Excitement plus! Enjoy!

Sounds like you are having an amazing time Mandy. Enjoy London and your time with Meaghan

oh sound like you are having a brilliant time Mandy - enjoy your time with Meagan - we are off to see Tara for her 21st this week

Mandy enjoy China!!!
Say hi to Tara for us Lee-Anne

Thanks girls..
we are having a wonderful time. At the moment we've been visiting rellies....
Just about to pop back out to my very aged great aunt and uncle for tea. We saw them yesterday - its been 21 yrs since I saw them last... sigh, they are so frail now. My great uncle just cried when we hugged... I don't know what its going to be like when we leave them tonight. Anyway, I'll go to them earlier this afternoon, while dh, Meaghan, Hannah and Paige go to the Hogwarts Studios and they will catch up with us later.
Paige and I are off to do the 'Downtown Abbey County' tour tomorrow. Unfortunately the actual castle is closed due to filming but, we get to everywhere else - like Maggie Smiths house and have 'tea' in her drawing room, and the Crawley house etc etc... all the other locations. We CANT wait!!!

How lucky are we! ITs going to be 13C but the sun is shining!!!

This morning we did the Palace, Changing of the Guards (actually stumbled upon that just as it was happening!!) National Gallery - wow that's big! Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

So many trains and tube catching - getting quite good at it - boy it sure was daunting at first!!!
Never ever thought I'd get my head around it. Still makes me nervous though

Hope you are all scrapping merrily. I reckon this is the longest I've ever been without scrapping in over a decade!!!

I've managed to put up some photos on my blog for the China part...

I am SO envious of you doing the Downton Abbey tour!!!!! Enjoy.


The whole trip sounds amazing.

Just checked out your China photos on your blog! Fabulous.

How wonderful that you get to spend time with your great Aunt and Uncle after so many years - enjoy that special time. SSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO envious about the Downton Abbey tour.

Oh boy!!!!.... that Downton Tour was just the BEST!! Paige and I took sooooo many photos!! Visiting the spots where the scenes are taken was amazing! The stories we were told, and meeting the towns people who suddenly became 'extras' - weeell, we hung on every word! The tour only takes about a dozen people at a time - so it remained more personal which was nice, There was only 3 aussies (including Paige and I) and the rest were Americans and boy did they know there stuff - LOL we had a quiz - and Paige was the best at answering! (Her head just 'retains' stuff - while mine can only retain minimal!!!) I think I'll explain better with the photos the 'going-ons' so will do that on my blog when I get a chance. The tour was 9hrs! It went so fast, and while on the bus we watched episodes as well! My favourite place was Maggie Smith's house (the dowager's house) and we met the owner 'Julia' who was so gracious, and we did 'high tea' in the drawing room... Oooh and I got a poster that has the cast's signatures on it!! We wandered around the gardens, played with her cats, saw deer running wild - just beautiful!
In the meantime, dh and Meaghan and Hannah did their sightseeing, including the M&M's factory/store - which was 4 stories high! Meaghan said you could have knocked dh over with a feather and spent most of his time overwhelmed!!!
Anyway, we are now at Meaghan's house up the Eastcoast of England (bout halfway up) Its lovely - typically English in the conjoined row of houses way. Three stories high, ooooh the flights of stairs - our bedrooms or on the top storey huff and puff! We can see the sea from our window - she is only two streets over from it.
All day we just watched dvd's, chatted and generally veged which is nice.

How's the scrapping going? Hope everyone is getting the sketch done???

so jelly of you and the downtown tour. will have to pop over and check out the blog pics later.

Ooooooooooooo! How wonderful would that Downton tour have been and 9hrs.....WOW! Well I just had to settle for the final eposide in the series last night (sigh). I'll be stalking your blog.

Bonjour from France!

Yes we are in Paris after overnight ferry across the Channel. ... food was fabulous and we ate to much! Even had a great nights sleep - Paige, Hannah and I had to take crappy sea-sickness tablets though!! But the nightmare is the trains getting to Paris and their super unorganised 'right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing' system is stressful! Anyway eventually we got here. Tiny little hotel...quaint and very French. It's got a funny little French metal-laced cage-like lift with gates that we go up and down with = only one person and suitcase barely fits in!! Tomorrow we go do more sight seeing - the Eiffel Tower, Louvre Notre Dam etc. Then we are off to South of France for some R&R with Alma's (our French exchange student who lived with us last year) family.

Ooh I am missing paper!!! I think I'd be happy even if I could cut something up and glue it down!

Hey Mandy (waving) sounds like soooooo much fun for you all.

Bonjour!!! We've now moved to the south of France and its raining... While we were in Paris we got sunburnt - now its freezing!

I've put up my Downton Abbey Tour pics on my blog... please excuse lack of editing - will go fix it when I have time... but way to big a post... and not a lot of time!!

I think we journey towards Italy tomorrow

Ciao!

Hope you aren't sick of hearing this!!

We are now in Florence in Italy... for 2 nights, then go to Rome for 2 nights and then the long haul home from ROme.

We have had a wonderful time.
Paris was amazing... we did the usual stuff.... arc de triumph, Notre dam, Louvre - saw the Mona Lisa,(moved around by getting on and off open top double decker buses with a day pass- and its been 26C) and climbed the Eiffel tower... that's right... no 'lifts' for us... we started up the stairs and just a few steps in, Hannah's feet glued to the spot, the silent tears fell and the shaking started... so Meaghan took her back down, Dh, Paige and I climbed to the second story. On the way down - on the first storey,.. there was Meaghan and Hannah! Hannah apparently needed to go to the toilet and Meaghan told her the only one was on the 1st floor!! So with that motivation and a lot of convincing, Meaghan managed to get Hannah slowly but surely up to the first floor.. and she was sooo proud of herself! Anway, after Paris we took a very fast train (cost an arm and a leg for the five of us) to the South of France to Alma's (our French exchanged student from last year) house. We spent two wonderful nights there. Her family would not let us pay for anything at all. We went on a cruise and drove up mountains to see views, and ate all but one meal at restaurants to taste French cuisine. So after we said goodbye hired a car (Dh loves the challenge of driving left side vehicle) Meaghan navigates with natsav and I just have heart attacks! ANyway, we have seen Cannes, Nice and Monaco - just beautiful! Crossed the border into Italy, and stayed Meaghans birthday in a Winery in Tuscany. It was 400yrs old, beautiful and majestic - rustic. They stuffed us full of Italian food - we could hardly move to go to bed. They looked after Hannah with her gluten/dairy free too. Meaghan had a wonderful night - wine and lots of food. The owners could not have been more hospitable even though they spoke little English. So now we are in Florence for 2 nights. Again our accommodation is just fantastic.. we have 2 apartments, one for dh and I and one for the girls with a conjoined door... except we have a Jacuzzi! hee hee! After here we drive to Rome for the horrible long haul home.

I think I'll be ready to come home by the time we get on the plane.

Loving your travelogues Mandy! Thanks so much for sharing. Sounds like you are all having a wonderful time.

Loving the photos on your blog.

No doubt you will be ready to come home.....it's nice to go away, but ever so nice to come home again.