Anyway, we decided to take advantage of Saturday to have a pre-celebration time. I told Brian I wanted to surprise him with a day outing to someplace special. For months now, I've been wanting to go South, to a place call Camber Sands beach and resort. I found it on a map last summer and have been keeping it a secret as a fun surprise for us sometime. As I started making plans for us to go there, I saw on the map there's also a castle nearby called Camber Castle! How cool is that?! I think it's in ruins, but I thought it would still be so much fun to see it.
Well, before you get all excited for us, let me just tell you now that we didn't end up going. Sad, sad. Because of a tricky schedule during the week, I ended up having to move my visiting teaching to Saturday morning. Brian and I went together to visit this sister in our ward and her three kids. After an hour or so visiting and playing with the kids, we were off -- still trying to go for my surprise, even though we were getting quite a late start. We got on the highway headed out of town, and traffic was bumper to bumper. It took us 20 minutes or so just to go a couple of miles. We were just about to the exit to get to the motorway (ie. freeway) when I reached in the back seat to get a bottle out of Samantha's bag for her, only to discover we'd accidentally left her bag at home!! We turned around (it was already near 1 p.m.) and headed for home, with bumper traffic all the way back.
By the time we got home, I had shed some tears in the sweltering hot car, and Brian was wondering why I was so disappointed. I had to ruin the surprise and tell him about Camber Castle, and why it was such a big deal to me, since I'd been planning it for sooo long, waiting for just the right moment. Well, I pouted while we ate the picnic lunch we had packed on our living room couch and fed Sammie some lunch. Then I resolved to not let it ruin any more of our day, and we made a good Plan B, which turned out to be a very fun afternoon!
We first went to Costco, where we got 100+ pictures developed and I got a new shirt and Brian got two new jackets. Then we drove out in the country to go on a walk. Brian bought us a fabulous little book called "Country walks near London," which we were able to use for the first time. We parked in a little village called Berkensted and set off to see the ruins of a castle, and a huge manor house. In the book the walk encompassed a six mile loop. It sounded like fun.
The castle was easy to find -- we parked very close to it. It seems like they kind of built the town around it, actually. After taking a picture, we set off through some fields to find the mansion house. One fascinating thing about England is that they have public footpaths that cross the countryside everywhere. The one we were on crossed right through people's fields, pastures and farms. It also wound us through woods and meadows -- very lovely.
Brian put Samantha in a little backpack that he wore on his chest. She googled at all the ferns and fields for quite awhile before getting sleepy and taking a little snooze. We were amazed at how happy and good-natured she was the entire trip. She never even realized how LOST we got... According to our little map, our route wound through some lovely woods for quite awhile and then met up with a road for a bit before turning left toward the mansion house. Well, we walked and walked and walked through the woods and finally came to the road. Which way to turn? On the map it looked like we should go left, so we did. I kept telling Brian it felt like we should be heading a different way, to the point where he finally said, "I think maybe your compass is a little off today, Kam." More walking, walking, walking (like 2 or 3 miles more) and we finally ended up at a golf course. I examined our map only to discover the golf course was PAST the manor, in a weird opposite direction. How in the world?!? Well, we walked through the golf course and then walked some more and finally came to a spot that I recognized! We'd done a complete circle, without ever seeing the mansion. Oh well... so we turned around and walked back out of the woods. We never did find the manor, until we got back to our car and drove to it. We're both still puzzled about what route we'd taken! Might have to try that walk again another day.
1 comment:
I am glad you got to have such a nice anniversary evening. Your Saturday outing sounds very frustrating, but you turned it into a beautiful day. The pictures were fun to see. Thanks for sharing!
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