang went Sunday. Chrestomanci vague in dressing gowns, and lots of Cat. What more could you want?

Oooo... you're nearly convincing me to just order it and hope it gets here before we leave! It's not like I'd have much time to read it while I'm there, anyway (since we'll either be out and running around or exhausted at the end of the day).

[gillo]

It's fairly easy to find a B&B to stay in in most towns. It's sensible perhaps to book a day ahead, so you don't waste time searching for somewhere. Most towns of any size will have tourist information places which as a minimum will have lists of guest houses and B&Bs, and generally will go the little bit extra to help you book somewhere. Quite often the tourist information place is based in the library unless the town is a tourist attraction in its own right, like Stratford on Avon.

The British Museum is huge, but it's possibly better to do it in two half-days rather than a whole day - it's very easy to get "museumed out". The food in the cafés in the Great Court is expensive but good, BTW. There is a row of fabulous museums near the South Kensington Tube station - the V&A is my favourite - applied arts, so costumes, furniture, all the things you need for everyday living, across time and space. The Science Museum and the Natural History Museum are nearby and also world class. And remeber that just walking in London leads you to unexpected treasures. It can be fun to take a riverboat ride - some of the open-topped tourist buses do inclusive tickets, and allow you to ride around most of London for an entire day for a flat (though not dirt-cheap) fee.

Some bits of our road network are horrible at certain times of day. The M25 is the orbital motorway from hell - Pratchett and Gaiman actually based a bok on the concept that it was a sigil focussing all evil on itself. The M6 north of Birmingham and most of the motorways around Manchester are nasty early morning and between 5 and 7 on weekdays.

If you are at all interested in the Stratford/Warwick/Kenilworth/Coventry area, I might well be able to provide advice and a natvie guide in the evenings at least...

It's worth warning you that current exchange rates make everything here feel very expensive - my American friends who visited in July were rather shocked by it.

And if you have the time to get far enough north for York and Durham, you won't regret it!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of doing half-days, because you're right about getting museumed out! We'd also just barely added the Science Museum to the list of potential places to visit after discovering that they have parts of a Difference Engine on display (yes, we're geeks).

And if we can swing it at all, I just figured out that there's a Doctor Who museum in Blackpool! I would love to see that!

If you are at all interested in the Stratford/Warwick/Kenilworth/Coventry area, I might well be able to provide advice and a natvie guide in the evenings at least...

That's one of the areas we were thinking of exploring, so I'll let you know!! At the very least, we're supposed to have internet access in our hotel in London, so I can email you from there!