Went to England in July

Added: Looks as though I forgot to publish this short post once I got the pictures downloaded.

At the end of July, we went to spend a week in England. The formal reason was to babysit between the end of the school year and the beginning of a sort of day camp at a nearby school. It turned out that C. had decided to leave her job and was therefore free that week when she hadn't expected to be. Her new job started when we left. It was perfect timing.
We went to pick up Ch. after her last day at school, stopping to say hello and have lunch with G's mother. I love seeing her and we had a nice, but short visit. Then we off to pick up Ch. and face heavy traffic on the return trip, which ended up taking more than 2 hours.

 On the weekend, we visited Warwick Castle, which has been transformed into something between a really good cultural visit of a Norman-period castle that children could enjoy and an effort to be a Disney-like attraction. The girls tried their hands at archery and did very well. There was a birds of prey show, an archery show, fun and games and lots of little stands where one could spend more money. The weather was beautiful and we strolled around the grounds, had a picnic lunch, and a very nice day.

We also visited a petting farm, with pony rides for Ch. and A. It was a rainy day, though, and we went to a nice pub for lunch.
On our return trip, the traffic was horrendous as we drove down to Dover. The motorway was cut off and transformed into an immense parking lot for trucks waiting to board the ferries. We had to drive through towns; the detour signs were not always in view or very clear in their directions.