The arrival

Winchester

Crofts Castle

Leominster

Salisbury

Hereford

Well here we are in the UK having arrived a week ago on the 23rd. We were all rather sad to be leaving our home at sea as we had such a wonderful time on board. Now the adventure was to begin.

In one week we have seen so many places,sites, castles,cathedrals,medieval cities,manors and pubs that we have forgotten what we have done. Here's a run down on what we remember in no particular order:

New Forest Ponies wandering in the town

New Forest Ponies in New Forest

-New Forest-New Forest ponies roaming where ever they like from the roads to the main streets of the towns the ponies have right of way in this area.
-Winchester a lovely town that has a catherdral
-Salisbury,lovely city and has an enourmous cathedral, here we ran into some passengers from the ship!!
-Romsey another lovely little town
-Stone Henge-we did a drive by as you can get a reasonable look at it from the road
-Wood Henge,not far from Stone henge, we walked around this one
-Avesbury Henge and Manor, totally cool little town built in the henge, fascinating how and why the ancients built these mounded walls, corridors of stone, stone circles,long barrows(where they buried people). The Manor was beautiful and the gardens were superb. This is a more interesting site than Stone Henge and a lot larger
-Watford,to see Allyson and go to the Warner Bros Harry Potter studios
-Bath, amazing,beautiful city. We toured the Roman Baths and saw the city from an open top bus. We stayed with our new friend Dale and her family the night. We enjoyed a great Chinese meal and lovely company
-Glimpsed Windsor castle as we drove down the motorway
- Visited Crofts castle and Barrington Manor
-Thatched cottages,tudor cottages and houses,beautiful catherdrals
-Hereford,where we think is a possibility to live. It has all the things we are looking for except it's quite far from London and Allyson
-Driven down the narrowest two way roads that barely fit one car let alone two. The sides are lined with hedgerows and you cannot see what is coming until you are face to face with it.
-We've dined in very very old pubs and Grahame is loving trying all the English beers he has never seen before
-The greenest grass you have ever seen and just when you think it can't get any greener, we then entered North Wales and stunning green,green,green. The grass is so perfect in the paddocks it looks like lawn,amazing.
-Beautiful and stunning countryside, words cannot describe how stunning the scenery is.
-So many beautiful towns and villages,driving down tiny cobblestoned streets and lanes with amazing shopfronts and buildings

That's just what I can remember off the top of my head.

Right now we are in far North Wales in a most stunning wee little  village called Beddgelert. It's part of the Snowdonia National Park. We are here on an amazing opportunity. Grahame and Elliott are working as assistants on a film shoot for a documentary. I know this sounds crazy as we have only been in country 7 days.
The ship turned out to be a great networking opportunity. We met Dale (as mentioned earlier), she is a TV film producer and to cut a long story short she offered this to Grahame as she knew he is looking for work. Although this gig is voluntary the type of work is something that Grahame is interested in doing, that is location organisation,safety and security (basically). So here we are. We have been put up in a beautiful 400 year old stone cottage perched on the side of a hill with a most glorious view. Right now Grahame and Elliott are up at the summit of the mountain and then into a copper mine with the production team filming what will hopefully be Precious Planet. A doco series about the earths precious metals,gems etc etc.

Beddgelert,North Wales

Beddgelert

We also met another couple who, Neil, coincidently happens to have a film production company that produces Tv commercials. His wife,Debs is a jewellery designer. Neil has offered Harison do to a screen test as Harison wants to be an actor. It would be great fun for Harison to have a go and learn about the production side of the indusrty. We are catching up with them in West London next week sometime.

So it's a bit of a 180 degree turn for us Butlers. It's been amazing meeting the people we have. There are more but that can wait 'till later, don't want to sound too much of a name dropper.

We will be in Milton Keynes for 4 days this long weekend. We are going to a wedding, the son of friends we met in Malaysia when we lived there. Stefan and Allyson went to school together so that's how we know them. Grahame was part of a school expedition that Stefan participated in when they climbed one of the highest peaks in Malaysia. Stefan credits Grahame for getting the team up the mountain.

Romsey

Milton Keynes is also on the possibility list of places to live. Grahame has been there before. So once Ellz, Haz and I have looked at it we'll see if it's still on the list.

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury

Avesbury Henge

Avesbury Henge

Roman Baths

Bath

Bath