england: the perfect day

our last day in england: miraculously our hosts mark and susan were able to order up all the perfect ingredients: sunny warm weather (no small thing, this, in england), a car show by the seaside, a wondrous sunset and above all, good company.


i may have commented before on how england felt all very...familiar. possibly because the british colonized kenya, so many things that we do: drink tea, bread and butter, speak english for that matter come from england. also, growing up, we read lots of enid blyton, so things like having a cup of tea in a hotel by the seaside feel...right...somehow. its wierd what the subconscious does to you.

actually on that last day we had breakfast by the sea with mark and susan, marks mom and sister and we had a great time. so great, in fact, that i did not get any good pictures of the event, so i will have to post this one of another day when we mark and alan had a cup of tea by the seaside.




we had a lovely afternoon walking about the car show. o.k, i have to admit this was more me, but there was live music, good friends, beautiful old cars, everyone was dressed up, the weather was nice - whats there not to like?



of course, most of the cars were british. the blue ford anglia above? my dads first car. well not the precise one, but the same model.



there were lots of others from the british car industry's heyday. lots of triumphs, jaguars, rolls royces, morrises, astons and lotuses. one nice thing about england is that old stuff is rarely chucked out or pulled down - its cared for and maintained. hence the houses that are hundreds of years old and this lovely car show. so we went home tired but happy. 




and then to top it off, this was our sunset that night. what a memorable way to end our trip.

its hard to pin it down to one particular thing, but england has been one of the countries we have enjoyed visiting the most. we love the non-generic nature of everything. no huge complexes of exactly the same buildings, but a 500 year old building will be right next to a modern steel and glass structure. the understatedness of its pleasures. the way the british take delight in wit. how even regular people have secret passions for unusual things like art, or music, or history.

as the british would say, its all rather...lovely.