Ali, Jon and Benny, Oh My!

Our friends Jon and Ali and their little Benedict came to visit London.  We were so excited to have more friends come see London.  They came to London to play with us in the city, and they were also here for a family wedding.  We had a great (almost 3 week) visit.   The first thing we did when they arrived was walk them around Wimbledon and take them to our favorite pub, The Dog and Fox.  We even snagged the fabulous place by the fire.

I kept trying to get a picture with Ben, but the  warm fire crackling next to us was way more exciting.

Porter tried out a pot of steamed mussels.  He said they were not quite what he was expecting but still pretty good.  He is so funny because he will always get random seafood items at restaurants, but he never likes them as much as he thinks he will.  However, the chips (fries) at Dog and Fox are delicious!


I got to do a little baby sitting.  The dogs, especially Puck, were very into Ben.  They LOVED him.  Our animals have never been around tiny humans before.  We were a little nervous about how they would react, but they did great.  They liked Benny almost too much.



Puck just wanted to snuggle all day, all the time.


We all hung out in Wimbledon and London for the first few days before our trip to the Lake District.  We also did some little day trips out of the city.  Our first stop was Leeds Castle.


I loved the moat.  Leeds had more black swans than white swans.  However this next picture has a white swan.

The next day we headed out to Dover Castle, the White Cliffs, and Walmer Castle.  I have some posts from last year from those places so I won't post many pictures of it.  But Dover is so cool!  We love taking friends out there.

This is a musician performing at Dover Castle




The next morning was an early one.  We were driving all the way to the Lake District in one day.  We felt bad that Benny had to be in a car seat for so long that we broke it up wit ha few stops.  The main one being Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's hood.   This church is where he is buried.


His whole family is buried inside.  This carving is thought to be a pretty accurate account of what he looked like as it was done right after his death.  And his family over saw the carving of it.
Prospero: Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.


Shakespeare's Grave and behind it the most beautiful stained glass window.

After viewing some more houses related to Shakespeare and his family we stopped at Hathaway Tea Rooms, aka the best tea time ever!  Seriously, if you visit Stratford-upon-Avon you must promise me that you will go here and get the afternoon tea.

The house that Shakespeare was born in.


The room where Shakespeare was born.


This is one more of the houses associated with the Shakespeare's family.  Stratford-upon-Avon was our final stop before another 3 hour leg of our road trip, so we made the most of it.  We were really happy that we stopped in there, so many cool places to see.

We were trying to look at serious and Elizabethan here.
 

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