LIKING –
- London – large, busy, lots going on, interesting, historic, plenty on offer for any mood or tastes
- People in uniform wearing funny hats
- Wildlife and nature. Except the only badgers I saw were roadkill. I was promised badgers. And the moles were hiding. Did see a fox in London though
- Cheese... any country with good dairy is my kind of place
- Cider... also "Soy-dur"... and cheap whisky and spirits for that matter
- Ales and beers, when refrigerated (sorry, I know I had the argument several times, but you are not going to convince me warm beer is a good thing… I am willing to bet ‘room temperature’ is ACTUALLY supposed to refer to drinking beer in winter when your castle is near freezing inside… people also claim red wine is supposed to be served at ‘room temperature’ which is BS, especially when it is summer and +25C)
- Pubs – plentiful and full of character, many very nicely updated, others very nicely left original
- Friendly locals - characters aplenty.
- Old stuff – plenty of. Old places. Old buildings. Old everything. Fascinating, scenic. What we call 'antiques' they call 'stuff we have lying around the place'
- Plentiful European wine. The only thing France does right.
- Aston Martin
- The weather!!!
- Fish n chips
- Food in general, pretty good. Local produce etc. Seafood. Wood pigeon!
- Trains and tube – efficient and handy... when they are working right. And not ridiculously packed.
- The countryside and coast... rather lovely, quaint, charming, green
- Motorways - good when they are there
- Motorways - good when they are there
- Heathrow was fine, although apparently that is not always the case
- Purdey guns... as in the brand... Although they are also purdy...
- Accents... well, the UK ones. Funny and charming, although I still can't really pick one from another
NOT LIKING –
- Purdey guns... as in the brand... Although they are also purdy...
- Accents... well, the UK ones. Funny and charming, although I still can't really pick one from another
NOT LIKING –
- London – full of lots of people you would rather not hang around, too spread out, expensive, busy
- Radio - rubbish. DJs on popular stations are possibly even worse and more inane than ours, if that is possible.
- Whinging Poms... they do it as home as well. Not all of them mind you, but some just love it. I listened incredulously (while taking my endless photos) as a group of half a dozen of them stood next to THE AUBURN at BEAULIEU and whinged to each other about their accommodation for about 20 minutes. I kid you not. About half of that time was complaining about the tea... also "There isn't even a chair to sit in to watch television... if you want to watch television you have to sit on the bed!"
- Whinging Poms... they do it as home as well. Not all of them mind you, but some just love it. I listened incredulously (while taking my endless photos) as a group of half a dozen of them stood next to THE AUBURN at BEAULIEU and whinged to each other about their accommodation for about 20 minutes. I kid you not. About half of that time was complaining about the tea... also "There isn't even a chair to sit in to watch television... if you want to watch television you have to sit on the bed!"
- Drivers in general... enough said. (Although it was claimed the bad ones were “probably mostly from the EU”…)
- Unfriendly locals (most of them “probably from the EU” also apparently)
- The COFFEE!! BLEH!! SORT IT OUT!!!
- The COFFEE!! BLEH!! SORT IT OUT!!!
- Trains and tube – flipping pricey, crazy busy at times
- Train and tube weirdos – plenty of
- Posers and the tryhard ‘fashionable’ – i.e. most of the people in certain parts of London
- And of course Hipsters. A worldwide disease which must be eradicated
- Countless tossers in German cars and black Range Rovers (Not saying only tossers drive them, just saying that in the UK, mostly tossers drive them. With notable exceptions of course)
- Cars, the ones on the road that is... generally boring. Except in certain parts of London we eventually found, where it is all Ferrari and Aston
- Food – finding cheap healthy food on the move is hard. Although nothing like as bad as the US of course.
- Fresh meat - flipping pricey. Tasty though.
- Shopping – not cheap in any way shape or form for anything you would want to bring back. Although in fairness I didn't dedicate much time to trying to shop properly.
- Good cheap accommodation also hard to find at times. (Okay actually pretty much everything was pricey really. Probably not so bad for normal day to day stuff.)
- Snobby rich w*nkers with no manners (some of whom seemed to think people should step to one side to give them right of way on the footpath, and found themselves mistaken)… although most of these allegedly foreigners also… *coughFrenchcough*
- B-roads and roundabouts. Mindnumbing. And no views due to endless hedgerows.
- It is a LONG way from some parts of the world. Maybe plan a stopover if you can get one somewhere nice. Especially if flying on a rubbish airline.
Fair to say that despite my gripes the pros well outweigh the cons though... Endlessly fascinating, certainly a place that needs more time spent... much much more time.
- B-roads and roundabouts. Mindnumbing. And no views due to endless hedgerows.
- It is a LONG way from some parts of the world. Maybe plan a stopover if you can get one somewhere nice. Especially if flying on a rubbish airline.
Fair to say that despite my gripes the pros well outweigh the cons though... Endlessly fascinating, certainly a place that needs more time spent... much much more time.
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