Day 4 - April 28th

The word for the day is “civilized”. It is obvious that a warm Saturday afternoon is to be used for sitting outside and getting together with friends. I walked down our walking track in the afternoon and was astounded by the many, many groups of people having picnics, playing cards, sitting and reading and playing sports. There were groups of people playing “pick-up” soccer and cricket games, as well as organized groups playing cricket and tennis. There were two cricket teams out....the first was an adult team and the second was a kids team. They were so cute, all dressed in their white shirts, shorts and long socks and wearing floppy white cricket hats!!

I watched a number of groups of people punting on the small river. I had wanted to try this, but after watching them I told Michael that there was NO WAY we should do it unless we pay someone to “drive” it for us. It was obvious that the un-trained skipper is at a great disadvantage. I watched several people almost fall into the river.....all of them were slipping around on the boat decks. Also, because of the length of the boats, it is extremely hard to keep the boats going straight. Most groups spent their time trying to get the boat off of the bank or out of the trees. Once again.....fun to watch, but not to do!!!!

As I was walking around this afternoon, I kept noticing lots of people with ice cream bars that looked really good. I soon found the reason as I came up on an Ice Cream Truck. He was doing a brisk business.


When Michael and I have traveled overseas, we have found that it is harder to spend the coin money because it doesn’t have the amount written on it plainly and you don’t want to look like an idiot trying to figure out what you have in your hand. We had collected quite a pile of coins, so we decided that today was the day that we would spend it. Our first stop needed 1pound 89 pence. We stood in line and recounted it five or six times before we got to the check-out counter.
Everyone around us felt sorry for the “poor uneducated Americans”, but we were proud of our accomplishment!!!

We have been watching the local news stations and they have reported two things that we felt were amusing. The first is the escalating crime rate .....280 muggings per day in the ENTIRE United Kingdom. That seems very low to us. Also, they have been talking about the soaring temperatures during the month of April.....it has gotten as high as 22C (71 F)!!!! Once again, those are not temperatures that we would rate as SOARING.

I tried to do some clothes shopping today but then realized that those long, long lines of women were standing in line for the dressing rooms. I quickly decided that I could shop another day.