London, Manchester, Wrexham, Stirling, Aberdeen, UK
Tuesday, 12 September 2023
JB & I landed in the UK today for our 1st trip alone together that’s only the 2 of us (& will be longer than just 2 nights) in 20 YEARS! We have really waited for this…
UK Day 2: London - Churchill War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, Horse Guard Dismount Parade, Trafalgar Square, Fortnum & Mason, The Churchill Arms, Notting Hill, and finally the Big Bake London – yes, baking a cake in a tent, just like Great British Bake Off!
UK Day 3: London - the most spectacular weather EVER here = clear blue sky & 70°F! Could not have been more perfect for a day of almost all outdoor adventures, including St Dunstan in the East garden ruins, Sky Garden, and a WWII walking tour about the Blitz - particularly the destruction on 29 Dec 1940 (sounds grim, but was seriously entertaining & enlightening!) In the middle of all that, we had Gordon Ramsay’s Beef Wellington For Two for lunch at York & Albany up in Camden – it absolutely lived up to the anticipation of the last 20 years!
UK Day 4: Manchester - an absolute delight to have my BFF Hayley & her husband Gary take us all around their home city! Antcoats, the eclectic Northern Quarter & Afflecks Palace, the Manchester Art Gallery, Central Library, the Circus Pub - the smallest pub in Europe, afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel, and walking around Castlefield - the old Roman fort & surrounding canals:
An incredible piece at the Manchester Art Museum called “Widow” from 2009 by Susie MacMurray - made of black nappa leather, 43 kg of adamantine dressmaker's pins, & a tailor's dummy. She used this project to deal with the grief over the death of her husband - very moving:
Afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel
UK Day 5: Wrexham - everyone knows Welcome to Wrexham was my & JB’s favorite show last year, so when this trip came up + knowing Manchester is only about an hour from Wrexham, we KNEW we *had* to make this happen! 🏴 Everything fell perfectly into place: a home game the one Sat we’re here, us scoring tickets at 3:30 AM the day they went on sale 4 weeks ago (to be fair, they go on sale at 9:30 AM Wrexham time 😜), no rain AGAIN today - despite the forecast, and Ryan Reynolds actually REALLY even being here!!! (No, we didn’t get to talk to him, but we saw him walking all around the Racecourse, and we were right beside his SUV when he left after we had met the players.)
UK Day 6: Manchester - walking around The Lowery & Media City (where BBC, itv, etc., all broadcast) and loved the incredible Imperial War Museum North! Finished our last night here 🏴 with proper fish & chips, mushy peas, steak pie (for me, as I don’t love fish - but yes, I still tried 2 bites!), and Vimto (fruit cordial to drink)
UK Day 7: Stirling - welcome to Scotland 🏴 & a day of William Wallace-adjacent sights! (This is big to us: our Will’s actual name is William Wallace Blake – not just for Braveheart, although that’s a cool bonus; JB’s middle name is William & his grandfather was Wallace. This name was the only thing JB was adamant about re: us having kids.) We could never pass through Scotland without exploring the National Wallace Monument, Old Stirling Bridge, and the Bannockburn experience. (& YES: rain *only* during the train in from MCR gave way to blue sky for us after lunch! ❤️)
We went straight from landing at Heathrow to Richmond to pay homage & pose in our favorite Ted Lasso spots - on the street where his apartment exterior was filmed, the local pub & town green, and the bridge over the Thames there. It’s absolutely as enchanting as it looks onscreen!
Tube stop - I looooooove reliable public transportation!!!
Our big historical site today was the Tower of London - we spent 3 full hours!
Our Yeoman Warder/Beefeater tour guide (What? Who?)
Tower Bridge peeking over the walls of The Tower of London
The White Tower
The ravens are very special around the Tower of London (Why?)
Followed by Tower Bridge, The Queen’s Walk, Borough Market, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Millennium Bridge, & St Bartholomew’s Gatehouse. The weather was fantastic!!! Even though it was fairly cloudy, there was NO rain, fog, or drizzle! We had plenty cracks of sunshine, (apparently none of which made any of our pictures) and it was ~70°
St Bartholomew’s Gatehouse - St Barts has been featured in a ton of movies!
Wednesday, 13 September 2023
A real enigma machine from WWII in the Churchill War Rooms
The trees along St James’s Park were gorgeous!
Big Ben & even a glimpse of the London Eye
In front of Westminster Abbey
The side entrance of Westminster Abbey
The high altar of Westminster Abbey - so cool to see after watching multiple weddings, funerals, & a coronation on TV!
Seeing the tower of Parliament (& blue sky!) from inside a Westminster Abbey garden…and finding a little Bird of Paradise for my StudioSmile Vinyasa friends!
With the Horse Guards right before the Dismount Parade
The Dismount Parade is awesome: much smaller = so you can get much closer than the big changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It happens at 4 PM - quick, free, & impressive!
Trafalgar Square, Fortnum & Mason, The Churchill Arms, Notting Hill:
Entering into The Big Bakes - London East! It’s so cool = located under a railroad bridge arch, you enter through a secret refrigerator door!!!
Everyone bakes in a team of 2 - 90 minutes total. JB started on our batter:
We had to rush our décor too fast in the end, but we still won the best layers award! Best = best cooled, most level, tallest, & best amount of swiss meringue buttercream in between:
The décor theme was “comic cakes” - not my favorite style by far, but the flavors were amazing! Yes, we kept our cake & will be taking it to share with our BFFs in Manchester tomorrow night!
Did I mention that we won the best layers award?!?! :-P Truly, we did not plan a cool design, because we were so into the actual bake, and the cakes with better designs were still warm & falling apart, so I will take our high quality over looks!
Thursday, 14 September 2023
Now on to Manchester & my BFF, Hayley, whom I haven’t seen in person in 13 years!!! (PS - JB says he doesn’t want to be in pics anymore! :-P He’ll placate a few, but now you’re stuck with mostly me!)
Leadenhall Market - I’m not a Harry Potterhead, but we absolutely appreciated this place!
St Dunstan in the East church was bombed out in the Blitz during WWII, and London has preserved the ruins as a public garden: not very well known - definitely a hidden gem!
Sky Garden is an incredible free experience (although you must book your free tickets 3 full weeks in advance!) that overlooks the whole of London! We couldn’t have had better weather!
We had Gordon Ramsay’s Beef Wellington For Two for lunch at York & Albany – it absolutely lived up to the anticipation of the last 20 years!
Monument to all of the firefighters who perished along our WWII walking tour about the Blitz
St Paul’s along our WWII walking tour about the Blitz
Along our WWII walking tour about the Blitz
Ending our free (tip what you want) WWII walking tour about the Blitz - very well done!
Friday, 15 September 2023
Saturday, 16 September 2023
Wrexham won 3-0, with 2 of the 3 goals scored right in front of our section; it was Paul Mullin’s first full game back (*the* team star - fans even have our own song for him!) & his first full game this season after an exhibition injury this summer; & we beat Grimsby Town in a serious grudge match (to understand the magnitude, fast forward to 23:00 of this season one recap.) To have earned promotion this spring after that last Grimsby Town devastation a year earlier & then to shellac them today?! ❤️🏴
With Wayne - owner of The Turf!!! (If you’ve watched Welcome to Wrexham, you know him! So nice!!!)
At the Racecourse Ground - the world's oldest international football stadium that still hosts international matches!
Cheering after our second goal!
Outside the team shop - yes, we own fan scarves now
Me with super Paul Mullin!!! Wrexham AFC superstar! (I can’t get his fan song out of my head!)
With Ben Tozer
With Mark Howard - goalkeeper
Ryan Reynolds, just behind the tinted glass, leaving the Racecourse, after we met the players
On the train back from Wales
Dinner in Chester
Chester to Manchester Victoria
Sunday, 17 September 2023
The Millennium Bridge - Salford Quays across the Manchester ship canal to IWM North
An incredible poppies memorial to the fallen of all wars at the Imperial War Museum North
Media City
On the Trinity Bridge by Calatrava over the River Irwell
Last night together
Monday, 18 September 2023
Random fun notes: we had lunch at the café at the base of the Wallace Monument – haggis sandwiches on baguettes were divine! (No fish for me, but haggis? Yes, please! :-D) The wind speed at the top of the monument was like nothing I have ever experienced! It was like being on a rollercoaster, and several older people & young kids couldn’t make it up into the crown because of it! (Oddly, I loved it!!! (I say oddly, b/c cold + high; but it was seriously exhilarating!)
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
UK Day 8: Aberdeen - we are so thankful to have friends to show us around their home areas! Our former Katy BFFs now live in Aberdeen 🏴, and we picked up again like no time had passed! ❤️ Dalyce showed us St Machar's Cathedral Presbyterian Church, Seaton Park, Brig o’ Balgownie (the Robert the Bruce Bridge) over the River Don, lunch at Stonehaven, the absolutely incredible Dunnottar Castle, 6°North Brewery, and the Maryculter House (Side note: in Scotland, “culter” is pronounced “cooter” = much hilarity :-D)
I still cannot get over the beauty of the North Sea meeting the Scottish landscape… I need this view forever (but warmer ;-))
Wednesday, 20 September 2023
UK Day 9: Balmoral - as if the weather weren’t kind enough yesterday, look at the incredible blue sky Scotland gave us for our last full UK day today!!! We were so lucky to get to go to Balmoral Castle & Estate - even with King Charles & Camilla there, we were still allowed in to explore the grounds. (It just reopened to the public last Thursday! No, we didn’t see them :-P)
We had lunch at Tarmachan Cafe & dessert + tea at The Fife Arms and saw the most incredible, wide, full rainbow on the way back for our last night (& JB’s pub sprint :-P) in Aberdeen!
That’s a wrap on 2023 travel! I could not be more thankful for every single one of these adventures - 20 years of delayed gratification, budgeting, saving, planning, & praying has blessed me immeasurably. I cannot wait to see where God allows me to go in 2024…
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