Friday 23^rd May                       HEATHROW – LEIGHTON BUZZARD

Robyn writes: We both fell asleep quickly, but unfortunately were hit by the dreaded effects of jet lag during the night. For some really painful reason, we were both awake around 3. Plus, the bathroom door squealed like a stuck pig every time it was opened, so that did nothing to ensure peaceful sleep. (I have just left them a very pointed and terse review on Google telling them to oil their doors.) By 5.40, we decided we weren’t going to go back to sleep, so got ourselves up and dressed, and down to breakfast. Then we called a taxi to take us to the Europcar office at Heathrow to pick up our hire car.

                                                         View from our Ibis hotel window

                                                             That's a Mercedes!

                                         Glen's building in Leighton Buzzard - Magnon Court

We have ended up with a diesel SUV Mercedes – which cost us an arm and a leg by the time we added in all of the extra cover for roadside assistance etc. Sooooo much dearer than anticipated. Unbelievably, hire cars In the UK don’t come with a spare tyre! Anyway, it is a lovely car, and holds our huge amount of luggage comfortably. We were soon on our way to Glen Wilson’s place at Leighton Buzzard, a trip of not much more than an hour through the midlands. The car has a built-in navigator, which is so useful. Amazingly, it was a beautiful day with sunshine and clouds, and the temperature sitting around 15 degrees. We found Glen’s place without too much trouble, and lugged our belongings up in the elevator (thankfully there is one – he is on the 4^th floor!) We wandered across to the Morrison’s (grocery) store next door to him to find some lunch, then I tried to have a sleep while the men went for a walk around town. Irritatingly, of course I couldn’t sleep (of course), so finally I got myself up, made a cup of tea and started reading the book which Glen had been good enough to find for me: Josephine Teys’ Daughter of Time, written in the early 1950s. It’s a highly acclaimed mystery book, and it’s about Richard III (more on Richard later).

Lex and Glen were home just after 2, so we started getting ourselves organised for a trip to the Pitstone Windmill, not far from here. It was really nice to be out in the fresh air after all that travel. The windmill was fascinating – graffiti in it dates back to 1627, but it’s believed to date back to the 1400s. We climbed up into it during the tour to hear the working explained. While we were there, we also joined the National Trust again – well worth it for the number of places we can visit. We’d already joined English Heritage before we left Australia.

                             Inner workings of the windmill. That centre post dates back to the 1400s

        I hadn't realised that windmills could turn around to face where the wind was blowing from! 

The wheel was how they moved it.

                                                                    They say this says 1627

                                                                       Pitstone Windmill

Then we headed back to Glen’s for a cuppa, and decided to go out for tea – we chose The Cottage, a lovely Italian restaurant in Leighton Buzzard’s oldest building – a beautiful Tudor house dating back to the early 1500s. We had an amazing meal, but soon afterward the jet lag hit again, and Lex and I once more wilted very quickly. We were in bed and sound asleep by 8.30!

                                               Lovely Italian restaurant The Cottage, in a 16th century Tudor building