Day 16 - I think but who cares!.

If there was a title for todays entry it would be 'Sushi and the man with chips in his handbag'

Spent a day roaming Hampton court Palace today, much walking but mostly under instructions from one of those talking tourguide things round your neck. Hampton court truly is huge, and (with many of my waking hours thinking about food) I noted that the kitchens they had back in Henry VIIIl's time were fantastic- about the size of a football pitch to be precise. I also noticed that if you type in the wrong room number into the audio tour gizmo 9 times out of 10 you don't notice - that was until it said 'go up the stairs to your left' - there were no stairs, but the random selection of commentary matched the room I was in quite nicely.

We also demonstrated why I always drive the car but don't try to navigate today - HC has a pretty 'maze' built into the gardens. The starting notice even has a map of it which I expertly stored in my photographic memory, and then promptly steered us into a dead end. K however just sneered, and guided us with only one more wrong turn straight to the middle, then lost all the cool-points she had scored by then asking where the exit was, having passed it not 10 seconds previously. ha ha!

Later on our way to the cafe we did indeed pass a more mature japanese man carrying a leather handbag, with a 'go-large' portion of mc donalds best fries neatly placed within it. Whether this was a carefully planned carbohydrate tipple for his walk round the estate, or a joke by his family we can only speculate...



We completed the tour of all the rooms, apartments etc and continued back to kingston for dinner via a pretty walk through the gardens and estate meadows.

Stopped off in kingston to see a screening of 'The Island' at the cinema, with wait for it... allocated seats.. wow. The film wasn't too bad either, plenty to keep me occupied and some trace of a plot, though no budget left for a twist in the tail after they paid for all the cars, trains and helicopters they wrecked. Not such a hit in the US for some reason, shame.

Finished today off with an entertaining dinner in the local sushi bar... yet more conveyor belts, but this time with food dishes on, and too small to ride on.



We resume our treck tomorrow, our destination Hammersmith (we think!?) via kew gardens.

M&K