Trip to England

[Shaun @ Tru6]

It was something like a year or year and a half ago that I found a set of MK1 Scirocco wings (fenders) on FBMP. They looked to be great shape and the price was good. But they were in England. Given how rare these are and always open to adventure, I contacted our own Captain Ahab Jr and asked if he wouldn't mind having a look at them for me. My intent, if they were sound, would be to buy them if Mr. Ahab Jr. could hold them for me and then fly to England for both a much needed vacation and to bring the fenders back with me on the plane home.

Mr. Ahab Jr. was gracious and had a look and with the magic on the Internet, confirmed they were worth buying in real time and he left with the fenders in hand. Perfect! Now I just need to get to England. My last vacation was 2019 to Paris Trip to Paris so I was due. But the constant flow work coming and not being able to hire technicians brings us to 2023, starting off strong with a new part timer doing great work, I figured way back in February I could get them in May. And here we are.

People like Mr. Ahab Jr. are what make our community so special, unique and in some ways a family. His driving 45 minutes to look at the fenders and then holding them for me and then planning a better 3 days in England than I could possibly imagine, seriously, could not have envisioned a better trip, make our little world pretty magical.

And so, in pics, my trip to England. I took 996 pics and will be editing and posting over a few days.

Arriving at Paddington Station from the airport train. After a lot of research I settled on Paddington in London for an AirBnB principally because it's a nice area and so easy to get to Heathrow as well as everywhere else in London. Love the Underground.






I took a redeye and arrived 2 Saturday's ago. That day was something of a wash checking in to my flat and relaxing. Sunday was all about the British Museum. Spend over 5 hours there and could have spent another 5.

Weather was either best expected the week I was there though it did rain a little one day to provide an authentic trip to England Experience.

[A930Rocket]

Keep writing about your trip and thanks to Capt. Ahab!

[Shaun @ Tru6]

The British Museum should be one of the great wonders of the world, all that has it collected and expertly displayed. Forget taking a class on World History, just walk through the museum for a few days, study and read the displays and you will take away more world history than any text book will give you. I headed first to Egyptian History and spent a lot of time here.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

[Shaun @ Tru6]

[Shaun @ Tru6]

[mjohnson]

Paddington is cool, though TBH I liked it before the recent renovation. Typically working out of the Reading area (OK, Aldermaston/AWE) I've been there more than a few times.

St Pancras is beyond awesome - and is very near the British Museum. The Booking Office bar is a must see. And drink.

All of those Victorian era train barns are wonderful. There was a sense of making things pretty at the same time as making them useful...

(wife's in London tonight doing work at Whitehall and I'm kind of jealous - we let the kiddo's passport expire and let's just say that a renewal isn't as easy as it once was so therefore we're at home)

[Yorkie]

The Egyptians are going to be demanding all those artifacts back soon. Museums are somewhat angst ridden right now about displaying stuff from other countries that is not on loan.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by Yorkie

The Egyptians are going to be demanding all those artifacts back soon. Museums are somewhat angst ridden right now about displaying stuff from other countries that is not on loan.

That's a big issue these days and is perilous to debate. The U.S. has it own issues with Native American artifacts and remains.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Moving on to the Prints room, this one of Venice, hundreds of years ago.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Took pics of everything and more, the Prints room was one of my favorites. Also ancient Japan, China, etc. If you like history, you could spend days in the British Museum and still not get through everything thoroughly. Definitely a learning is fun kind of place.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

A few days in London was great but then it was off to the Cotwolds for 3 amazing days with Mr. Ahab Jr.

Walking around his village

[Bill Douglas]

Wow. Very nice. Thanks for the pic's.

[astrochex]

Thats tremendous Shaun, thank-you for sharing. Very nice photos.

Those are two bucket list items for me, the British Museum and Captain Ahabs “new” place. Is that a pub in the fifth village pic?

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Glad you are enjoying them. Going through them slowly, putting a few more up tonight. Paul, that's actually a brewery. Here's a blow up where you can see the spent grain.

The Capatain's home and village are otherworldly compared to the U.S. and that says something where we have just as old homes and neighborhoods here in the Boston area. England is very different from the U.S. in how it treats it's history. The U.S. is sand castles on the beach, erased and rebuilt by the tides of time. England is castles that have lasted for a thousand years. And in villages like his, new home construction looks exactly like the 1700s homes just down the street.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Wednesday night we and his son went to German car night at a local pub and met another Pelican there. Great company, food and cars. There isn't much car culture here in the Northeast so it's hard for me to make a blanket statement, but as you will see the next day, I think England might have a deeper car culture than we do here. Probably excepting for California. It's also less pretentious there based on my micro experience so you may want to take that with a grain of salt.

The cars here were many and varied, some completely restored, others just cool drivers. An F40 showed up but he wasn't allowed to stay, 'cause German car night.

Hard to take pics of the whole lot, maybe 75-100 cars were there. And only took a few, more talking at our picnic table than walking around, which as nice as the cars were, much more interesting and fun.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

To get from London to the Cotswolds I rented a VW Golf at Heathrow. Should have taken a few pics of it but it was really just a white Golf 4 door. With a stick. Because who doesn't like a challenge: driving on the wrong side of the road with the wrong arm shifting on 12 foot wide roads, that are two way and until you get to a super narrow 1 car only bridge, people don't slow down with just a foot or so between passing cars at 40-50 on country roads.

It was exhilarating, scary, nerve-racking, very fun and so on. The hardest part was placing the left front corner. Alamo, when giving me the car, said golf ball sized dents were ok as well as scuffed rims and tires which since I scuffed a curb at speed twice, can understand how they just don't worry about them. The dents thing was odd though.

2019 Golf is a great little car! Lot of torque and by the end of my stay I was getting pretty good at driving. getting into second was a little unnatural. Losing focus and turning into the wrong lane happened a few times, stuff like that. You really have to keep saying to yourself, steering wheel in the middle of the road. That helps a lot.

Web pics. My car was well optioned, really nice leather seats, not a base model.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

That can't be where I live, there is just too much sunshine in the photos

This was our ride to the German car night evening, my son's 1st car, a 1991 Audi 80 2.0ltr 16V, same engine as the Golf GTi from that era but in an Audi saloon FWD car body



Shaun, it was a busy fun 2.5 days but you forgot to mention on our way to the German car evening we spotted and followed the world's fastest shed that lives in the next village to us

https://www.google.com/amp/s/uk.motor1.com/news/359701/world-fastest-shed-video/amp/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_Shed

[flatbutt]

Nice Shaun. I have always loved visiting England and I had plenty of opportunity to do so as I worked for a British company. I totally agree with you about how England honors its past.

[masraum]

Ooooo, you got to see the Man Cave UK edition! That would surely have been the highlight of the trip!