England - but we didn’t die - day 11

“But we didn’t die,” said Chelsea with a chuckle this morning as we discussed our harrowing trip, last night, to get to Bath from Bristol airport, in the dark, with her driving a stick shift with her left hand, on the left-hand side of the road.

She just couldn’t resist renting a manual transmission when it was half the price of an automatic. Both Jai and I failed in our mission as navigators (the Sat Nav in the car wasn’t working), but after a couple of wrong turns, we finally arrived at our destination at 11:30 at night. We were all exhausted, and cranky, and based on her comment this morning, the bar had been set really low for this leg of the journey.

And so today we arranged to meet my cousin (from my fathers side) Gemma, and two of her children, Ottilie and Sylvester, in front of the Abbey in Bath.

We set the children loose to walk around the huge shopping area while we had tea at a darling outdoor cafe. Shortly after this picture was taken, a huge seagull swoop down and took a piece of bread roll right off the woman’s plate at the table next to us.

Followed by a tour in an open-topped bus… what a great way to see this beautiful, city.

Then a picnic on a large open grassy area, where many other people were enjoying this gorgeous day.

It’s so wonderful to touch base with my family again. Goodbye, hopefully sooner than 6 years till our next visit.

Traffic lights in England…when approaching a green light it will turn amber before red, like we’re used to.. But when you’re sitting at a red light, it will also turn amber before it turns green…like “on your marks, get ready…GO!” We suspect this is not a good place to scoot through an amber light as the drivers coming the other way are set to peel out.