Hampton Court & a trip down memory lane!

We got up nice & early this morning, well 8am is early for me, showered and went out for a coffee down the road at Costa. It was so good to finally be able to order a coffee in English AND get a delicious coffee.
We brought a new SD card as I'd lost our other one and head off to Hampton Court for the day. It was a lovely summer day in England, cloudy and drizzly. Luckily Steve lent us his bike GPS so we didn’t get lost for once.
We arrived around 11am, and spent the next 3 & 1/2 hours exploring.
One thing I did love were the statues right out the front of the entrance, there was a unicorn, crocodile, lion and a few others, but they all had this same expression on their face as if they were constipated. It was brilliant.
We walked through to a second sheltered part and heard shouting behind us, we turned around to see a man dressed up in a big fluffy coat and an incredibly strong English accent, gesturing for everyone to come inside.
He was impersonating to be one of the dead people, I can’t remember his name it was quite odd. He talked about history for a little bit but not the important stuff just about a woman he liked who’s husband died. We followed them upstairs and listened for a bit but it was boring so we moved on to the interesting stuff!! We spent the next little while trying to stay a room ahead of the shouting people in funny dresses but they kept catching up to us.

Growing up in Australia Nathan didn’t know much about English history, although the fact that he didn’t know Henry VIII had 6 wives was a shock. He was super excited about reading every piece of information next to the paintings and learning about the wives being divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. I remember loving history when I was growing up in England, however it wasn’t the same in Australia. English history was always so fascinating.
It was a good tour and we both found it quite spectacular. Some of the paintings would have taken so long to do!
We found a replica of Henry VIII’s crown and I asked Nathan to take a sneaky picture of it, so he stood right behind the ‘No photography in this room’ sign, but the lady caught him, unfortunately. Although, we did get closer and it looked like boiled sweets had been stuck onto it, it wasn’t that fantastic up close.
We found more of the actors about an hour later sitting in a games room, one of the guys turned to Nathan and asked if he spoke German, we must of looked like tourists! He then asked if his lady (that was me!) would like a seat because of my crutches, he invited us to play backgammon. He had been staring at me since I walked in the door, it was very strange.
‘nononononono... thanks...’ was my response. Who knows how long we would of got caught up there. Looks like they get paid to sit around and do nothing but harass people.

After two hours walking around Hampton Court we were getting a bit tired & hungry so we head over to check out the maze. It is over 300 years old which makes it the oldest hedge maze in Great Britain. We were told it would take around 20 minutes to complete,
Somehow, we managed to do it in around 5 - 10 minutes. My instinct told me to go the path less likely to lead to the middle & it worked! There was loads of kids who kept running past us screaming with joy it was great fun.

We got back and I was so hungry I couldn’t wait for Nathan to cook the sausage rolls or lunch so I reheated last nights curry and inhaled it. Bad choice, it gave me the worst stomach ache, possibly from the dairy, It was such a sharp pain I had to heat my eye pack up and put it on my stomach whilst I tried to sleep it off.

Woke up a few hours later, redid my make up & head off to meet up with some of mum & dads friends, Dave & Sharon, who’s kids I’d grown up with, Megan & Steven. It had been 8 years since I saw them, just before moving to Australia.
We arrived & it was like no time had passed, they were very welcoming with their Doritos and beer! (Can’t go wrong with that)
We sat down around 7pm for dinner, which was amazing, it was nice to have some home cooked food after copious amounts of pub food and take away.
We talked about how Nathan & I need to put a mini slide show together with all our information on, for each time we catch up with someone, as the exact questions get asked every time. Which is nice though, I appreciate how welcoming and accepting everyone’s been with Nathan, It makes me miss living in England.
We talked about traveling, memories, everything. One great story happened in 2004 when they all came down to our house in Croyde for New Years Eve. Dave passed out on the down stairs toilet & mum took a photo of him, quickly printed it off and ironed it onto a pillowcase. He woke up lying on this pillow, still on the toilet, with a photo of himself passed out on the toilet! Inception!

Anything we ran out of at the table, there was plenty more! Especially cheese, lots of grated cheese, Megan's favorite. Through out the night there was a continuous debate about Megan’s cheese sandwich dilemma. (Getting serious now) She loved cheese sandwiches, but one day had gotten sick of eating them all the time, so she told Steven she didn’t like cheese sandwiches any more, she said this whilst eating a cheese sandwich! However, this one was toasted, so it doesn’t count. It’s all ok now though because she likes them as sandwiches again. We sat at the table talking whilst a whole bowl of grated cheese, which was sitting next to Megan, disappeared into thin air! hehe
Even though I’m lactose intolerant I must agree, cheese is incredible in any form, sandwich, toasted or grated.
Desert was served and lucky me it was more dairy! I’m lactose intolerant - which often doesn’t stop me from eating dairy at all. Desert was this really fancy chocolate, banana & vanilla swirl ice cream, with a delicious chocolate sauce drizzle and crushed walnuts sprinkled delicately over the top. First class kind of meal, we thought whilst scooping the left overs out of a Tesco’s ice cream container from last month’s special, 2 for 3 pound 50p! Bargain! The joke went on all night about the desert being a disaster but secretly Nathan & I were stoked with the ice cream! It was delicious. It didn’t look delicious by the end of the night, it had been left out and we joked about putting it back in the freezer for next time we were over from Australia.
The conversations flowed and so did the wine.
It got to around 12am and I can’t remember how it came to this, but Dave threatened to spoon Nathan! Nathan willingly accepted this. There’s a line, and several times throughout the night it was crossed. Mostly, because of Steven’s hilarious witty come backs.

They offered us a bed so we didn’t have to drive so late, then told Nathan that he could have been drinking the whole night. Great way to save money, tell them they could have had a lot just as they’re walking out the door. haha
Overall, was a fantastic night, we had so much fun my tummy hurt from laughing as did our cheeks and we didn’t even realize it was midnight!