Welcome to Hanvey's.com

Chiming 3 o'clock...

Here we are watching Big Ben strike three o'clock, it was a cheap thrill for us both. We'd just walked back through the park adjacent to Buckingham Palace, where we'd gotten rained on for about 5 minutes, but it passed quickly. We want to return when it warms and the trees and flowers are in bloom, and will surely take a tour or two. It takes us about 2 1/2 hours to travel to London from Yeovil, we drive up to an RAF base (2 hrs), park and take the tube in (30 min).
We will move into our new home next Saturday and are hoping our shipments will arrive shortly afterwards. I'm really missing the harley and we both are missing our bed. We will be able to phone home relatively inexpensively when we get set up with a telephone plan and our internet service. Take note of the time here (GMT) which appears on the right column of this page, underneath the Weather Girl. Most of our calls will probably reach you during the daytime, as we are 4 hours ahead of Atlantic time (Nova Scotia) and 8 hours ahead of Pacific Time.

We received some rather bad news from back home, my grandmother's health is in decline and we're praying that she recovers quickly. Rhonda and I paid a visit to Tulsa to see her before we left for the UK and she was very spry and in good spirits at the time. Please keep her (Edna) in your prayers.

Rhonda says hi to everyone. We should have more regular contact/posts in a week or so when we get settled. My first trip it coming up soon as I have returned to work last week and am being placed into the rotation. Everyone at work is very nice and has been very helpful to us both. There are absolutely no worries here for us, only anxiety in waiting to get settled in and for the warmer weather. I promised Rhonda a trip to Paris that I'll have to make good on in early May. I'll be seeing Turkey, Poland, France and Scotland before mid summer, but will have some time in mid/late summer for a trip/tour with Rhonda to Ireland on the harley. Rhonda also met a contact for a club that does some off-road motorcycling, so I'll have to attend one of their meetings and see if I can join in on the Yamaha. More soon, please do leave a comment or drop us an e-mail.

London 101

We got bored and decided to trip around London, just to get our bearings. We got off the tube at the London bridge and walked across but quickly realized it was the Tower Bridge we wanted photos of, which you see above. We also walked down the mall to Buckingham Palace but we're going to make you wait until it's a bit springier before posting any pics of that. Our 6 pound tickets let us ride all the trains and buses anywhere in the city all day, which is quite reasonable. The London Tower is just on the other side of the river, to the left of the Tower Bridge, and is actually a large fortress which has been there for over 400 years. It was a bit cold and windy but we wanted to get a feel for where everything is. Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the Mall/Buckingham Palace is a 15 minute bus ride from behind the London Tower, so it seems as if the sites are relatively spread out. BTW, the Tower Bridge requires 24 hours notice from ships that require it to raise the bridge. You can take a tour up inside and across the upper level, we're saving it for warmer weather or if we have visitors ; )

Stonehenge

This was amazing! Over 5000 years old, it is mostly in ruins but had been the center of some kind of cultural activity in prehistoric times. There are burial sites (barrows) concentrated in the surrounding area and the alignment of Stonehenge is such that it marks the summer and winter soltices. A very interesting tour, we were provided with handheld speakers that gave a spoken tour around the site. The larger stones were brought from about 20 miles away, while the smaller ones were brought from the mountains in Wales, over 250 miles away.

Our new home, car...

We bought a car here, it was cheaper than renting one for two months. It's a Rover sedan, a nice car actually, with the steering wheel on the right. I've been driving around muttering "stay on the left, stay on the left" to myself. We also found a nice place to let (rent) about 10 miles south of Yeovil, and should move in at the end of this month. Our address is "Cherry Tree Cottage, Halstock, Somerset, UK, BA22 9SR". It's a 3 BR, 3BA, with a nice LR, kitchen, office, enclosed garden (small) and a garage. The area is gorgeous and we'll post pics as soon as we move in. There is a local baker and we're near a lake and goose/duck farm. More on this later...

CAMELOT !

We went to a nearby village where there is a ruin that is believed to be where Camelot was located. The ruin is called Cadbury Castle, but is posted as the place where "Arthur" led his knights into battle from, called "Camelot". It was way up on a hill where you could see all the surrounding countryside, for miles, very beautiful, but there were only the ruins of ancient walls which surrounded the hilltop, a very large area with gently sloping grades. We had to take a very muddy path up to the bluff and wished we'd bought some "Wellies" (rubber boots) which are "quite necessary" for hiking around here. Buster went with us and had a great time running around the hilltop and surrounding area. Maybe pics next time.

Hello again!

We're still at the hotel but are waiting to hear if we've been accepted at a "letting" we saw yesterday that we liked. More about that later. Since it would have cost 50 pounds/week to rent a car and I needed one for at least 6 weeks we decided to buy a Range Rover sedan for 500 pounds. I should get the proof of insurance tomorrow and be able to register and drive it. The shop loaned us a Rover for a couple of days which was very helpful. More news at it happens...