It’s unseasonably warm……..

We went to Southend on Sea today ( the last place for us to explore in Essex)..we’d been avoiding it because apparently it’s ‘tacky’, we decided to go because it’s the middle of winter and we thought it would be the best time to visit. Well as you can see from the photo, the streets were quite crowded… imagine what it would be like in the middle of the season? The South American buskers were busking and to keep warm were wearing feathers!....the buildings also sprout feathers! We’ve decided we’ve ‘done’ Essex now and so have to venture further in our weekly explorations, mind you London has a million faces yet to explore and beckons constantly. Meanwhile “life as a servant” continues and the other week we visited (sans camera unfortunately) Faulkbourne Hall – pronounced “Thornburn Hall”(??????) with our employers, who had been invited to lunch. It was rather impressive…Faulkbourne Hall has been declared the finest 15th century mansion now existing in the county, we didn’t get to stay for lunch, but were invited to wander around. We had a pub lunch down the road – not half bad – and not a bad way to spend a winter work day! January is the month the Brits hate most….. all the excitement of Christmas is over, the New Year’s resolutions are starting to crumble and it’s still a long way until summer and the next holiday break….Apparently Monday 21st January is the blackest day of the year for most Brits for the aforementioned reasons….Nine months down the track for us, we are still a bit in the honeymoon phase, BUT we are starting to feel the effects of driving, shopping and mixing constantly with 80 million other people. Except when we are at Mill Green Park, we constantly have to avoid banging into people as we walk (or drive!)……..miss you heaps and wish you were here xxxxxxxx
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