It feels like home, but it’s also a holiday. And I’d never thought I’d feel so at home in another country. Not that I ever was homesick either, I loved all the school camping trips I made as a kid. But anyway, I fell in love with England. Last summer I stayed there for a month.
As a teacher I’m blessed with the six weeks off at the end of a school year, which by then you really need. So when Chris Lintott (zookeeper Chris), who’s co presenting BBC’s Sky at Night, told me Patrick Moore wanted to interview me for their TV show, I was thrilled to hear I’d be spending some time in the Great Britain and I started to believe what he had told me earlier about press attention.
I’ve been to England before, but not for four whole weeks. The weekends I’d spent there were filled with meeting ‘zoo-friends’ and seeing We Will Rock You. I now planned to do both and more. The BBC crew works from Sir Patricks’s home in Selsey, which is only a half-an-hour-train-plus-few-minutes-taxi-trip from Portsmouth, where my dear friend Edd is living. It was a very relaxed day, the sun was shining and the taxi driver told me funny stories (which shall remain untold) of people (who shall remain unnamed) visiting Patrick before. Of course the interview didn’t take that long and after a few takes my ‘work’ was done. We had dinner at the wonderful Farthings and I travelled back with Chris, as he needed the same train as me. Chris told me about his study and I admire him for his hard work. He’s also very funny and probably has a singing talent which I’ll never hear as he “values my friendship too much.” He had to get out before the train went on to Portsmouth, where Edd’s place was mine for the summer too.
Edd is one of the special friends I met on the Galaxy Zoo forum too. He’s not only a brilliant astronomer, he also got the talent of explaining all that fascinating but hard stuff in such simple terms that a ten year old would understand. But most of all he’s always there for me. Another one of those friends is Graham. Graham is amazing. He understands me and he doesn’t get annoyed when I’m annoyingly enthusiastic about something. And: he loves Queen too. In that case you can’t not have been to their musical We Will Rock You, so we went together. It was my second time and it was as overwhelming as three years ago.
I love London anyway. Did I already mention that? I’m not exactly a city girl, but I love the English cities I’ve been to. Oxford. Cambridge. Gloucester. Manchester. And London. I love the parks, I love the tube and I love the people. We had a lot of get-togethers in pubs in London, me and my zoo-friends. And this one – again nice and warm – day, when we were sitting outside in our favourite pub called The Union, the Dutch media found out about my story. We just ordered lunch but by the time all the (live) radio interviews were done and the journalists were writing for their papers instead of calling me, it was time for dinner! Both batteries of my two phones were empty and my diary was full. My friends were very supportive, but we had to do this meet-up again.
And we did. We also went for a picnic, we had a special tour when visiting Jodrell Bank and some nights I stayed with Geoff and Annie. I can’t remember what the exact reasons were, but it was nice. Geoff and I fed the ducks (I love ducks) who are practically living in his garden. And Annie and I sat in her kitchen after a tour of her house, full of creative things. They are both very sweet (zoo) friends too. And so is Tommy. Tommy is crazy as well. He brings a blanket instead of an umbrella to stay dry and he makes me laugh a lot. When Chris had the idea of going out for dinner with Edd and me and some other friends, I called them and luckily they were all spontaneous too.
And I didn’t even mention all my friends yet. And those are just a few of the many highlights of my holiday in the land where they drive on the wrong side of the road, where they have all these little coins instead of the euro, where they have a funny language with words they only pronounce half (I mean, shouldn’t ‘Greenwich’ be written as ‘Grenich’?!), where they have two taps in their bathrooms instead of one and where they tell you to mind the gap all the time… I love it!
Edd took me to the Isle of Wight, where I took this picture…
… And he took this one.
I’ve been a tourist in London…
… Where I also took this picture of the Eye.
Here’s Adam, me and Graham in the Union. The picture was taken by Peter.
Geoff, Tommy, me, Edd and Annie having dinner.
Edd and me on my last night (of that summer) in Portsmouth. Picture credit: me. (Really!)
And we were up in the Spinnaker Tower then, to have a look at that nice city.
(Picture credit: me again).
One Comment
Great times Hanny Honey. Yeah, I’m still carrying my blanket around, just incase it rains.
Chat soon,
Tommy x
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