David & Di in London

The following Wednesday, David & Di arrived from Australia. Unfortunately we were at work Thursday and Friday, so they occupied themselves touring around London and Greenwich.

Saturday we picked up a car and headed out of London, heading South and East. First stop was the town of Sevenoaks, where we visited Knole House. This lovely National Trust property is set in huge grounds with deer running everywhere, and is filled with some lovely antiques. After our visit we spent an hour just walking around the outside of the walls, enjoying the serenity.

Outside Knole House

One of the hundreds of deer

From here we went to Tonbridge (to 8 Quarry Hill Rd, Tonbridge, to be precise) where Di’s grandfather had been raised before he headed to Australia. The premises are now a hairdresser on the ground floor and a tattoo parlour on the top floor – but it was clearly a building from the era.

8 Quarry Hill Road

Sunday we spent the evening at the Notting Hill Carnival, where it had been ‘Children’s Day’ and caught the tail end of the parade – truck after truck pumping Carribean music, followed by costumed people. We descended into the throng to try some delicacies (curry goat with rice, anyone?) and found more music and crowds with every turn. We were actually surprised by how efficiently it was all being run (although they need more bins) – but it had the feel that it may be about to deteriorate a little any time soon.

Monday we headed out of town again, first to Sissinghurst Gardens (another one crossed off our list of 1001 places to visit) – a beautiful gardens in a historic setting. More serenity ensued…

Next stop was Dover – fascinating for both the sheer volume of shipping traffic from the continent (they looked like models from the cliff-top) and the white cliffs themselves. The highlight for David and Di, though, was seeing James May (from Top Gear) drive past in an open-top Bentley – we had walked further along the cliffs and missed him (wrong place, wrong time).

All too soon the weekend was over and we were bidding David and Di farewell as they headed on to Edinburgh – we’d meet up with them soon enough at our next stop.