Parkinghenge

Got up this morning to headed to the airport. I set the alarm so I could get up and get breakfast before I left. Sleep overrode breakfast. I slept until the last possible moment. What the hell were you doing the night before, you ask? Nothing what so ever. I was alternating between watching TV, muting the TV to read a book and finishing up the Podio book that I was listening to. Before I knew it, it was 2 in the morning. Bleh! So, I head off towards Heathrow. As I'm driving into the place I notice that there are two types of parking structures advertised. One is long term stay. The other one is business stay. Well, I figured that the long term stay was not what I was after. So, that left me with the business stay. Sure enough, I was mistaken. There really is a third option that they do not advertise which is short stay. I found this out after I'd taken the courtesy shuttle into the terminal to pick up John. There it was. Oh well, life goes on. John can ride the shuttle back to the car with me.

Half hour later I've collected John (who had very little sleep on the plane) and headed back to the car park. That's when I had the shock of the day. Apparently, business stay costs 21.50 a day...Pounds people! Pounds! Yes, that's right, over $40 for parking. I was there less than an hour. E'gad! Lesson learned.

After getting the low-down on John's flight, I asked him how tired he was. He said he was a little tired, but, pretty keyed up at the moment. You see, we were on the other side of London already. There is a site that should be seen, in my opinion, by anyone who has the opportunity: Stonehenge. Due to the fact that it's on the other side of London than where we are staying, if we head there from the airport, it'll cut of an hour's drive. He said he was up for it.

The weather was quite nicer than it was when I was here the first couple of times. The sun was out and shining. The wind was restrained. The temperature didn't force me to wear a wool cap, gloves and a scarf (and wish I had more). So, of course, that meant that the place was filled with tourists. John opted not to pay the 15 pounds to go in and walk around Stonehenge. So, we wandered along the outside of the chain link fence and marvelled at it. I wont tell you what John thought about it as I wouldn't want to put words in his mount. I, however, was still impressed by it. I took several shots of the monument.

Once John had had enough of Stonehenge, we got back in the car and started to drive back. I told him I needed to make a quick, 5-minute detour first, though. I took the first left at the roundabout, drove through a little residential area and then took another left. Parked the car and invited John to get out of the car and come share in my disappointment. He didn't understand. We walked across the street and stared into the field. I said "Welcome to Woodhenge". It took John about a second to remember Woodhenge from the first trip and start laughing. He pointed at the "stumps" in the ground and looked at me. He just continued to laugh. I nodded, looked over at Woodhenge and waited for him to stop laughing. I'm glad he found it so humorous.

John nodded off here and again on the ride back to the hotel. He said he needed a bit of Lunch before heading off for a nap. We get him checked into his room and hit the pub for a bit of a bite. A couple of burgers and pints were had while watching a huge football game of Manchester United vs Arsenal. Awesome game with an exciting finish. Frank joined us shortly after that and we sat around and chit-chatted for a bit.

Small detour to the story about the pub attached to the Park Inn. It gets great reception for sports on the satellite. It should considering it calls itself a sports bar. Enough screens surround the room that you can watch the game where ever you sit. All in all, very nice. With one exception; The beer selection is rather poor there. They don't have any hand pumped ales. Not a one, dammit! I can get a pint of Murphy's Irish Stout there which is what I've been getting. But, I can get that at home. Damned near anywhere to boot!

The three of us break up and agree to meet for dinner that night. Frank has just returned from the office, John is going to take a nap and I'm on my way into the office. Lucky me.

Several hours later I'm back at the hotel and ring John's room to wake his arse up. It's time for dinner. He answers the phone and tells me that he's going to continue to sleep. No biggie, Frank and I will dine without him. So, when there's a knock at my door, I'm expecting Frank to be standing there. Wrong again, buck-o! John decided that he was awake enough to go to dinner with us. It should make him tired enough to sleep through the night.

Frank arrives and we head off towards Lakeside mall. There are several restaurants there that are worth going to. Frank has been to most of them and he and I ate at one the other night...a Spanish place that served tapas. I'll make another small digression now;

The Spanish place was good, they offered up a decent bottle of California wine (difficult to find out here according to Frank). Wonderful place. The wait staff showed up only when they were needed and let us enjoy ourselves. We left and had to return to get Frank's jacket that he'd forgotten on the seat. The waiter that we had asked us what was wrong with the service, which took both Frank and I aback a bit. We replied that the service was good and nothing was wrong. The waiter then began to lightly complain about us not tipping. Now, you have to understand that on the bill that was presented to Frank, this very same waiter had drawn a bit black 'X' through the tip area of the bill. We had thought that a bit strange. So, now he's complaining that we didn't tip after he X'd out the are that Frank was supposed to add the tip. I don't know, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Back to the story, we went out to an Italian place and had a decent meal. Nothing out of the ordinary, food wise. Although, in John's semi-groggy state, he burned his thumb on the plate that obviously hot. The cheese on his lasagna was bubbling it was so hot. But, he didn't see that until it was too late. So, other than the minor burn, a good time was had by all.