like a pendulum do

From Dublin we flew back to Gatwick, where Lydia helped me get my ticket for the correct train to Watford. Her train was leaving just before mine from the same platform, so we had a few more minutes to chat. She got an ugly dirty train. I got a shiny green pretty one. Hah!

At Watford Junction I was met by a speeding Max and laughing Tabs, followed by their dad. When we got to their home, I was greeted by a wet tongue in my ear. Joanne should have been making dinner, but.... oh, right, the tongue was Amanita's, never mind. We had the first in a series of yummy dinners, then were off to bed so we could be ready
for a busy Saturday.

Around noon on Saturday we were ready to head into London to see the first stage of the Tour de France. I know next to nothing about bicycle racing, but it was fun to be in the crowd of spectators watching the cyclists in their brightly-colored spandex whizzing past. After we had had enough of that, we set off for the Victoria and Albert Museum, only to arrive right after they had closed for the day. Undaunted, we dashed across the road to the Natural History Museum instead. We only had about 15 minutes there before they closed.



We hadn't been able to take the train to London because of station closures, so we got back to the car and drove home.


On Sunday morning we set out in the direction of the Cotswalds. I had wanted to see a standing stone circle and Mike had suggested the Rollright Stones. Little did we know at the time that the reason he knew about these stones was that they're mentioned in a Half Man Half Biscuit lyric. *insert eye-rolling smilie here* Anyway, since I wasn't being picky, they were dandy standing stones for a visit. When we arrived there (near Chipping Norton) we got out our picnic and had lunch near the stones.


We noticed a silver-haired man standing in the center of the circle with his hands on a woman's head, rocking her back and forth. There was some other odd activity going on - a guy with some metal rods sort of wandering around with some concentration. After our picnic, the man saw the kids and asked if they'd like to learn to use his dowsing rods. Of course they were eager to give it a try. They picked it up immediately and we successfully commanding the rods in no time.











Next Joanne had a try, then me. I wasn't very good at it at all. The man said I was trying t0o hard or something. Oh well, I did get the rods to move some of the time. It was fun to mess around with them, anyway. Mike got them to move by saying "ghostbusters" instead of "thank you". There was a beautiful patch of red poppies growing in the field just past the stones. It made me wish Zannah were there to enjoy them with me.