Becca Jane St Clair

[This entry refers to an event from March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging events from January – April.]

Tim’s cat, Prudence, likes to be outside when there are people around. She also likes to walk around on the garden rail tracks:

Watch out for the that train!

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[This entry refers to a day trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

While we were going through brochures at Little Chef on our overnight in Oxford, we snagged a brochure about the Black Country Living Museum. It looked to be similar to Beamish, and since we had such a great time at Beamish, we put the brochure into our stack of “visit later”. We decided we really needed a full day for that museum.

One of the last trips Tim and I took together before I left was the trip to the Black Country Living Museum.

Similar to our situation when we went to Beamish, only certain portions of the museum were open while we were there. Fortunately, we were still able to walk around the areas that were closed, we just were unable to go inside the buildings.

When we walk in to pay our admission to many sites within the UK, we often get asked if we’d like to gift aid our admission. Since Tim is a UK taxpayer, he can opt for this option which then allows the charity (site) to claim back the tax he pays on our admission. In order to do this, they need to know your full name and address. Imagine our surprise when as we’re looking at the displays in the main entrance, a man walks up to Tim and says “Is your last name L_____?” Turns out, the people behind us in line shared the same last name and were most likely distant cousins of Tim’s!

We were disappointing to find out the tram was not running, but we were soon on our way on foot. We checked out a “mini” coal mine/railway before heading over to the model coal mine. After being given hard hats and flash lights that only shined as bright as a candle (what the original coal miners had to use to see!), we went down into the mine with a guide. Once again, we were in a location with low ceilings and were told “you might have to duck down”….and I was able to walk the entire mine without ducking! I’m not the type of person who usually gets claustrophobic, but I really couldn’t wait to get back to the surface.

After exploring the coal mine, we went and saw a crooked house and a house entirely made from aluminium. The house (and many houses in the area) actually started to sink and become crooked based on the activity going on in the mine below! We also checked out the village school, the pub, sweet shop, garage, and the chippy.

Eventually, we wound our way down to the Dudley Canal and discovered the opportunity to travel through the Dudely Tunnel by canal boat. Fortunately, we were able to get on the next boat and headed off to explore the Tunnels and learned about the history from our guide.

Our boat only had about 7 people total on it, so when it came time to take volunteers to “walk the boat” through the tunnel, Tim volunteered along with a girl from another group. (video currently being uploaded to YouTube) Before canal boats had motors, husband and wives moving their goods through the tunnels had to “walk the boat” through each tunnel by laying down on wooden boards and placing their feet on the walls of the tunnel. Tim said it was hard work!

After the boat ride, we explored a little more, and we found the tram shed open, so we peeked inside and got invited in by the man working in there. He and Tim got to talking, and the man offered to give us a ride on the tram back up to the entrance!

We had a fantastic time, and I’d love to go back in the future when everything is open.

The rest of the pictures and video will be posted later. I need to see if Tim took any pictures, but for now, here’s a few:

Tim walking the boat

one of the closed tunnels

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As some of you might know, Tim is traveling across the pond to visit me for three weeks in July and August. Being a British bloke, he’s not used to the really hot summers we can have in Pennsylvania, so I’ve been trying to prepare him. Today, for example, it was 30C in Lancaster, PA. While we were on the phone (Skype), I googled “average temperatures july lancaster pa” to try and give him a decent taste on what the weather would be like.

I stumbled upon the “World Guide to Lancaster, PA”. Where do I begin on how inaccurate this website is? We can start with the website suggesting that Zoo America is located in Lancaster, when it is in fact located in Hershey, PA, about a half-hours drive. Or how about how it claims that you’ll get views of the countryside, but most of the hotels are downtown. No, I know. Let’s look at the photos. You know, the main item on the webpage that is supposed to grab people’s attention and make them want to visit the town your site is showcasing.

Photo 1 – The center square in Lancaster, PA. Nothing wrong here.
Photo 2 – The side of Central Market, the oldest market in the United States. Again, nothing wrong.
Photo 3 – “Lancaster Castle Prison”

Uhm, what?

That castle you’re looking at? Is this castle:

(image provided by Wikipedia)

That castle is in fact, Lancaster Castle. In Lancaster. However, it’s not in Lancaster, PA. Heck, it’s not even in the United States. Nope. It’s in Lancaster, United Kingdom.

The “Lancaster Castle Prison” is this building:

(image provided by Wikipedia)

Which is an actual county prison. The only way you’re visiting it is if you’ve broken the law.

Now, both Wikipedia entries for Lancaster Castle and Lancaster County Prison as well as the Lancaster County Prison’s website claim the Lancaster County Prison was modeled after Lancaster Castle. Personally, I can’t really see it as being an “exact replica”, but it’ll do nicely as a homage. Still though, I can’t quite justify showing an image of a castle on a tourism website that is located in another country.

I can see tourists wanting to see “the castle” and being directed over to the prison and soon being disappointed that it’s not the castle pictured on the website. Uh, sure, just drive to the Atlantic Ocean, swim for about 3,000 miles, then travel halfway up the UK to get to it.

[This entry refers to a day trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

Tim wanted to go to Narrow Gauge North, which is a show for people interested in Narrow Gauge modelling. Tim usually goes up with the Axholme and Lindsey area group of the 16mm Association. The group usually plans to attend the show in the morning, and then the afternoon at a railway site. This year, it turned out that Narrow Gauge North was the same day as the Diesel Gala at the Abbey Light Railway. The narrow gauge railway will take you from one end of the park all the way down to Kirkstall Abbey. Rides cost £1.

I was pretty excited, since we hadn’t yet gone to any abbeys, and the abbey at Kirkstall is in quite good shape.

We spent a good portion of the day down at the railway, as it was their gala we were attending. We took a round trip visit as soon as we got there, then hung around checking out the engine shed and watching as they pulled out all sorts of old diesel engines. I wasn’t super excited (since I’m only a casual fan of diesel trains), but Tim was pretty excited. We even managed to make cameo appearances on their video of the day (watch the first video. I spotted Tim at 3:13 for sure, and a few other times I saw people in the background that might have been us. Mark is in the video frequently, as well).

Later on in the afternoon, I asked Tim if we could go up and explore the ruins. Of course, we rode the train up (on a one-way). There’s a decent sized information center that also has a museum attached. We didn’t have time to go through the museum, so after a stop at the toilets (it’s really a theme with me/us), we headed outside to walk around on the grounds.

Kirkstall Abbey was built over the course of 75 years in the late twelfth century. The Abbey was surrendered to King Henry VIII in 1539, and in 1671, it was partially demolished to use the stone elsewhere, including the steps of the Leeds bridge! Tim tells me this was a pretty typical occurrence, and apparently many homes built in the late 1600s contain stone archways taken from former abbeys and churches. The Kirkstall Abbey opened to the public in 1895.

Many of the sections have boards telling you what area of the abbey you are looking at – kitchens, dormitories, etc. Some of the sections are intact with roofs and walls, while other sections are open-air. I was floored to find out I was walking on stone and touching walls from the twelfth century! There just isn’t that type of history in the United States, and perhaps is one of the reasons I love traveling in the United Kingdom more.

Tim and I took the railway back across the park just in time to watch Mark get driving lessons from one of the drivers! He had to drive it in the back and wasn’t allowed any passengers, but after the driver showed Mark how to control things, he hopped off and let Mark run it back and forth by himself!

(photo by Tim)

(photo by Tim)

For more photos, see: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/kirkstall-abbey/

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(translate title at: http://russells.freeshell.org/enigma/ )

[This entry refers to a day trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

Tim and I made plans to visit friends of mine who live near Oxford. We were going to go to their house for dinner,and then spend the following day exploring Oxford. Unfortunately, my friends ran into a family emergency and had to cancel on us. Since we already had the hotel booked, Tim and I decided to go anyway, figuring on finding something to do!

Our trip started with a ride on the Great Central Railway. Again, Tim knows way more about this than I do, but it’s a really great preserved steam line located partway between Lincoln and Oxford. We spent a few hours there, rode the train (and ate on the train), and explored the grounds and engine shed. Tim decided he’d like to volunteer with this group (and he has. This past May he spent a week working on signalling), and I decided that someday when I have a visa that permits volunteering, it might be fun to work on, too.

After that, we were off to Oxford and our hotel. Fortunately for us, the hotel was adjacent to a Little Chef, and provided us with both a decent breakfast and some travel brochures. We started dividing the pile into things we each wanted to see, things we both wanted to see, and things to hold off on for a later date.

Surprisingly, we both picked a visit to Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park is a large estate that was turned into a secret decoding facility during WWII. Today, it is several museums in one, including a spy museum, toy museum, and of course, the Enigma machine itself. You also can tour the manor house and the garage, where they actively restore WWII vehicles.

Many of the huts are still undergoing renovation, but we were able to get to the main areas and even got to see the Enigma machine in action! Bletchley Park is also the home to the National Museum of Computing. We were unable to gain access to the full museum due to some kind of electrical problem (all the lights were out and it was dark!) But they had set up some temporary exhibits with some of the large computers in an adjacent building.

Still, we both had an incredible time exploring the place and learning about WWII. I surprised myself in the gift shop by purchasing several books about war rationing, cooking for victory, and the children’s evacuation of London. Unfortunately, I left these books at Tim’s house on my bookshelf there so I can’t give you the exact titles.

It was definitely worth the trip out, though I don’t think we’d have discovered it if it wasn’t for a brochure at Little Chef!

Shell of a submarine. Tim thinks it might have been from a movie, since it was made from Plywood.

The Enigma Machine

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[This entry refers to a trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

We finally had a sunny day! Our last day in the North was bright and sunny, so we split our day doing some train things for Tim, and a castle for me.

We parked at a park and ride near Durham. We’ve discovered the park and rides really are a much better deal than trying to find parking in a city centre, not to mention the cost. Plus, you don’t have to deal with town traffic…just avoid the bendy busses. The bendy bus in York made me sick.

Once again though, we managed to find a site closed! But this one had a legitimate excuse other than the off-season. Durham Castle is part of Durham University and they actually conduct classes in the castle, and close it on days there are classes. Imagine taking a class in a castle? How cool would that be?

But, we were just across the green from Durham Cathedral, and decided to take a look around the inside. We were not permitted to take any inside pictures, but I assure you, it was breathtaking. Durham Cathedral is actually only the second Cathedral in the UK I’ve been in. I was in Westminster Abby in 1997 when I went to London for the first time, and that’s it. Even though Lincoln has a cathedral (that I’ve photographed many times!), Tim and I just never actually made time to go to it, and I didn’t want to go it alone. Ah well, something to do in the future.

Anyway. After wandering around the cathedral for a bit, we headed to the cathedral’s cafe for a light lunch before locating the park and ride (conveniently outside the University Library between the Castle and Cathedral!) and heading back to the car.

We did several train-related things on this weekend, too, but I’m going to ask Tim to be a guest blogger and write about those, since I know I won’t do it justice!

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[This entry refers to a trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

Tim and I picked up the AA Leisure Guide Northumbria & Coast and in the book were some suggestions for “driving tours”. We knew we wanted to see some of the castles in Northern England, and the route in the book took us neatly around to several castles we really wanted to see!

(photo by Tim)

Our first stop was Alnwick. I wanted to go to Alnwick Castle, as it was one of the filming locations for the Harry Potter movies, and Hogwart’s was partially modeled after it. Unfortunately, the castle was closed for the Winter months, but we took some photos up by the gate, and then Tim walked down the icy hill to see if there was access at another gate and to take more photos. Unfortunately, the gates were all closed, so we headed back to the car and continued on our route.

The next place to stop on the route was called Preston Tower. We actually nearly drove right past the place because we thought we were driving past private property! Preston Tower is located on a private farm, but the owners allow access to the tower. Admission is on your honour with a little wooden box, and they also had postcards and brochures. We were able to climb up to the clock itself and even go outside to check out the view. The clock at Preston Tower is designed after the clock at Westminster (Big Ben). While we were there, the clock struck the hour and it was super loud! I climbed all the way up to the top (even higher than the clock) and was treated to a 360 degree view of the English and Scottish countryside.

Our next stop should have been Holy Island. Holy Island is connected to the mainland by a causeway and you can only cross at certain times of the day or risk getting stuck in the water (or on the island!). We looked at the schedule,and had just missed going over. Paired with seeing that we’d have a short amount of time over on the Island before needing to leave, we decided to skip Holy Island, and continued on to Bamburgh Castle

While we were in Bamburgh, we stopped at the Grace Darling Museum, a museum dedicated to the life of Grace Darling, daughter of the lighthouse keeper who assisted in a rescue at sea in 1838.

The sun was starting to set, but we weren’t finished yet! We kept on heading North and got to Norham Castle, the last stronghold before the Scottish border. The site itself was closed, but we were able to take photos of the castle.

Tim then decided that we were going to drive as far North as the border with Scotland, just so I could say I was officially in Scotland!

We ended our day there and headed back towards Newcastle-upon-Tyne and in search of dinner.

For more photos please see: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/northern-castles/

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[This entry refers to a trip taken in March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

I’m still playing catch-up on my UK trip. Tim arrives in 25 days for his US visit, so I thought I ought to try and get things caught up!

Tim had a long weekend coming and we were trying to decide what to do on it and where to go. He handed me this big map book he has of the UK (complete with a mini visitor guide. This book is amazing and helped us plan several of our other trips!). I opened it up to the front page that shows all of the UK, and after two “splashes” (finger pointing at the Irish Sea), I landed somewhere in the Northeast. I think I landed specifically on Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or it might have been Durham. Either way, it sparked off a weekend in the Northeast! I was googling for things to do, and Tim remembered a place called Beamish. One look at the webpage, and I told him we had to go there!

Our weekend started off the day after one of the snow storms that swept across the UK. Actually, the storm that hit London the day before we left was the first big snow storm to hit London in 18 years! Since it wasn’t too bad in Lincoln, we decided to head on out anyway. I scored us a great deal on a hotel again, this time staying at a Holiday Inn a little bit north of Newcastle, for about half the price of even the local bed & breakfast! We settled into our hotel that evening, and planned on heading out to Beamish in the morning.

It snowed overnight, but only a light dusting. We headed out to Beamish, and right when we got there it started snowing harder! What perfect conditions to explore 1913!

Beamish is an open air museum designed to give you a glimpse of life in 1913 Northeastern England, and 1825. During the winter months, the 1825 section is closed, so you can only visit the 1913 town.

Fortunately, the trolley was running, so we hopped on the trolley and it took us back in time to 1913. Our first stop was a masonic temple, originally from Sunderland. The front of the temple was brought over brick-by-brick, but the inside was built new from the old plans. Our guide told us all about the secret society and talked about how to join the Masons. It was pretty interesting, but I lost interest after being told women couldn’t join! They also offered the opportunity to go upstairs, but I didn’t want to climb the steps.

Next to the temple was a branch of Barclay’s bank. A teller sat behind the counter working on needlework, waiting to show off the coins and bills used previously in England. We also took a trip downstairs and got to see the old fashioned vaults and deposit boxes. Wow, glad I wasn’t a banker in 1913!

After a stop at the (thankfully modern!) toilets, we moved onto some of the shops in town. The people in the confectionery told us to come back later if we wanted to watch a demonstration, so we headed to the Pub for a cup of tea to warm up with before heading back in. We got to watch how Toffee is made,and got samples fresh off the block! Tim and I picked up some old fashioned candy (at old fashioned prices!) to nibble on for the rest of the trip.

Across the street was the large co-op, where people could buy everything they needed for their homes, from washing machines and dishes to food and clothing. The shopkeeper explained everything to us, and showed us a very clever way of taking cash from customers. The shop had an overhead system of “rails”. Run completely by gravity (no electricity here!), the counter person was able to put the customer’s bill and money into a hollow croquet ball. Then, she’d put it onto the “track” and the ball whizzed it’s way back to a separate locked office where the cashier would take out the money, put change and a receipt in, and send it back to the counter person. This way, all the money was kept behind a locked door and it was actually a lot safer than most stores today!

Further down the block was a printing shop, where we got to watch the typesetter set the newspaper, and then used the press to make a “I’ve been to Beamish!” sign for a souvenir.

We skipped a few of the houses/offices and some of them weren’t open, but we did get to glimpse in the law office, and into the kitchen of a typical 1913 home.

Further down the block, we got to the Railway station – Tim’s favourite place! The station wasn’t open, but we took a few photos and got to see the Westoe Netty – and outdoor public toilet for men made famous by a 1972 painting. The toilet was built in the 1890s (and also the third old-fashioned toilet display we saw on my visit!).

On our walk back we stopped in at the stables and the garage before taking the trolly back to the entrance. We packed a picnic lunch, but supplemented it with some soup from the cafe.

We both had a great time, and I look forward to going back with Tim next Summer when we can see everything else!

The trolly we rode on

The Westoe Netty

For more photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/beamish/

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[This entry refers to a day trip taken in January 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January – April.]

Back when Tim and I started planning my trip, he asked me to make a list of places I’d like to see. The list was in no way a guarantee that we’d go, but it was a good jumping off point for making plans. I can also proudly say that after 6 months, we did nearly everything on the list!

One of the places on my list, was the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The map geek in me was overjoyed that I was going to be traveling from 100 degrees (when I was in Manitoba last summer) to 0 within a matter of weeks (and, at the beginning of 2008 I was almost at the Equator, too!). When I was doing some research for my UK trip, I discovered that you could go to Greenwich and stand on the Prime Meridian…thus being in both the West and the East at the same time!

When Tim and I planned our weekend to London this past January, we included a trip to Greenwich. We started our trek by taking the Docklands Light Railway, which is a light railway that does not have any drivers on it! (You might remember my vlog I made that day, viewable here.). The DLR doesn’t drop you off right at the observatory, of course, so we had a bit of a walk through Greenwich (though we could have taken the bus, we opted to walk). Once we got there, I also discovered you need to walk uphill to get to the observatory. By this point in our weekend, my legs were really hurting from the prior days, so we took it slow, stopping to sit on benches along the way. Our goal was to get to the Prime Meridian before 1300 GMT, as we wanted to watch the red ball drop at 1300, but we had plenty of time.

Believe it or not, I was actually pretty awe-struck finally getting to see the world clock and getting to stand right on the Prime Meridan. There are few things that can excite a map geek as much as being able to be both East and West at the same time!

We went into the observatory and got to see a huge display about clocks, and learned about the first clocks ever built. After we watched the red ball drop, we decided to head to the Maritime Museum. Tim wound up going through this museum mostly on his own. My legs were just too tired to take it all in, but the museum had a small cafe, so I was able to sit at a table with a drink and I read and listened to music (and I think I might have even fallen asleep at one point!). I felt bad leaving Tim to look at the museum on his own, but I was glad he was able to get the chance to do it.

After closing time, we decided to take a bus back over to the DLR (yay!), and then the Tube back to Victoria Station for the short walk back to the hotel.

The Royal Observatory

I’m standing in the East and the West!

More Photos

Tonight, my mom and I went over to the Weis Market in the Manor Shopping Center (Lancaster, PA). We usually grab one of the mini-carts and put our reusable bags on the bottom half while we shop. As we walked in the door, the security guard stationed by the door tried to tell us that we needed to leave our bag(s) with the customer service desk while we shopped. We explained to him that they were our grocery bags, and his comment back to us was “people still could use them to steal stuff”. The overall impression I got off this security guard was that he somehow thought Mom and I were going to steal groceries and that’s why we were bringing in bags. I’ve never felt so offended before going grocery shopping. If this is going to be a trend with that store, we simply won’t shop at it anymore!

And then when we were checking out…it seems to me that if you bring in your own bags, the cashier doesn’t make any moves to assist you with packing up your purchases. Even if they have finished ringing you up and you have paid and the remaining items are out of your reach. No, you must stretch yourself to try to push them down to where you can reach them.

I compare this type of service to the service I regularly received at Tesco in the UK. Never once were we stopped by anyone for bringing in reusable bags, in fact, they encourage reusable over plastic and offer you 3p off your order for every bag you bring in. If you need plastic bags, you need to ask the cashier to give you some. Also, as soon as you start packing your groceries, the cashier always asks if you need help packing and will do their best to ensure that you can reach all your purchases.

I could be looking at grocery shopping in the UK through rose coloured glasses, but I never came across a rude cashier or stocker in any of our trips to Tesco. Matter of fact, I even received help finding an item in the store from an employee who was off-duty doing her own shopping when she heard me tell Tim I couldn’t find an item off our list!

I wish Weis was more like Tesco (and I wish they didn’t charge over $7 for the tiniest bottle of Ribena you can get for under £1 in the UK!). I’ve also sent in a complaint via the Weis Market’s website. I had wanted to speak with the store manager, but there was a long line at customer service and only one woman behind the counter. I didn’t want to cause a huge fuss asking for a manager to complain to when clearly, they needed help dealing with all the customers.

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I’ve decided I’m not going to take the time to completely blog every single town and place we visited. I’ve been home for over a month, and I just haven’t had the time. BUT – I know I have some readers (i hope?) who want to read about things, so here is the list of places we were. If there is a place you’d like to see me write more about and I haven’t already, please leave me a comment.

Stamford
Liverpool
Lincoln (multiple times)
Stratford-upon-Avon
Hereford
Hay-On-Wye/Brecon Beacons
Cardiff
Bridlington
Scarbourough
Robin Hood’s Bay
Yorkshire Moors (and NYMR!)
York
Nottingham
London
Portsmouth
Stonehenge
Blackpool
Liverpool
Rainhill
Newark
London
Greenwich
Beamish
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Alnwick and other Castles in the North
Scottish Borders
Durham
Darlington
GCR
Bletchley Park
Leeds
Mablethorpe (and other seaside towns)

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As posted to LJ and Facebook…

Top 10 Memories From the Past 6 Months:

10. The frog in the living room!
9. Seeing “Spamalot” and “Oliver!” in the West End
8. Getting locked in the loo on the train
7. Exterminate 45 with the Leicester Doctor Who Club
6. UK Ships and Dip get together in Liverpool
5. My Hovercraft is full of eels
4. Christmas in the UK, and being treated like family by Tim’s family
3. Spending six months with the man I love
2. Stonehenge at sunset
1. Hearing Tim say to me “I love you” for the first time.

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss about the UK

10. Boots
9. Primark (Where in the US can you get nice jeans for £6?)
8. Public transportation that works
7. BBC/BBC Radio
6. Ribena & D&B Soda (though not mixed together)
5. Tesco
4. Tim
3. My UK Friends & Family
2. Tim
1. Did I mention Tim?

—

My flight is out of LHR at 4:15PM BST tomorrow. Landing in IAD at 7:15PM EST…ETA back in Lancaster probably around 10 or 11PM.

Regular posting will resume at some point this week, and it will include the HUGE backlog of places I’ve visited…I think I have to backtrack all the way to London in January! But, it gives me something to do instead of moping about missing Tim, eh?

I know, I know. Finish writing about London, THEN post about this past weekend, but I just got up these videos and wanted to share them.

We really packed a lot into day two, without actually planning on it. We wound up going to the Tower Bridge, the HMS Belfast, Big Ben/Parliament, seeing Oliver! in the West End, and Piccadilly Circus! Thanks to our daypasses for the Underground, we didn’t have to do a whole lot of walking, either.

The first thing we wanted to do was to see about getting theatre tickets for Oliver!, the production Burn Gorman is currently appearing in. Fortunately, there was a discount ticket booth right in the Covent Gardens tube station, and thanks to the person behind the counter calling the theatre, we scored high balcony seats for that evening’s performance. With tickets safely tucked into my camera case, we headed back onto the Tube to start our day.

Our day started with the trip to the Tower Bridge. I had discovered the Tower Bridge has a tour where you can walk along the top of it, and I really wanted to do it…and somehow I convinced Tim to go along with me! It was really neat learning about how the Tower Bridge was built and why, and then getting to walk across both sides of the upper bridge to take photos and video of London. We had a great time doing this, and fortunately, the Tower Bridge was a short walk away from our next stop. We decided against the Tower of London, since we both had already been there and I knew when I come back this fall with my mom, I’d be taking her there.

Just a short walk away from the Tower Bridge is the HMS Belfast. Again, I don’t know or remember much about it other than it is a 1930s warship. They were testing out a new route for their tour, so we got a little confused walking around and I kept feeling like we were places we shouldn’t be since there was no organized tour like with the HMS Victory. We did a lot of climbing up and down ladders, which I wasn’t a fan of, and had to squeeze past a lot of really tight locations to see it all. We learned all about how the sailors lived on the ship, as well as how the ship itself worked. We also stopped to eat on the HMS Belfast, and we purchased cups of tea to go along with the sandwiches we had packed.

From the HMS Belfast, it was another short walk to the London Bridge tube stop. When I saw we were going to be near Westminster, I asked Tim if we could stop to take photos of Big Ben and Parliament. I have photos from my first trip back in 1997, but there’s something about going to London and taking photos of all the important landmarks that appealed to me, so we stopped and after shooting short videos and taking photos, headed back onto the Tube to go back to our hotel to change for the play!

We stopped for dinner at a chippy around the corner from the hotel. I can’t rave about the food, because I really didn’t enjoy it all that much and ordered a hot drink when I wanted a cold drink, but it didn’t matter – we were off to Oliver!

Sadly, we didn’t get to see Jodie Prenger perform and saw Tamsin instead. I was disappointed, as I was really looking forward to seeing Jodie after watching I’d Do Anything. Tamsin didn’t impress me much. Her chemistry with Burn Gorman, who plays Bill Sikes, seemed non-existent to me. But Burn was amazing as Bill, and Rowan Atkinson gave a very hilarious performance as Fagin. Burn even managed to sing a bit of “My Name”. The character is so dark and cynical and I think Burn pulls it off well. The music cues when Bill comes on stage are sinister and dark, but it also takes a good actor to be able to take those music cues and actually make the audience fearful of him. Amazing performance, I loved it.

But perhaps the best part came after the show. I ran around the corner to the Stage Door, and got to catch Burn long enough to shake his hand and tell him who I was. It really made my evening! He was in a hurry to get home, but he still took the time to respond to my “Excuse me, Mr Gorman” and came over to say hello.

Needless to say, I was flying high after this and convinced Tim we should stop at Piccadilly Circus to take some photos before we headed back to the hotel for bed. We returned to the hotel, exhausted, but still flying high (at least for me!) after the performance.

Previously posted video logs can be found here:
http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/more-vlogs-from-london/
http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/more-vlogs/

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I was waiting to post about our London trip until I had copies of Tim’s photos to post with mine, but he’s been busy with his workshop and other stuff, and I thought I’d get up at least the first post before we head out traveling this weekend. I’ll post photos later, when I have Tim’s.

We were looking for something to do over a long weekend, and after rejecting a trip to the Lakes District (nothing was open, and it would be too cold), as well as the Norfolk Broads (same reason), we settled on going down to London and spending a few days there. I previously visited London back in November, but we did a theatre trip with Tim’s siblings and met up with one of my friends, so we didn’t do as much touristy things as I’d have liked, so we decided to do a real tourist weekend in London!

I scored us super cheap accommodations at a Bed & Breakfast (Belgravia Hotel) near Victoria Station. Because it was the off-season, the B&B was charging £100 for the 3 nights (less than £35/night for two people!), when their usual rate for the room we had (a deluxe double) was £80/night. I can’t remember which website I found it on, I just remember googling “inexpensive hotels London” and google spit back a few sites and we had them all open in tabs to compare the places. There was one other place that was cheaper for the three nights at £85 for all three, but that location did not serve breakfast, and had a kitchenette instead. While we could have stayed there and paid £15 less, I think our included continental breakfasts were worth the £2.50/each per day…and we’d have spent more on breakfast probably if we had been cooking it ourselves. (Plus who wants to cook when they’re staying in a hotel?)

We decided to take the train down from Lincoln, and while it was a crowded train, it was a pleasant journey. We had to switch in Newark from the local train to a National Express train, but we were lucky to only have to wait about 5 minutes. The National Express train even had wifi! I didn’t pull out my laptop, but I used the wifi on my iPod. We had packed some sandwiches for the trip, but wound up saving them for the next day.

We had to switch to the Underground at King’s Cross. A single fare cost me over £4! Insanity when the day pass is only £7, but since we only needed it for one trip, the daypass was pointless. Our hotel was located about 3/4 of a mile away from Victoria Station….which wasn’t bad, but it felt like a mighty long walk carrying luggage!

It was coming up on dinnertime, so we checked into our B&B, got ourselves settled and discovered both the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen (even smaller than the bathroom on the cruise ship I was on!), as well as a mini fridge to keep our snacks cool, and headed out in search of dinner.

We wound up at the mini mall connected to Victoria Station and had a great dinner in one of the restaurants. After dinner, we returned to the hotel, grabbed our cameras, and walked down to Buckingham Palace (about a mile from where we were staying), and shot some photo and video in the dark. The evening wasn’t cold at all, but we were getting tired, so we retired back to the hotel around 10. We knew we wanted to get up and out early the following day (plus didn’t want to miss breakfast!), but my stomach had other plans for me. We still got out on time in the morning, but for about half the day my stomach was churning.

I fixed my photo posting, so you can now click on images again to get a larger pic.

If you want to watch the video logs from the first night again, you can find them here: http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/2009/01/two-vlogs-from-london/

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I found this recipe for Chicken a la King in toast cups on one of the food blogs I read regularly and had decided it was something I might want to try to make for Tim someday…but the toast cups looked like they’d be something I’d fail at. My friend Falnfenix IMed me one day and told me she had made the recipe with success and the toast cups weren’t that hard to make, so I decided to try my hand at it…of course, I needed to use ingredients we had on hand and my end result while similar to the Culinary in the Desert post, really only shares the toast cups in common!

So – start with her toast cup directions. I used a silicone muffin tray though and discovered I needed to toast them for twice as long before they started to look toasty…and even then, they didn’t get that golden brown toast colour.

Then, I took a look at her recipe and at what I had in the kitchen and did the following:

*Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a saucepan
*add 1/4 cup flour after butter has melted, stir.
*add 2 cups chicken broth
*add 1 cup diced carrots, 1 cup diced celary, and 2 cups peas
*add 1 tsp white wine and 2 tsp white vinegar
*sprinkle with parsley, sage, pepper (from a 4-colour grinder), paprika, and salt
*add 1 Tbsp corn starch if it’s not thick
*add 4 cooked chicken breasts, cubed

Then it was simply pour into the toast cups. Tim said this was delicious, and he had the leftovers at work the following day without the toast cups.

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[Note added 9/12/12: This post gets a lot of traffic because there isn’t a lot of information out there about this subject. Please note that this post was written in 2009. Information may have changed, so please check the links provided or ask at a local GP practice.]

It’s bound to happen to you – you’re traveling and didn’t calculate how much birth control you needed to bring with you, or you decide to extend your stay past the amount you’ve brought with you. The idea of making an overseas phone call to your doctor to get a prescription filled, then calling and begging a friend or relative to pick it up, pay for it, and ship it over to you just doesn’t sit well with you, either. So, what can you do, other than going off your birth control for a few weeks or months?

The UK-Yankee website and board is a fabulous place to start for information about anything regarding visiting/living in the UK as an American. Several of the ladies on the message board advised in the past that visitors have access to free birth control through the NHS. This some-what contradicts the big stamp in my passport that says “no recourse to public funds”, so I was a little skeptical.

I first researched family planning clinics in the area near Tim’s house. I found one in Grimsby that also had a website and e-mail address, and I contacted them with my questions. The woman who wrote back told me I would need to pay for the visit but the pills would be free, and gave me the number of a clinic closer to here. I didn’t call them.

Then, I did some more research online, and found the Marie Stopes organization. Marie Stopes provides birth control to low-income women throughout the world, and their main office is in London. I sent off an email inquiring if they had a location closer to here, and what the costs would be as a foreign visitor. Marie Stopes calculates their fees on a sliding scale (similar to Planned Parenthood), but did not tell me what fees would be charged to a foreign visitor. Unfortunately, their closest clinic to me was in Leeds, which isn’t all that close!

Several ladies on UKY mentioned Dr. Thom Dr Thom offers online birth control pill ordering – no exam or need to see a doctor. Dr. Thom charges £29.99 for a three-month supply. The only catch is that you have to already be on birth control and you must be on one of the pills Dr. Thom provides. Unfortunately, my brand of pill was not on the list. The only “American” brands I noticed were Yaz and Ortho-Tri-Cyclen. I emailed Dr. Thom and asked about ordering a similar pill, but was told they could not provide a pill I wasn’t already prescribed. Dr. Thom also requires the person placing the order to have a credit card in their name and a UK address associated with the card, so you would also need to add your UK address to your credit card before using their services.

It was beginning to become clear to me that I would need to try to see a doctor here, and I was a bit worried about the cost. There’s a family clinic (not family planning, just family clinic) in the next village over, so when Tim and I happened to be in that area, I stopped in with my old prescription.

I was told that if the dispensary supplied my brand, they would just give it to me, but since I was on a brand they were unfamiliar with, I needed to make an appointment to have a doctor give the prescription. I was told that as a visitor, I might need to pay £12 for the office visit, but they were not sure and would let me know when I had my appointment if that was alright with me. Well, £12 certainly didn’t seem like too much money to me, so I said that was fine.

My appointment took all of 10 minutes. The doctor weighed me, took my blood pressure, and asked me medical history questions. Then she looked up the chemical make-up of my pill and prescribed me a similar pill. I was expecting a month’s supply, but she prescribed me with a 3 month supply, and I was told to get it filled next door at the co-op. They did not mention paying a fee for the visit to me, but I assumed I would have to pay for my pills. I went next door, and to my surprise I was handed a 3-month pack of pills after a very short wait. I asked if I needed to pay for them, and was told no, they were covered under the NHS.

So, my advice to any of you ladies traveling to the UK who find yourself needing birth control (or the morning after pill, apparently), find a local family clinic or a family planning clinic…but don’t wait until the last minute. I started looking into things with 2 weeks left in my current pill pack, and by the time I saw the doctor and got a new prescription, I was less than a week away from running out!

For more information about what visitors are entitled to, please see: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/Entitlementsandcharges/OverseasVisitors/Browsable/DH_074379