Day 5 of England adventure: I got up early and met Pete & Emma for breakfast before we met up with Pete’s parents Jacky & Bob. I had more English sausage (yum)… the kind they cook anyway… didn’t get the other kind of “English Sausage” if ya know what I mean. ;-) (can you tell I’m on one today??). Anyway, Jacky & Bob were kind enough to take my HUGE suitcase and another bag home with them so all I had was my purse and backpack to take on the train on my journey that afternoon to their house. Emma & Pete headed home to get packed for their honeymoon and I spent the day with Lorraine and her boyfriend Fish (also Pete’s good friend). We headed to see the Warwick castle – to go through it properly. It was just so amazing, I couldn’t get over it. So well taken care of all these years. We saw a man demonstrate why a sword and arrows are so deadly – he put on a good show and picked on a guy from New Jersey. Then we looked through the rooms of the castle, climbed the Mound and saw the view of the whole valley, which was really breath-taking. So green and lush. We ate lunch, then wondered into the town of Warwick to so a bit of shopping. We came across the church in town and saw that. We had the silly notion of climbing the clock tower. We weren’t warned about what a climb it was – and VERY close quarters. Not even room for two people to pass and the stairs were steep and severely spiral. We made it to the top, all of us feeling like we’d climbed 500 steps instead of the mere 160. Steppers don’t have anything on these steps!! UGH. The climb was well worth the view from the top though. Saw the castle from a distance and all the buildings around the town. By the time we got down the stairs again, our legs felt like total rubber. Almost felt like we couldn’t stand. But we managed to make it to a pub and have a much needed drink. Lorraine and Fish were a lot of fun to be around and really enjoyed my day with them. They dropped me off at the train station and we found out the rails were having maintenance done, so I was to get to Birmingham by bus. No big deal, but it started off my long journey with a little stress. I made it to Birmingham Moore St station, and then had to take a taxi to Birmingham New St station. I could have walked, but didn’t want to take chances on getting lost. Got to the station and found out my train was going to be over an hour late. I had 3 more stops to make, so I found out that I was going to miss my last connection, so I went to the help desk and they gave me a voucher for a taxi for my last leg of the journey. Being alone, in a foreign country and never riding trains before, it was just a tad more than I could deal with right then. I’m so glad I had Jacky’s number so I called her to let her know that I’d be brought by taxi from Doncaster. Just the sound of her lovely, caring voice almost made me cry. I’m funny that way – I can deal with a lot, but then if someone gives me a hug or hear a nice voice, then I start to cry. Anyway, a 3.5 hour journey took me just over 6 hours. I was beat by the time I got to Bob & Jacky’s and I can tell you, I don’t think I’d been more relieved to get anywhere before in my life! :-) They made me feel right at home and spoiled me rotten while I stayed there. Two of the best people I’ve met in my life! Day 6 was a relaxing day – and man, did I need it. It was a Bank Holiday in England, so we all just kicked back and visited, etc. Just really enjoyed the company and the rest I got. Was able to rest up for Day 7 & 8. ;-)