Hello, All!
I’m so sorry for such abbreviated content yesterday, but it was a fairly long travel day!
Got up yesterday morning in beautiful, sunny Selcuk, Turkey for our last wonderful breakfast at Hotel Nilya. Everything as we remembered it; really sorry to leave! Out the door and heading to the Izmir airport by 8:30 a.m. This time, we took the surface roads instead of the tollway, and we made great time through the cities. Stopped for a fill-up of diesel right before the airport, and dropped the rental car off at Budget. This has been such a really good little car – over potholes that would bury Volkswagens, and on back roads that haven’t seen a road grader since the Trojan War. So…up to departures to wait for check-in; and, surprise, we were first in line for Speedy Check-in! From there, we were (of course) the first people through immigration for the day (ours was the first international flight out of Izmir that day), were able to get the window and aisle front-row seats on the airplane, and nobody took the center seat! So, a very comfortable 3½ flight to Gatwick, arriving – believe it or not – to 75 degree weather and a beautiful summery day!
Luggage came quickly (always a good thing!) and before we knew it we were on our way north to visit Philippa, Dan & Leo in Northampton! SO good to see them! Leo is now almost 2, and is the cutest thing since sliced bread! A really darling little boy! Dan made us a fabulous dinner – wonderful bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to start, then wonderfully just cooked asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and served on a bed of greens (fabulous presentation, with slightly blanched cherry tomatoes) followed by stuffed yellow and orange peppers with a wonderful filling of bulgar, feta, and lots of other good things – have definitely requested that recipe! Dessert was a lighter-than-air strawberry mousse – yum! We talked until almost 11:00 (which would be 1:00 a.m. in Turkey…) then up to bed and sound asleep. (AND got a load of laundry pegged out on the clothes line overnight – yea, clean clothes!!)
Up this morning about 6 and our second load into the wash…did use the shorter cycle, as last night’s took 1 hour and 45 minutes to do! As R says, no wonder our clothes are SO clean! (But they will probably be all worn out by the time we get home!) Dan took us to the local Sainsbury’s to get some pharmaceutical supplies (toothpaste, shampoo, etc.) and then we packed up for a picnic and tour at Bletchley Park, which is very close by and is a place we have been wanting to visit ever since R was given the book “Codebreakers” several years ago.
Lovely drive on a sunny afternoon. Found parking at Bletchley and it was very, very crowded – come to find out that they were having a 1940’s weekend; lots of people were in costume; great fun, and lots of displays of things from the “olden” days! Had our picnic lunch – good ham and cheese sandwiches, chips (known as crisps here) and fruit; excellent! Then we split up so that R and I could take a tour of the grounds of Bletchley Park. (This started life as a stately home, that was turned in to the official coding, decoding and cipherment center in the U.K. The work that was done here in basically decoding the German communications using the Enigma machine was instrumental in the war turning out as it did.) Our guide, Peter, was truly amazing; obviously a gentleman in his 80’s, but very spry and sassy – the tour was supposed to be 70 minutes, and we had to leave it after 2 hours; he told some really amazing anecdotes; he was great fun to listen to. We have since decided that we definitely have to come back and spend at least a couple of days here, to really see everything that they have to offer. Great discovery!
By now it was getting on for dinner time, so we took a leisurely drive back, including the most gorgeous village – several thatched roofs – Miss Marple would have been right at home! Now Dan and Phil are giving Leo his bath and getting him settled for the night, while we catch up on the blog!
Tomorrow morning we’re off to Stansted Airport for the flight to Asturias, Spain.
So – more manana!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
Leo is so cute!
ReplyDeleteBrenda