To Dover

I ended up working 4.5 days last week which always helps the bank account. Had a pretty good week working in schools that I have been to before. And good schools with nice kids - always a bonus!

Thumbs up high speed train!

On Friday Christine and I went from work and met her sister Josephine at Clapham Junction. We grabbed  bite to eat then went to a free drinks night at our agency.  The agency we work for has it's own charity.  By working for them, part of the money they make from us supports the charity. Also, 4 times a year they take a team over to work directly with teachers.  They have locations in India and in Africa.  A team had just returned from India, so they gave a little presentation about some of the work they had done, and we enjoyed free snacks and drinks - win/win.

The ocean!! Oh how I have missed you!

Saturday morning we jumped on a train and a little over an hour later we were in Dover in the county of Kent. Our friend Jan (actually from Vancouver, went to UBC too!) lives in Kent and met up with us in Dover.
We stopped at Marks & Spencer to grab everything necessary for a delicious picnic: cheese, pita, crackers, tomatoes, wine, cookies, Christmas plates and cups on sale... We then started out map-less wander towards the cliffs. 


We walked along the beach and finally started climbing up to the cliffs. It was a rather long and very steep walk. Christine and Josephine were not huge fans of the hike, but it was sure worth it when we got to the top! The cliffs are stunning! There is a great view of the harbor where the ferry leaves for Calais, France.
We set up shop and enjoyed our picnic in the sun. The sun soon decided to leave and after our picnic we were all rather cold (the sweat from our climb didn't help matters), so we set off to find the castle.

Picnic!! Christine, Jan, me

Jan, Josephine, me, cliffs!

downhill to the castle

To get to the castle, we basically had to walk all the way back down to where we came from, cross town, then climb up the other local 'mountain'.  One can only imagine now the moaning coming from the sisters! But we all eventually made it to the top and wandered around the castle grounds.

We were too late in the afternoon to take a tour, but still enjoyed exploring on our own. After descending back in to town, we stopped at a pub to warm up before getting the train back to London.

I see the castle, just down the hill, across the valley, up the other side!

Sunday we went in to the city and watched the St Patrick's day parade. It was quite lively with never-ending pipe bands lots of leprechauns. Luckily the rain stopped just as the parade began, making it quite a bit more enjoyable. I even got a key chain for heckling some bobbies!
A wonderful weekend, with some great friends. I am looking forward to more weekend city breaks!