Last Day in Tilford

I am all set to leave early tomorrow and head up to foggy London town - but for my last day here i enjoyed a kayak adventure down the river and a nice bike ride in the rain - i know ... i have great legs -



Tonight we're having a big ol' dinner and maybe even playing some cards!?!? everything has been very nice here but i am ready to be back on trains, plains and the north american continent -

I'll be seeing the sights first thing tomorrow through the wonder of the tube and then meet up with Nate around 7 - hope to have a few pictures -


welp, keep the light on for me -
j

Nature boy

The past couple of days have been really nice - there was a big rain two nights ago and yesterday i biked a muddy couple of hours in Bourne forest northwest of Tilford - it is a national trust forest like Brown County state park but nothing in it except trails - This morning i rode to the back of the park - the sun is shining beautifully and the breeze is nice-

I'll be in London for the final weekend in England - my cousin Nathan works for a bank there and has offered a couch - i'm really looking forward to hanging out with him -

here is alittle slice of life from today at tea time - the neighbors came over and i went under cover so you could enjoy the ambience - in the audio you can here the children in the river playing, you can hear the neighbor ladies talking about people, peter chimes in along with the windchimes, sally offers more tea...its nice i think - and here you can see the meadow that Meyon, their black standard poodle, sometimes bounds and gallops through chasing rabbits - which are plentiful but rarely caught -

much love back home-

josh

It's Kind Of Like Batesville!

Today i rode up north of Tilford in search of the beautiful North Downs Way- i found a nice part of it from Farnham Culverlands to Seale - alot of walking the bike through places that look like they are private property but i don't think they have guns here so i was safe - then i found alot of really beautiful bridleways down south back to Tilford -

the hills were really steep at times but i didn't wimp out - i'm sort of addicted to biking now and i might want to try to pick it up where i left off today tomorrow-

i still haven't heard from max, but i guess i would hear about him being lost in the canadian wilderness -

everything is just so beautiful here and the people are so kind - today i was on a remote road and a guy stopped and rolled down his window while i was looking at the map and asked if i was lost, and i said, no i am just deciding where to go - and then he gave me some sheapard's pie! no not really but he did go ahead and tell me what direction a few of the landmarks were -and i was thankful because i got to see an old church called Waverly Abbey -

on the way back i saw all the kids playing in the river - it is very cool -

i am glad to be a week out but am loving it here -

hoping Obama's hip is going to be okay,

josh

I Bike England!

Today i took off on the good old bicycle, a fine way for any featherless bi-ped to get around England - the bridleways (horse paths) are everywhere in this county (Surrey) - i rode from Tilford over two villages to Milford and back through Churt - every town has its own little pride about it - and if you are ever between Tilford and Elstead for any reason you have got to stop by The Donkey - it is a great pub with two donkeys and a bunch of large really happy people who will talk to you and give you left over food from lunch -

on my journey i also became fasinated with names here - the villages and counties all have the best names - Sheephatch, Shackleford, Hambledon, Frillinghurst, Chiddingfold - I mean those are some beastly names - there is just something so.... English about them iambic pentameter and stuff -

I'm sitting in the computer room which is in a house that is around 450 years old - it is wierd that they had such forethought - i can here the river which is full of screaming chilren...playing in the shallow water... and the occational cheers from the cricket green across the river - i still don't understand cricket but i am not too worried about it - i just can't wait to get back and watch a colts game this fall with watery beer that is served too cold and call french fries, french fries and chips, chips and football, football and drink everything with a ridiculous amount of ice in it - anyway -

i plan on working a few more hours tomorrow to finish up the garden here and then i might take off and ride a stretch of the North Downs Way which i hear is amazing -

well now that i have sorted this out, i'll belt up and i shouldn't think it will be frightfully long before i post again -

much love,
josh

MInding a Manor

Things are going quite well today - i am finished with the first day's work cleaning out beds in the garden - here is one of the long beds i finished today with a regal pose from Crackers, the dog born on christmas day -

This flower is very nice but i have no idea what it is - this home is amazing - it was orignally a large barn and they have fused the old cottage with it - the barn wood was all sandblasted and reused - so the large timbers wind up the wall retaining the white plaster walls - they also have a large meadow in back with all the geothermal pipes running underground so the house maintains a nice cool temperature in summer -

The kitchen is something right out of Food and Wine - maybe some ideas for you mom and dad!

I enjoy working again and the temperature here is perfect, although they say it is really hot - i miss the good old 90 degree days with humidity - Only 11 more days -

much love to the states,
josh

good-BYE! max

well max has moved on from this stage in our lives and i expect that he is back in the great states by now - enjoying the comfort of good-old southern Indiana - i am now in a new place just south of London called Tilford - I have landed a little job through connections as a gardener on this amazing little farm - i will have to post pictures tomorrow -

the past week in Canterbury was amazing - Peter and Sally were so nice to us and fattened us back up to the pre-trip level - one meal a day + walking everywhere had dropped a good bit of weight for us but in Canterbury breakfast was mandatory!

Here are Max and Peter and Sally as we all enjoyed a game of Boules, which is the french version of Bocce Ball - Max won every time but i was always a close second -

Despite there more mature age we had a hard time keeping up with there sight seeing schedule - we got a great trip down to Dover again but this time we got to walk along the top of the cliffs - it is difficult to see the actual grandure and depth in a photo but the water is probably a hundred yards down in this one - a ten or twelve second stone's throw -

+Opposite the cliffs are wheat fields that stretch over hills into the distance - the sky was perfect on the day we went - it looks like something out of a movie -

We also went in town to Canterbury's catherdral and were absolutely amazed at the scale of it - by far the most amazing building i've seen in all of europe -

For the next couple of days i will be working here - the internet is fast and i hope to post some more photos as they come in -and before i forget i had a request to post the full list of countries we have traveled through so i will do that before i retire for tonight -

England: London, Dover >

France: Calais, Lille, Paris, Pau, Toulousse >

Spain: Barcelona >

Italy: Civitavecchia, Rome, Venice > Hungary:

Budapest >

Germany: Munich, Frankfurt >

Netherlands: Amsterdam >

Switzerland: Bern >

Italy: Milan, Verona, Bologna, Rome, Pisa >

France: Paris, Lille >

England: London, Canterbury, Tilford

England is so old!

Well we made it in late last night and have rested up quite comfortably here in Canterbury in southeast England - we are set to see the area for the next couple of days enjoying the hospitality of Peter and Sally which are friends of my Dad's -

today we went up to the coast and enjoyed the cool air and the warm hand-pulled beer at a pub called Old Neptune which has been flooded and hit by ice burgs many times in its long history - that probably explains the floor and bar slanting downward 5 or 7 inches from one end to the other - normally it would just feel that way drinking at a bar but there you can get it just looking at the beer-

tomorrow we have tentative plans to ride bikes out and about but the weather doesn't look too keen - so maybe we will just watch the tele and enjoy tea (they really drink tea, its crazy!) and the cricket too! we are watching a match right now and have absolutely no idea what is going on-

well, long live the queen! we'll post some pictures when we have them -

living easy,
josh and max