Visiting Cardiff

Ida had a day off Tuesday 28 Apr.  So she took them to Cardiff to have some seafood, teh tarik and a climb up Cardiff castle. No shopping apparently. Cardiff is a city up the Bristol Channel on the west coast. It's just over an hour away from Stroud.

Shopping again

Gloucester had a factory outlet too called the Gloucester Quays. Got there after lunch on Sunday 26 Apr by GPS postcode of course. Spent about 4 hours there.  I bought an educational toy for Soraya and some shirts. The girls were disappointed, however; not too many designer labels.  So next day Monday 27 Apr we went to Swindon Designer outlet where Nani had a grand time. I wonder how she's going to carry all those handbags she bought. Probably will have to buy another suitcase. I only bought a bow tie and some shirts for the boys.

Before all this shopping we visited Windsor castle, the Queen's occasional weekend residence. Arrived just in time for the Changing of the Guards ceremony. That was at 11:30 am.  After lunch Nani, Bobby and I decided to tour the castle. Ham and Eton sat it out. Nice big place.

The crooked house of Windsor near the castle next to the Museum

Visiting Phil's Parents in Birmingham

On Saturday 25 Apr we had an invitation by Phil's parent to visit and have dinner with them at their house in Birmingham.  The girls wanted to do some shopping also.  So we left early 11:00 am heading for the latest shopping mall called the Resort World by Genting. Yes, Genting our Malaysian casino multinational. But it was not to be; it's not quite ready yet.  So we settled for the Bullring, an ugly armadillo like shopping mall, where Selfridges had an outlet. Quite an interesting place, though.

We left the Bullring around 5:30 pm to drive to Jenny & Peter Gordon's (Phil's parents) place some half hour into the suburbs.  They also had a makeover; lovely modern kitchen, dining area and patio. Peter said landscaping the garden is his next project.

Longleat and Stonehenge

Having got the 5-seater Nissan X-Trail we decided to make full use of it. So on Friday 24 Apr, we motored down to Longleat (famed for its collection of wild animals.) It was quite a drive with the GPS taking us along narrow farm roads to finally arrive at the entrance of the Animal Safari Park on the ETA given. It was nice to drive through the property with the animals roaming free but ignoring us completely. And of course the handphone cameras got busy.

After lunch at Longleat we drove off to Stonehenge about 1 hr east (near Amesbury) in the Salisbury plains.  Stonehenge had a makeover; now it's got an Exhibition Centre, a shuttle bus service from the Centre, gift shop and restaurant (of course.) Lovely. When I came way back in the '80 there was nothing of this sort.

Family visit to Ida's new house

Ida and Phil bought a house last year. We were so pleased and Ham wanted to visit.  So we decided on a late April 2015 visit, hoping that it'd be quite warm then.  Eton, Nani (Awang's wife) and Bobby (Eton's son) came with us to make a group of 5.

Ida picked us up at London Heathrow (LHR) airport on the 21st April at Terminal 4. The Airbus 380 MH 004 was quite full and going through Immigration took quite a bit of time.  We emerged at 6 something to be greeted by Ida who had waited since 2 hours earlier. We then piled into the 7 seater Alhambra (Spanish) van for the drive to Stroud.  It was still daylight; sunset being around 8:30 pm.

Eton had booked a flat in Stroud at the Bell House.  Quite a nice place and close to Tesco (by car) and the railway station (by foot.)

Ham and I stayed with Ida at her place called Hillside (no house number) in The Edge on a no-name road (one moves around by GPS using Postcodes in England, just like being in a kampung in Malaysia except for the Poskod bit.) Her place is 4x4 country really with farms all round. Good thing Enterprise car-hire gave us a 4x4. And the view from her lounge is stunningly picture perfect.

We needed a car to move around, so on 23 Apr we hired a Nissan X-Trail 4x4. Actually we just needed an automatic but they had only this 4x4 for the same price at GBP 148 per week.  Add full insurance cover and another driver, the cost finally came to GBP 531.