Highlights Windsor Castle and Birthday Tea.

Today is Jane’s birthday. We wished her happy birthday at the start of the day and added a cat card to the others she had received.

We then blogged and read while waiting for Katherine to contact us. We had told her not to rush as the forecast was not great and we were going to Windsor Castle and not planning to do much more in the area. I met her off the train and we walked the short distance to where John was parked.

I had done a lot of research about parking near Windsor Castle which I promptly ignored and went with getting Eton put into the tomtom and looking for a P sign when we were there. This worked out perfectly as we parked with about a 10-minute walk to the castle and at a price Katherine thought cheap – 4 pound for 3 hours. The price jumped up to 7 pound for 4 hours se we paid for 3.

We did have to join a queue to get tickets but the delay was not too long. We picked up the free audio system and listened to the relevant bits in a number of places.

No photos can be taken inside the castle but we did get a few outside.

The State Rooms were our first area to visit. It was rather overwhelming, as we had earlier recalled, both in the size of the rooms and the contents. Unless you look closely it is easy to miss the names of the artists but even we recognised Rueben and van Dyk. The history of the rooms is of more interest to all of us than the actual details of the contents.

We joined the longer queue for Queen Mary’s Dolls House, although it was drizzly by then. It was hardly damp when we went in we did enjoy the viewing and we certainly all had Liz’s (John’s mum’s) work in mind as we looked. The mention of electricity in the house reminded us of the houses the she had lights in as well, although none of hers had working plumbing (why?)!! The cars underneath looked out of proportion to me but John thought they were right.

We finally went into St George’s Chapel, where Katherine commented on it being nicely less ornate. It is of course but the stonework is still wonderful. We spent a lot of time staring at the lovely ceiling.

I was keen to find the shortest street (Queen Charlotte St) in the UK (just 51’ 10” long) after we left, both for the oddity, and for a geocache. We would have spent longer exploring the cobbled area here except that it was still drizzly and we were hungry. We had spotted a pub near our car park so headed there first. I went back to the car to pay for a couple more hours of parking and then we all relaxed over a beer/wine and pub grub.

The pub seemed to have locals in it rather than just tourists judging by the reaction of the staff, and the presence of well-behaved dogs. It had a few quirky features including a ‘library’ and various signs on the walls. The garden bar looked nice but was obviously deserted today. John had a 'Windsor Knot' beer to celebrate the Royal nuptials next week.

Katherine and I did a wander around the castle shopping area while John went back to the car for a snooze.

We then headed back to Jane and Ian’s where they gave us some good ideas for tomorrow’s outing. Jane uses Google maps a lot to plan a journey and showed us where they had seen a field of bluebells which they then realised was in April more than 20 years ago.

Katherine had suggested a Thai restaurant would be a good place for our ‘present’ to Jane and Ian for their birthdays. With their birthdays being so close it seemed a good idea, and Katherine knew a slightly better than ‘cheap and cheerful’ place. It did take us an hour on the bus to get there because of the conditions, but otherwise it was an easy commute. Having looked through the menu a few times 4 of us decided that the set menu was appealing giving 5 small starters and 4 mains plus dessert. Ian opted for sate chicken and a lamb main but did a degree of sharing as well so it worked out perfectly. There was just a small amount of the mains left – enough to show we had all eaten sufficiently, but with little waste. The only awkward moment was dessert. If we had thought we would have asked for dessert for 5 but with only 4 ordering thr set menu only 4 desserts were served. Kath had eaten extra sate so was full and hence happy to not eat both her banana fritters, so it sorted itself out. The cats were also happy because there was enough lamb left over for a doggy (or should that be a pussy) bag

We parted on the street so Kath could get to Clapham while we bussed back (slightly faster as the rain had eased) to Hammersmith.