Day 2

Get a few more minutes sleep napping then it’s into Heathrow.
Good to walk off with just our carry-on. No waiting at the carousel for baggage.
Through immigration, no customs. Odd that!
Wit at the bus stop for the Hertz bus then ff to get the car. The usual bumf, do you want extra insurance, or 13 pound more you can get a much better car! If I wanted a “bigger” car I would have ordered one.
Finally, into the car with the sat nav up and running, and we are in distinguished company. We have Billy Connolly as OUR guide.
Windsor is not far away and we have an appointment with Liz for morning tea. Think they must have got their dates mixed as she is in Balmoral at the moment. Spoke to the guards, one quite chatty however the dude with the gun very uncommunicative and rather steely eyed. I guess that’s his job.
At Windsor at 7.30AM icily cold, the castle is grand though, largest occupied castle in the world. It is really very grand. Huge porticos battlements etc. Guarded by police with sub-machine guns. Windsor town is quite quaint though I am sure it wasn’t planned with 4 Indian restaurants in mind. Walk along the Thames briefly, cross the Thames even.
Then back in the car with Billy leading us to Oxford. Sometime later, after we catch a Park and Ride bus we are in Oxford. All very scholarly with the various colleges, Balliol, right on the main roads. Lovely architecture with long columns, fabulous gargoyles.
Back on the road just after 12.30PM local Time Greenwich Mean Time for those interested. And see that Winchester isn’t far off our route. Let’s drop in to the cathedral and see what the song was all about. Very impressive, however 4 pounds to get in seemed a bit steep, like the steeple so just patrolled the grounds and the town.
Off to Yeovil where we are staying with friends, on the way pass Stonehenge. It seemed much bigger in the pictures. Now walled off from the riff raff by a fence, from a distance (the road) it really does look quite impressive.
The motorways are great though no one sticks to the speed limit. I am passed by everything including the bakers van. I do get to overtake a low loader with two army tanks and an army convoy.
Coming into Yeovil I ignore Billy as I think I remember the way from 6 years ago. Should have listened to Billy. Got bamboozled and had to follow him after all.
Vi and Geoff are there to greet us and very welcoming they are too. Great meal and then eyes drooping off to bed at 8.30PM. Slept like the dead, though I am sure the dead don’t have to get up to pee twice at night.