I spent one year, five months and nineteen days waiting
for my parents to make the journey across the pond, but they’ve finally done
it. And we had such a great time. As they have also lived in the UK for a couple
years (albeit 19 years ago and 3 hours south of where we live), they have
already seen their share of Stonehenge, we didn’t tour the rocks. I feel that we have now branched out to the second
tier of tourist attractions. We also had
to make a few adjustments to the activities to avoid the torrential rain that
we seemed to accumulate while they were here.
Of all our guests, the ones who had lived through the Great British
weather probably got the worst rain, most wind, and coldest temperatures. But it was okay. We stayed inside and ate scones...
...and petted some dogs...
...and played some dominos...
When it did dry out a bit, we headed out to see Bristol (obligatory
Clifton Suspension Bridge photos to follow).
We visited the eminent Bristolians William Penn &
Archibald Alexander Leach (aka Cary Grant).
And walked our way down the harbourside to the locks. Mom & I have to visualise things with our
hands to understand how tides work. Don’t
mock, we got there eventually.
The next day, solely because of the weather and not at all
because we REALLY, REALLY wanted to go, we headed north to the Cadbury’s
factory.
Cadbury’s opened in 1824 as a tea shop that also sold some
cocoa. By the 1840’s chocolate was
selling better than tea, so John Cadbury decided to dedicate his entire shop to
the rich, dark sweet and went on to open a large factory near Birmingham to
produce more chocolate. In 1861, John
gave the business over to his sons, Richard & George. Richard was a business man, while George
liked experimenting with varieties of chocolate. George’s son, George Jr, decided to add milk
to the chocolate bars. Production slowed
due to rationing in WWII, but Cadburys was able to work in a bite size piece of
chocolate as part of the military diets.
The Company grew steadily after the war.
In 2009, all cocoa used for Cadbury’s became Fairtrade certified and in
2010 Kraft bought Cadburys (though you’d never know that fact by taking the
tour – instead they say that ‘Kraft has made a significant investment in
Cadburys’). Never mind, we just like to
eat chocolate.
Still on a slight sugar high, the following day we headed
to Cardiff Castle (or in Welsh Castell Caerdydd).
Originally built by the Romans in 55AD, the castle was
destroyed then rebuilt by the Normans between 1000 and 1200 AD. It was passed through British Lords and royalty
who moved various walls or destroyed or rebuilt parts of the castle until the
1760’s when the Bute family took control.
The various Bute’s attempted to restore the walls of the castle back to
the original – or at least what they thought the original walls looked
like. They’re not real sure where the
original walls were.
Some of the statues hadn’t been replaced. I offered to help.
Daddy thought this was a better place for me to stand.
He then had to remind me that you’re not supposed to smile
while in the stocks.
After a wonderful, but all too short visit, we took Mother
& Daddy to Southampton on Thursday where they caught a cruise ship to head
back to Texas (via Portugal, the Azores, and Ft Lauderdale).
You realise you might be a grown up when you drop your
parents off at cruise port with all the other OAPs and watch them make friends
in the line to check in without looking back at you to wave goodbye.
As it was Thanksgiving and we were not going to be able to
have a turkey – I had to return to work on Friday & we were only going to
get home about 5pm on Thursday so I didn’t have time to cook a full T-day
meal. So, in our need to have something
American, we ended up at the roadside McDonalds.
Now, isn’t that festive.
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