Family Visits

We had two family visits:  Teresa and James in Wimborne and Matthew in London.

Having disembarked at Southampton, it should have been an easy train ride to Poole.  However, the Southampton station was very busy as a large group of people were transferring from cruise ships to trains.  Fortunately, nearly all of them were travelling in the opposite direction from Poole, i.e. towards London.  But there was a single queue for the ticket office and we had to wait in line in order to get our Britrail passes properly validated. 

Poole is about the same as I remember it from years ago.  We had some extra time so we took a look around the 'old town' on the other side of the railway tracks.  Strangely, I don't think I've ever been there before!  Along the way, we found an excuse to go into a Costa and have a morning cup of coffee.  This particular Costa permits dogs but they are supposed to stay in one section near the door.

One change is that Marks and Spencers is no longer in the Dolphin Centre having closed in 2022.  It was at that location for 50 years!

We took the #3 bus to Wimborne which dropped us off at the town square.  With a little help from Google Maps, we got our bearings and walked to Glendale Close in light rain.

The next day, Teresa and James suggested a visit to Kingston Lacy which is about 5 km north west of Wimborne.  It was a very interesting visit and it's well staffed with volunteers stationed in each room.  Each one gives a short talk on the points of interest in that particular room.

After touring the building, we walked through the extensive gardens and lawns.  Near the end, we spotted a robotic lawn mower.  It seemed to have lost its way - or perhaps it was trying to escape.  After some back and forth, it gave up and hid under some bushes.

A few days later (after our Canterbury visit) we took the train up to London's St Pancras station where we had arranged to meet Matthew at the famous statue of John Betjeman.  It worked out quite well as he had just arrived in London a couple of days earlier but had not yet started teaching his class so he had a bit of time to spare.  The weather was nice and sunny that day so we decided to walk over to Regent's Park.   The park was quite busy with lots of people jogging, strolling around, some with kids, some with dogs and a few on bicycles or scooters.  Here's the sculpture of Triton:

After an outdoor lunch and a walk through Bloomsbury, we returned to King's Cross Station and took the very fast LNER train to York.