Photo-a-Day - March 2012 - Day 20: Before/After - England

Day 20:  Before / After:  Sonning-on-Thames to London


In 2006, my life-long dream of going to England came true.  So, okay, it wasn't perfect.
(1) My car, and I, had recently been rear-ended twice in one month and I was still in quite a lot of pain,
(2) I found out I was to go at the last minute so the only seat left on the plane was in the very last row of the plain--coach, of course.  Our seats didn't tilt back, while the seat in front of me was broken and was about six inches from my face the entire flight from California to London.
(3) I was going on business, stationed outside London in Reading, and had very little time non-working time.
(4)  England was in the middle of a heatwave with100+F degree temperatures.

I didn't care.  I was going to ENGLAND!!!  Fortunately, I had a wonderful corporate travel agent who understood my excitement and my request to please, please not put me in an American chain hotel.  Instead, she booked me, actually rather begged the hotel for it's last room, into the Great House in Sonning-on-Thames.  Even the fact that the room had no air-conditioning was tolerable thanks to a wonderful hotel staff who found me a large fan.  I was even staying in the oldest part of the hotel which dates back to Elizabeth I.

I worked during the day and, because I was there in June and the days were very long, wandered in the evenings, particularly to St. Andrews, dating back to 909 A.D., with it's beautiful interior, old gravestones, and actual lychgates, something I'd always wanted to see. 

But the best thing of all was my room.  Yes, it was HOT.  Yes, the sun woke me before 5 a.m.  BUT, I had a view of the hotel's rear grounds and of the Thames.  I could walk the footpath along the river, and even fulfilled another life-long dream of sitting on the bank of the Thames, reading Jane Austin.
 
Now the AFTER part of my story.  Friday came.  The hotel had a wedding party who'd booked the hotel and I had to move.  The travel agent booked me into the Tower Hotel in London.  The less said about that hotel experience, the better.  However, it was right next to The Tower of London.

The view from my room?
 
I had a very short time in London--Friday evening until mid-morning Sunday--but I made as much of it as I could.  From my first taxi ride being in a classic London Black Cab, to wandering around Sonning, seeing a thatched-roof house, looking at all the wonderful decorative brickwork, asking the hotel publican for pictures of ice and water, dinner at a restaurant in London located in the hull of a 19th century Danish Lightship, being able to view the Crown Jewels practically by my self because of the heat, to being caught in a downpour during a boat ride on the Thames and not caring, having the most wonderful tour driver who took me around London on Sunday morning before going to the airport. and so, so, much more.  

It's hard to believe six years have passed since my trip.  I don't know whether I'll ever have a change to return to England, but the memories, and dozens of pictures, I have are vivid and wonderful.