London & The Amersham Charter Fair

This is part of a series of blog posts recalling my overseas adventures in the United Kingdom in fall 2015. The first of three weekends was a nice study in contrasts.

Saturday, Sept 19:

Leeds Castle, the cliffs of Dover, Canterbury Castle, Greenwich Park, and a river cruise starting at Greenwich Pier and ended at Embankment Pier not too far from Westminster. Yes, there were times stuck on a tour bus or waiting for a bus, but most of the day was spent walking around. In some cases, like the bus tour the day before, where we alighted was often a good long walk away from where we wanted to be, which itself was a bit of a hike. By the end I was hating life, and hating Ann for arranging such a busy day. I got some nice pictures, though.

Sunday, Sept 20:

Began with our first trip on the Underground, London’s subway system. We needed the Metropolitan Line, and that meant finding Barbican Station, and not St. Paul’s. Turns out, it was an easier sort of walk than we thought. But to get to our stop, we had to ride the line nearly to the end, so we sat for about an hour. Our stop was in Buckinghamshire, just outside of London. We were meeting a friend of Ann’s named Phil Nixon who lived in an area called Latimer Road, near the town of Chesham.

The day with Phil is perhaps my favorite one in London so far. It wasn’t the stereotypical touristy stuff; we had nice company with which to chat; and we got to see a part of England we might not have otherwise seen. A lot of great pictures were had, some of which are on Facebook now.

We met Phil’s personable son Rory, his neighbors, and a small dog named Mazie. We had a half-pint at a local pub, an early afternoon tea, a nice tour through two very British home gardens, a drive through the countryside including some hamlets in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire counties.

The day ended with a quick trip to the Amersham Charter Fair. Apparently, through some historical quirk in how it was founded, the town is required to have an annual fair or lose its charter.  It’s much like the fairs here in the states, except the town has no fairgrounds so instead it takes over the main street much to the chagrin of the small businesses there.

I really enjoyed the detour into the quiet and picturesque part of southern England.