12-3-05 - Took A Drive...
Well, today we did much better in terms of navigating Britain's highways and byways. Took mostly smaller roads to Aldershot, Gary's home town, visiting the Connaught School, formerly "Heron Wood School for Boys", while there, the caretaker happened upon us peeking through windows and graciously provided more background on the School today. While Gary attended it was a rough tough secondary school for boys, mostly from military families, today the school is a secondary school for girls and boys, although, it looked quite run down. We stopped by the Aldershot Lido baths, which are now closed, the baths remain, filled with rain water and ducks swimming around, the slides and dive boards are intact. The baths date back to the late 1800’s are surrounded by lovely park and cemetery. We then went to see our old house on Cranmore Lane, and took a walk through Rowhill Cops (the woods) close-by, it was fun despite the mud, to show Stephani the site of the old Victorian bottle dump, and the lovely scenery where I used to spend lots of time, shared a few stories about what we got up to in there :-)
Then we went to Farnham Golf Club to take in the view of the 1st tee and 18th green. Stopped into the pro shop and struck up a conversation with Grahame Cowlishaw, the Pro. Grahame had fond memories golfing with Dad, and with many if his friends, one of them, Bill Pascoe, was out on the course that day golfing. Lots of names, Colin Pickup, Harry Kerry, who only recently gave up golf in his 90’s, Joey Fletcher. It was a lovely visit. Stephani struck up a friendship with one of Cali’s (our cat) relatives, the resident Cat, who apparently lives up the road, comes down to spend the day in the shop with Grahame and his boys.
We got some good maps and decided to drive through Guildford and return to Croydon, where we are staying. The hotel is THEE MOST HIDDEN hotel in London, buried in a one-way system that has trams on the roads (some of the time). We checked on our friend Debby Carr, who was to stay at the same hotel, but she had not checked in, so we are thinking she may have not been able to find it either and is staying elsewhere. Hopefully we will meet up with her at the Pete Townshend concert tomorrow night.
Pics to follow
Then we went to Farnham Golf Club to take in the view of the 1st tee and 18th green. Stopped into the pro shop and struck up a conversation with Grahame Cowlishaw, the Pro. Grahame had fond memories golfing with Dad, and with many if his friends, one of them, Bill Pascoe, was out on the course that day golfing. Lots of names, Colin Pickup, Harry Kerry, who only recently gave up golf in his 90’s, Joey Fletcher. It was a lovely visit. Stephani struck up a friendship with one of Cali’s (our cat) relatives, the resident Cat, who apparently lives up the road, comes down to spend the day in the shop with Grahame and his boys.
We got some good maps and decided to drive through Guildford and return to Croydon, where we are staying. The hotel is THEE MOST HIDDEN hotel in London, buried in a one-way system that has trams on the roads (some of the time). We checked on our friend Debby Carr, who was to stay at the same hotel, but she had not checked in, so we are thinking she may have not been able to find it either and is staying elsewhere. Hopefully we will meet up with her at the Pete Townshend concert tomorrow night.
Pics to follow
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