Operation camera battery charger started on Saturday morning with a trip back into Swindon where Paul had picked me up from the train the day before. Paul had to say good-bye to his Ford Escort (they are cool and different and fancy here in England) it was his old racecar that he and his dad had restored.  Paul sold the car after breakfast and we headed out. The camera store was very nice I wanted one of everything in it. I had called a head and they have a universal charger for me that worked perfectly.  We stopped in the pharmacy to pick up some blister Band-Aids. It felt like dejavu. When in England buy blister Band-Aids and Ibuprofen. We also had to pick up some earplugs cause apparently I have been snoring quite loudly and keeping Paul up at night. Oops.

We stopped by the bank, which turned out to be a very long and challenging operation. The poor woman who worked at the bank was trying to help us and ended up making the whole transaction a mess. It all worked out and we headed back to the house to have lunch with Paul’s sister Clare and her husband Steve and Paul’s Nana. We had a yummy lunch followed by delicious cheese. Paul and his Dad think cheese is the anti-Christ (I know they are British and don’t like cheese. its weird). Paul’s mum loves cheese and was excited that I do as well and got a nice selection for us.  Paul’s nana (Roy’s mum) gave me some beautiful pillows for my new house with ponies on them. They will look perfect with my new couches that are arriving next week.

After lunch Paul took me on a walking tour of his hometown of Cirencester. We walked past his old school and first house and into town on the old rail tracks, which have now been converted, to a walking path. We were in search of hares. The town like many towns in the states have made large statues that different clubs decorates for charity. Gloucester Mass had lobsters at one point. Boston has painted cows. My new town of Haverhill had Shoes and my sister’s town has clams (rather inappropriate looking clams.)  We headed off in search of the hares but soon got distracted with other beautiful items in the town. 

We walked past what was the old abbey and Roman walls. Cirencester when Great Britain was under Roman rule it was the capital city of the southern England. The abbey was burned to the ground when Henry the Eight went on his anti-Catholic raid burned the church down and built the new Cathedral for the Church of England next to the remains of the old abbey.

The walk continued down the old side streets of the city where I was constantly stopping to take pictures of the ironwork and doorknockers. People in the states don’t really have doorknockers anymore and on my last trip I was enthralled with all the intricate knockers.

  We continued on through the city until we came to the Cirencester Park. It reminded me of the great lawn at Castle hill in Ipswich. We strolled through the park for a while and then headed back into town to find a pub for a pint of cider.

We ended up choosing the Black Horse pub in honor of my friends black horse back home.

I had a pint of mixed berry cider that tasted like fruit juice. It packed a bit more of a punch than fruit juice and I was quite tipsy. Ok lets be honest I got drunk off a pint of cider. We headed to the grocery store to pick up some snacks for our lunch the next day. Drunk in a grocery store is entertaining. I am a fun and extremely giggly drunk, which is better than being an angry drunk. I made some drunken food choices getting two large jar of Marmite. one was a 10-year-old age reserve jar. I ended up getting both options. We went to Waitrose the fancy grocery store that Paul’s mum works at. I keep calling it Westrose like in Game of thrones. When you pay for your groceries they give you a token that you can put in one of the three charities they are currently supporting. Paul handed me the token and I read the three options. One was for like our equivalent of the Brownies/Girl Scouts, the second was for another charity and the third was what I though cleaning up pollution. I felt eco-friendly and picked the one I thought was for pollution. Paul asked me why I chose that one. “ I picked it cause pollution is bad” “Pollution? Why do you think it’s for pollution?  It says Poulton Village Hall”.  Apparently I can’t read when I am drunk. This oops on my front ended up setting off a giggling fit between Paul and me as we headed home to the house to get ready to go out that night.

We were going to Beth and Tom’s house tonight for dinner and drinks and to hang out with their family. They have 4 daughters Georgiana (George) Charlotte (Charlie) Olivia (Ollie) and Robyn (Bob). Paul use to work with Tom and they have stayed friends since. Tom and Paul do quiz night at the local pub on Thursday nights together. We walked over to Paul and Beth’s and had a wonderful evening.  Charlie was an avid Harry Potter fan and showed me her room that was covered in Harry Potter and Hunger Game posters. We talked books for quite some time (she is an avid reader)

Beth had made yummy snack food for us to munch on and we were playing 90’s dance music and having a bit of a dance party. We hung out in the back yard around the fire pit. We all smelled like a campfire by the end of the night.  Beth and Tom were awesome as were all of their kids. The pear cider and snacks also added to an awesome night. We are going to meet up with them on Wednesday night again to take some family portraits.

We walked home around 12:30 and passed out smelling like we had been camping.