Without the children

It had been an unusual fortnight at Hailey Hall after we returned from Denmark. The amount of snow meant that school was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday. Some of the students were able to make it back in on Wednesday and Thursday but the appearance of more snow (and some really bad ice forecast for the roads) meant that the boarders were sent home Friday morning and most of the staff were either unable to make it in, or were sent home upon their arrival. There was uproar in the media about how badly England coped with snow, and particular focus was made of how schools made life harder for parents by closing. Of course, if a school had stayed open and someone had been killed trying to get to school (as happened earlier in the year when a teacher was killed because her car skidded into the path of a train) the opposite would have been said, but that is the media for you.

Monday saw another closure, but the weather started to clear later that day and things returned to normal for the final week of half term, until Thursday night. Once more enormous quantities of snow were forecast to fall. This was potentially terrible news for Quinn, as he was scheduled to leave the following morning for a trip to Italy to go skiing with the school over the week off for half term. However, the snow did not eventuate and we were able to get Quinn to the bus on time Friday morning and wave him off on a big adventure (he has been told that he needs to write a blog entry for us about that week, he is quite intimidated). Consequently, come Sunday morning with Brock busy on the computer preparing for a couple of days of his holiday where he was to go in to school to complete coursework, Meg and Wayne decided to get out of the house by themselves.

It had been a while since we had gone off without the boys, so that was exciting in itself, but we needed to fix on a destination. We wanted somewhere new and different, but not too far away because Meg had been unwell for most of the previous ten days, and had not been to classes since the Wednesday of the previous week. Looking at the counties around Hertfordshire; we had been to Essex, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, and Berkshire. Bedfordshire was the obvious place to go, and if we were going to go to Bedfordshire, we might as well go to the town for which it is named, Bedford. It is just over 40 miles away, so would take about an hour to drive, so at about 10:30am off we went.

We drove up through Stevenage then turned on to the A1 heading north through Baldock and Biggleswade. Having seen most of the snow around our area melt over the previous week it was fascinating to see that much of this area, not that far north of us, was still blanketed in white. At the delightfully named Sandy, we turned onto the Bedford Road (or the B1042 as it is less attractively named). This took us into Bedford through Mogglehanger, Willington and Cople and meant that we got to see both sides of the river and the central campus for Bedford University as we passed into the main part of the town.

As is frequently the case in every town in Britain of any size (Bedford has approximately 80 000 residents, while the wider borough has 153 000 in total) parking anywhere near the centre was a significant issue. We had hoped to be able to find somewhere near the Bedford Town Bridge, because much of the interest in Bedford is to be found in this area, but it looked like we were to be unsuccessful. However, as we swung around St Pauls church and headed out to the north Meg spotted a free Council Car Park just near the Great River Ouse. We had timed our run perfectly, because driving around the cars that were double parked or otherwise parked illegally a gentleman was just pulling out and we swung smoothly into his place.

We had previously crossed the river on our trip to Sandringham, where we had seen the lower part of the river as it approached the sea through the fens in Norfolk. The river has always been the centre of Bedford, even providing the name (Beda - the Saxon who provided the Ford - a means of crossing the river). Sometime before the 1180’s the ford was replaced by a bridge, which even had a chapel built upon it, at least in part to encourage people to contribute to the upkeep. By 1671 there was also a prison built upon the bridge, for after a damaging flood it was agreed that the prison should be rebuilt. The current bridge was built in 1810 and it had a toll on it till 1835 to help pay for its construction. On the day of our visit the water level was very high because of the recent snow thawing and there was no sign of boats out upon the water despite the fact that it had been navigable since 1689. We walked along the river bank (through a light drizzle) up to the bridge.

Right in the centre of town we encountered Bedford's principal church, St Paul's Church, Bedford, in the square of the same name. The spire atop is one of the main features of the town and can be seen from a considerable distance in all directins. There was a church on the site by 1066 and work on the present structure began in the early 13th century, but little remains from that period unlike the other main churches (St Peter’s and St Mary’s) which have remains which date back to Saxon times. However, the famous preachers John Bunyan (of whom more will be said) and John Wesley both preached in St Paul’s. More importantly, during the Second World War (from 1941 to the end of the war) the BBC's daily service was broadcast from St. Paul's.

It certainly is an impressive structure, although it was a little disconcerting as Australians to see a statue of John Howard at the front of the church. We were greatly relieved to note that this John Howard (having been high sheriff of Bedfordshire) was so disturbed by conditions in the prison that he became a nationwide campaigner for prison (and health) reform and was responsible for improvements in those areas; almost the opposite of the Australian experience. He wrote a book called ‘The State of Prisons in England and Wales’ which pushed this cause along. At a time when travel was not the (relatively) easy experience that we have had, Howard travelled nearly 80 000 kilometres, including trips to Scotland, Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden and Russia, to research imprisonment in other parts of the world. Indeed, it was while in the Ukraine that he contracted typhus and died in 1790. In 1866 the Howard League for Prison Reform was founded in his honour.

Speaking of John Howard, his son James, having had experience in the foundry business, set up the Brittania Iron Works manufacturing the ‘Champion Plough of England’ and attracting other industries to the town, prompting a boom in manufacturing in the 19th century. In 1832 Gas lighting was introduced, and the railway reached Bedford in 1846. The first Corn Exchange was built 1849, and the first drains and sewers were dug in 1864. Many of the lovely buildings and decorations from this period remain and we were able to admire some lovely features, including a golden bull over the clock in the High Street.

Having done a little reading about the town before we left home, we had determined to eat lunch in the Swan Hotel, which was redesigned by Henry Holland for the Duke of Bedford in 1794. Part of the building is a staircase which came from Houghton House which was the inspiration for the ‘House Beautiful’ in John Bunyan’s famous allegory, ‘A Pilgrim’s Progress’. The house was built by Mary Herbert, the Dowager Countess of Pembroke at nearby Ampthill at the end of the 16th century, and while living there she prepared the works of her late brother for publication. This brother was the favourite poet of Elizabeth I, Sir Philip Sidney, and he had received a state funeral upon his death. Houghton House was such a successful creation that in 1621 Elizabeth’s successor, King James I stayed there, but on the death of the Countess it fell in to disrepair with all of its fittings (including the staircase) being removed. You can still see the remains of the main buildings on the hill overlooking Ampthill itself.

The Swan Hotel is certainly an impressive building in it’s own right, not only functioning as a very elegant pub, but also providing accommodation and some very elegant function rooms. On the northern side of the Ouse it has some lovely views from it’s windows as well, but we were most impressed by the beautiful interior and the quality of the food. No doubt this has changed somewhat since an earlier version of the hotel acted as a prison in the late 17th century. It had chambers set aside for the judges when the County Assizes was in town (one of which could have been the room in which we ate, as it is clear that extra building on the hotel simply incorporated older parts of the building into the new). It was here, while imprisoned, that Bunyan wrote ‘A Pilgrim’s Progress’, when he was not preaching, reading, or weaving shoelaces. We had a wonderful lunch (slightly more expensive than we would otherwise have had) in a beautiful atmosphere where, if we had been dressed in appropriate period costume, we could imagine sitting at any time over hundreds of years.

After lunch we walked a little in to the shopping district before exploring a little more of the history of this beautiful town on our way back to the car. One of the most fascinating buildings that we came across was the Old Corn Exchange which had a statue and plaque dedicated to the famous swing band leader, Glenn Miller. He and his band were based in Bedford during the Second World War and many of his recordings were made here at the Corn Exchange (no doubt the proximity to the BBC recording unit based at St. Paul’s contributed to this, or vice versa). Miller’s aircraft was lost before the war finished (on December 15th 1944) and Bedford has become a part of the tribute to this musician, hosting regular Miller themed concerts and tributes. Meg and Wayne found the whole town charming.

When we arrived back at the car, we admired once more the Great River Ouse (in which John Bunyan was baptised, Bedfordshire really does value his impact on history) and the notices which said we were not to feed the waterfowl. The older members of our readership might remember the 1970’s television show ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ starring Michael Crawford which was filmed in Bedford, whose streets and river occasionally played a prominent part in various episodes. This is not the only well known piece of filming to take place in the city, a number of scenes from the 2005 motion picture Batman Begins were filmed at the Cardington Hangers in Bedford and featured extras from Bedford. Last year the sequel, 'The Dark Knight', was also partially filmed at the sheds using the fake working name 'Rory's First Kiss' and members of the production cast stayed at various hotels around the town. It isn’t hard to come across people who had some sort of contact with the productions.

Indeed, for what is really quite a small town Bedford boasts its fair share of famous people. Harold Abrahams, the 1924 Olympic 100 metres champion and character in the film Chariots of Fire was born here (although his grave is actually not far from us in Hertfordshire. Others from Bedford include the late Ronnie Barker, actor and comedian John Le Mesurier. While British athletes Paula Radcliffe and Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards (ok, so we are using the term ‘athletes’ somewhat loosely here) are both associated with the town. Paddy Ashdown (the former leader of the Liberal Democrats) attended the Bedford School, while Christopher Fry (a playwright) and English cricketer Monty Panesar, both attended Bedford Modern School. As we were driving north out of the town we passed the house where Le Mesurier was born, on Chaucer Street, and noted the wonderful succession of street names which included Dickens, Milton, Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare.

We headed up Paula Radcliffe Way (aka the A6) through Clapham and Milton Ernest to another place that Wayne wanted to show Meg, the town of Rushden in Northamptonshire. There is a football team in Rushden known as ‘Rushden and Diamonds’ (after a merger in 1992 between Rushden Town and Irthlingborough Diamonds) who played for a number of years in the football league but who currently inhabit the Nationwide Conference (the level just under). The merger of the two sides was the brainchild of Max Griggs, the founder of Dr Martens Boots, who bought the club in 1992. One of the stands is called the Airwair Stand (after one of the shoe types) and the club store used to be called ‘The Doc Shop’. Possibly the nicest part of the story is that, in 2005, Griggs sold the club to the fans for the amazing fee of £1, but despite this he continues to support the club and frequently makes donations to them.

Our final visit for the day (although we did not stop there) was the town of Kettering in Northamptonshire. Again, this was one of Wayne’s weird sport related obsessions because Kettering is the home of another football team from the Nationwide Conference, Kettering Town. On 24 January 1976, Kettering became the first British club to play with a sponsor's name printed on their shirts after signing a deal with local firm Kettering Tyres, however this created a furore in the Football Association which ordered them to remove the advertising or face a fine. The following year name sponsorship was legalised, partially thanks to Kettering Town. In another controversial move, since 2007 the players have had the words ‘Palestine Aid’ displayed on their shirts to increase awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. Kettering Town also saw the first foray into management of former England footballer Paul Gascoigne (although it only lasted 39 days). For those of you not interested in football, Kettering was also the hometown of a gentleman by the name of John Profumo, a British politician who was Secretary of State for War under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963 when the scandal broke which has been linked to his name ever since.

All that was left was a trip back down the M1 across on the M11 and the A414 to get back to Hertford and home. It was a lovely day out and, as always, we hope to return to Bedford and its surrounds another time. It really was a beautiful little place.

Crushed rock, circle, pig meat

It is a beautiful time of year here in England. Autumn has brought all sorts of changes, from conker season a few weeks ago as all the horse chestnuts came down, to the changes in the colours of the leaves. Sometimes a tree will seem to change overnight and the next morning it will have become all yellow, or orange, or red. The squirrels are all busy gathering nuts and the bushes are full of various colours and types of berries. We have nicknamed one of the younger looking squirrels ‘Suicide Sid’ because he likes to run out on to the road in front of the car as we are pulling into the car park here at the school. Of course, temperatures have also dropped, so that a warm sunny day will be a balmy eighteen, whereas the more overcast day will be closer to ten degrees. Nights are getting quite chilly.

Many of the tourist attractions around the country are closed during the winter, particularly those with parklands or gardens attached, and for many of them the final weekend occurs at the end of October. With the previous weekend having been quite overcast, Meg and Wayne had determined that, if the weather was good, we wanted to go somewhere. Both Brock and Quinn had organised to see friends on the Saturday, however when morning dawned fine and sunny and the radio reports said that this weather would potentially change on Sunday, they were given the option again of going travelling instead, both declined.

We set off up the A10 heading north toward Cambridge and commented on the last time we had made this journey, one of the first times that we had gone out after we had arrived here in England back in January. On that day there was quite a lot of fog in the early part of the journey and this was replicated again today but, as before, it had receded by the time we had reached the turn off to Bishop’s Stortford. Before the A10 merges with the M11 it narrows down as it goes through the villages of Royston and Melbourn and we were frequently pointing at various landmarks saying ‘I remember that’. One of those sights is a large boulder of red millstone grit at the northern end of the High Street. It bears a square socket which was supposed to be the base of a cross, Roisia’s Cross, which changed over time to give the village the name Royston.

Royston was, briefly, the site of a royal residence. After the death of Elizabeth I, when James VI of Scotland was travelling down to London in order to become James I of England he stopped near Royston and saw that the area was suitable for hunting. He came back the following year and demolished two of the local pubs (possibly not making him very popular) in order to begin building a hunting lodge. It was completed in 1607 and in 1613 was the site used by James to sign the dowry contract for the marriage of his daughter, Elizabeth to Frederick V, Elector Palatine. After the wedding (St Valentine’s Day, 1613) James came back with Prince Charles and his new son-in-law in order to enjoy a spot of hunting. When Charles eventually inherited the throne he did not spend as much time at Royston but after the parliamentary revolution he was brought through as a prisoner in June 1647. Subsequently, the buildings fell into disrepair and were sold off altogether in 1866.

Not long after Melbourn (where the railway line crosses and we had to wait for a train) we reached the Lotus Auto Retailer that you might remember from our first journey (which still looks like a garage). Wayne wanted to stop once again, this time to take photos of all the wonderful cars, but was dissuaded of this fancy. Instead we continued to drive past the Cambridge Science Park (home to various corporations and scientific enterprises, as the name suggests) and the interestingly named Waterbeach.

We had not been further north than Cambridge along this road, so once we had skirted the city and the A10 and M11 had parted once more it was fascinating to see the changes in the countryside as we approached the Cambridgeshire border with Norfolk. Cambridgeshire is famous for its windmills and we saw a few more examples of this at Stretham and West Winch. This part of England is known as ‘The Fens’ and is very flat, low-lying, and criss-crossed with canals and rivers. Some of the barges we passed were very colourful and there were lots of signs marking the turn offs to places such as Bury St Edmunds, Sutton, Ely and March. A river known as the Great Ouse flows out to The Wash from this part of the world and we passed over more than one bridge across that fetchingly named body of water.

After a surprisingly long journey (it was only when we returned home that we looked more closely at a map and realised just how far we had travelled) we reached the outskirts of King’s Lynn and were able to make the turn off to our destination for that day, the village of Sandringham and the holiday home of the most famous inhabitants, the Windsors. Betty, Phil, their children and grandchildren were not in this day, which was sad from the point of view that it would have been interesting to see them, but good because if they had then the house would not have been opened for visitors. However, the place was amazingly popular and the car park was very full and both inside and outside the estate there were picnickers, dog walkers, and other people of all shapes and kinds and from a multitude of different countries.

We could tell that we were getting close when we started to see large walls surrounding the properties on either side of the road. All up the property is just over 7 000 acres and various bits of it have different uses. The Duke of Edinburgh likes to come hunting up here and we saw numerous pheasants in the fields and woods as we drove along. There were also signs warning us of the possibility of deer, however we did not espy any. We suspect that the family may have fallen on hard times, because there are also a number of areas given over to orchards, horse breeding, and farms of various sorts. Some of the produce (everything from sausages to jams) from these are sold at the souvenir shop at Sandringham itself.

We actually stopped just before we arrived at the property proper when we spotted the beautiful Norwich Gates. At some stage these were the front entrance to the property and are similar to the Canada Gates near Buckingham Palace, without quite the flashy ornamentation. They were originally a gift to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his new wife Alexandra of Denmark on the occasion of their marriage in 1863. The property had been purchased the year before (for £220 000) when the prince turned 21, which would have been quite a nice birthday gift. As the property developed over time the gates were moved to their present position in 1908, the year Sandringham was first opened to the public by Edward, who had succeeded his mother, Queen Victoria, and was now King Edward VII. It is well worth the little extra mileage to take the slightly longer route to the property in order to see them.

Having left Kylie comfortably ensconced between a Jaguar and an Aston Martin we walked the few hundred metres over to where the main gates were. It was at this point that we realised another of the similarities between this day and our visit to Cambridge so long ago; despite the sunny weather it was quite a brisk day and Meg began to regret the wearing of ¾ length jeans. There is also a lot of public art outside, including a memorial cross to the dead of various wars and a giant wooden squirrel. This had a young boy transfixed as he gazed up at a nut the size of his head. We were glad that Brock had not elected to come with us, as he has developed an antipathy toward squirrels since he and his friend Ryan decided that a squirrel outside our house was trying to kill them.

We paid our entrance fees to the House, Garden and Museum and entered the grounds. They are certainly well maintained, there are wide expanses of beautifully manicured lawns surrounded by trees and gardens featuring an enormous variety of bushes and flowers of different types. The autumnal colours were on display, as were the berries of variegated and non-variegated types of holly. Wayne spotted some fabulous fuchsias (one of his favourite plants) while we were waiting for the tractor-pulled, land train which would take us up to the house itself.

The house itself was visually familiar, having been seen on various television shows and broadcasts over the years, as it is the one at which the Queen and family regularly spends their Christmases. The reality is even more magnificent than the pictures. While it is not a palace, it is certainly palatial, and the three stories of the main house are obviously filled with many, many rooms. The gravelled paths and hedging do a brilliant job of drawing both the eye and the pedestrian up to the gabled entrance and we were met by a variety of servants who asked us about our heritage and commented on Wayne’s football shirt (St Etienne of France).

Inside the house we noticed a significant difference between this house and others we had visited, such as Audley End. As Meg commented, despite the opulence of the furnishings and the incredibly historic displays that we saw throughout the building, it was clear that this was a building which was lived in. You could imagine small children running through many of the rooms, even though the walls were covered in tapestries a century and a half old. The dining room was set up with the very crockery set that will be used at Christmas lunch this year, even though the table was not extended out to seat the extraordinary number of people that will be there.

Ultimately, only a very small percentage of the rooms (and only on the ground floor) were opened, but there were some amazing displays in many of them. One of the early rooms had a display of hunting rifles and hand guns from the last, almost 200 years. Another had various swords, knives, spears, and other blades from not only the United Kingdom but other parts of the Empire (now Commonwealth). In the bookcases there are over sixteen hundred volumes of first editions which were bequeathed by George Mitchell to the Princess of Wales in 1878. Much of the artwork (statues and paintings) is portraiture of various of the Royal Family which have been gifted to them over the time the house has been in their possession.

Many of the female members of the Royal Family, beginning with Princess (later Queen) Alexandra up to and including the late Queen Mother, have been collectors of miniatures and dolls house furniture and some of this collection was also on display. It has also been a project to adopt a local school and bring back artefacts from some of the countries of the world which they visit and donate them to the school. At times they have also set up schools themselves on the estate, where local people were able to come and be trained in skills that might help them find employment.

Sadly, we were unable to take photographs inside the house itself; however the book that was available contained many, many photographs which will be an invaluable reminder of the experience. Many of the objects could not even be touched (in fact you sometimes felt uncomfortable even breathing near them) but there were enough items that you could run your hands over and gain a sense of just how old and valuable some of them were. The final display, of linen used within the royal household (much of which was only discovered, in some rooms which had been shut up, when the new housekeeper took over in 2006) was also extremely interesting and reminded both Meg and Wayne of the linen mills that they had seen while in Ireland, some of which were responsible for the tablecloths etc. that we were seeing.

After leaving the house we walked through some more beautifully manicured gardens to the Museum which is set up in the old stables. It was interesting to note that, under some of the trees around the grounds, there were small gravestones commemorating the lives of some of the royal family’s pets. While now a museum the buildings have also acted as the headquarters of the Sandringham Fire Brigade, a local police station, and a wood carving school. Another section of the museum is also the garage area, which is very busy whenever the family are staying.

On the outside of the building were a couple of hunting carriages that are still occasionally used during hunting expeditions. There were gigs and traps and carriages and other horse (and elephant) related paraphernalia. Inside was a car lover’s paradise, with some of the most beautiful (and beautifully maintained) vehicles since the age of the motor vehicle began. Not only were there full sized cars, but also child-sized model cars that had been donated to the royal family for use by various princes over time. Some of them had been custom built; others were special models which had been donated because of the advertising value of being able to put ‘Supplier to the Royal Family’ on your material. When we thought about it, it made sense, but we hadn’t expected to see a private filling station on the premises as well.

After we came out from the museum we walked back through some more gardens to the pick up site for the land train to take us back toward the tea rooms and souvenir shop as we were both getting quite hungry. This also gave us the opportunity to see the Church which the Queen will attend on Christmas morning. This was one of the fabulous things about visiting Sandringham, knowing that later on this year we will see these places featured on the news or in some form or another. There are also other houses on the premises, originally built so that visitors could stay. One of these, Park House, was rented out to Lord Fermoy, the local Member of Parliament at the time. His daughter Frances was born there and later married Viscount Althorp the son of Earl Spencer. Consequently, they came to live at the house in 1955 and were living there when Lady Diana Spencer (later to be Princess Di) was born. Park House is now rented out to the Cheshire Homes Foundation for people with a disability at a peppercorn rent.

It is an interesting conundrum, visiting something like a stately home set on enormous grounds. There is a sense in which both Meg and Wayne felt that nobody should own so much valuable stuff. That it isn’t fair that some people own these enormous properties while even not far away in this country there are other people living on almost nothing. There is something extraordinarily inequitable about the situation, particularly when the source of this obscene wealth is simply birth privilege. However, that it gives the public the opportunity to enjoy seeing some of these beautiful things and preserves them is positive. That we also came to understand that there is an extraordinary amount of charitable work which goes on is also a benefit. Even the display of animal heads in the museum, largely hung on the wall in one room, has been altered in other rooms to become a means by which people are educated about the lives of these creatures and the habitats in which they live. This didn’t make it any easier for Meg to view it however. Overall we came away with more of a sense of the Royal Family as real people, and even some warmth toward certain of them.

Although it was mid-afternoon we made the decision to drop in to the city of Ely on the way back. Ely is the third smallest city in England (after Wells, Somerset and the City of London, both of which we have also visited) and once again has city status on the basis of it being the Cathedral city for a diocese of the Church of England. The city was originally an abbey, built in 673AD, a mile (1.6 km) to the north of the village of Cratendune on the Isle of Ely in the middle of the Great Ouse. The abbey was destroyed in 870 by Danish invaders and not rebuilt for over a hundred years. Once it was it became a formidable place. The site was one of the last holdouts in England to the Norman Conquest: Hereward the Wake did not surrender until 1071. After William took control he began the building of a cathedral on the site in 1083. Amazingly, it was not completed until 1351 in part because of the collapse of the main tower in 1322, which was then rebuilt as an octagon.

Ely Cathedral is an impressive building and nicknamed the “Ship of the Fens” because it can be seen from an substantial distance around. It has also featured in a surprising amount of popular culture, being used on the cover of the Pink Floyd album, ‘The Division Bell’. A wonderful children’s book named ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ also makes references to Ely Cathedral (which explains why Wayne was certain he had heard the name before). Recently, both the films ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age’ and ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ have had scenes filmed within the cathedral. A major novel, ‘Floodland’ by Marcus Sedgwick is set in a period where the fens are flooded and Ely becomes an island in the midst, a return to a situation that no doubt has occurred at some time in the past, although without the cathedral standing out in the centre.

We were able to find a convenient (and amazingly free) park right in the centre of the
city and get out to stretch our legs and look at a number of the sights. We purchased some mobile phone credit, to make it possible to call Wayne’s son Callum on his birthday a day or so later (sadly we have had problems with BT again and are without a functioning landline phone at the present moment). As well as the Cathedral we were also able to take a look at the house of Oliver Cromwell, who inherited the position of tax collector in the city in 1636 and lived there for a number of years. His house is now the local tourist information office. No doubt if we had waited around long enough we might have encountered some of Ely’s more recent residents who include Sir Clive Woodward (formerly of the English Rugby team) and Guy Pearce (formerly an actor on ‘Neighbours’ and more recently in a variety of films).

As it was getting late we had to set out for home, This time we motored down the M11 (which has the advantage of being multiple laned as well as not really near any grounds where football had been played this afternoon). This brought us to Harlow, where we were able to stop at the local Tesco’s and pick up the food which we able to go home and prepare for dinner for both ourselves and Brock and Quinn. All in all, it had been a wonderful day, and we are quite determined that we will go back to Sandringham again, this time with the boys, so that they can experience some of the things that Meg and Wayne did.