Southampton, England, UK - August 15th-16th, 2009

As Nic and I became closer workmates, I was curious to know where exactly she grew up. Given that she has lived here all her life, I figured she grew up in a quaint country village – proper English-style. Eric and I were about to find out.

We took the train down to Southampton Airport Parkway on Saturday afternoon. The train took a little over an hour and was very straightforward. As soon as we detrained, Nic was waiting to take us to the small town of Romsey to meet her brother and soon to be sister-in –law. We walked around the cute, cobblestone streets stopping to hear the history of certain landmarks along the way. The convent where Nic went to secondary school was one of the stops along the way. It is no longer a school and the nuns have been shipped out due to unsafe building structure. The school sits on a really lovely little park with a winding path. The path crosses a creek that then leads to one of the main streets. Set-back from the street that leads into town lives a famous chef. Any guesses? Gordon Ramsey! He wasn’t home, but his gardener was there and apparently his gardener gets paid quite well; he drives a Mercedes!

We grabbed some olives and artichokes just as the farmer’s market was closing up for the day and headed to Wellow – Nic’s hometown.

Jan and Calvert were so welcoming and made us feel right at home. Their home on Chichester Road was close to what I imagined - a quaint country house, but in a neighborhood. The houses were rather close together, but were not cookie-cutter like the neighborhoods that I grew up around. We spent the early evening enjoying the unusually sunny weather and playing croquet in the backyard. It was then time to feast on more meat I have ever had on my plate along with a variety of salads. Everything was so yummy! The rest of the evening we chilled outside until the temperature dropped. We then moved the party indoors and played Articulate until the early morning hours. Articulate is similar to Taboo (but there are no words that you aren’t allowed to say in order to get your partner (or team) to guess the name, object, place, etc. written on the card. The game proved quite challenging for Eric and I since many of the people and places were British specific and so of course we had not really heard of them. It made the game that much more fun and interesting though!

Sunday we took a long walk through the New Forest which is right outside of Nic’s village. The New Forest is huge at 93,000 acres and interestingly enough, it is neither new nor a forest. It is over 900 years old and less than half of it is actually woodland (courtesy of The New Forest website). A few horses were the only animals we saw on our trek even though pigs, cattle and donkeys can be found roaming freely in the forest.

Our lunch at The Lamb following the walk was much deserved. We soaked up more of the English sun as we swallowed down cider, beer, a ploughman’s and a salad. After lunch, we made our way back to the Douglas’ for tea, a delicious cake and one (or ten) last round of croquet.

Fully satiated, beaten at croquet by Graham yet again and tired, we headed back to London Sunday afternoon after a great quick trip to Southampton.

The BBQ table and a few croquet action shots: