Beijing City – 24 December 2011

Tianamen Square was our first stop and beginning at the Qian Men Gate (1360) we walked past Chairman Mao's mausoleum and down to the Forbidden City (1420). Although, at 98 acres, Tianamen Square is the largest in the world it is only about half the size of the Forbidden City.

Much of the Emperor's old palace was refurbished in time for the 2008 Olympics so we enjoyed the benefit of all the work done for that deadline. The Forbidden City encompassed 999½ rooms as heaven was believed to had 1000 rooms. We never got to see the half room so not quite sure on how that would be translated into reality. But even with almost 1000 rooms, they still did not have space for a toilet, apparently.

With gate after gate, reception halls and finally the throne room and then the living quarters, it takes quite a while to simply walk from one end to the other, without taking in all the side rooms and courtyards etc Everything is in mirror-image symmetry as befits the Chinese ying-yang philosophy.

Leaving the Forbidden City we were taken to the first of our retail experiences, tea. After a most entertaining and quite tasty Chinese tea ceremony, and the opportunity to buy, it was time for another Chinese meal and then it was off to the Heavenly Temple, a circular structure built on an artificial hill.

More retail opportunities were provided when we stopped at the Silk Market which has diversified well beyond silk.

Our evening treat was a visit to another hotel where there is a show giving a taster of Chinese Opera. After an audio-visual overview of Chinese Opera, four well known scenes were described in English on the screen then played out by the actors accompanied by English sub-titles on side screens.

Although the costumes and painted masks were quite spectacular, the high-pitched female voices and the accompanying stringed music rather grated on our western ears. The best piece was an assassin and his target fighting one another in the “darkness” in a tavern. The choreography of the fight between these two who “could not see” one another but occasionally “bumped” into each other was very well done giving a most amusing effect.

China – 23 December 2011

The 10 hour flight to Beijing passed relatively quickly, thanks to the helpful check-in boss. When we checked in, we checked the leg room in our Air China flight. When we queried the answer of 44”, the helpful boss must have decided to make good her answer, by releasing 2 bulkhead seats (reserved to the last minute for families with a bassinet), and we were able to stretch out for a pretty good (although fitful) sleep.

As the flight approached Beijing, we kept looking for the Great Wall. As we learnt at school, that it can be seen from space, we expected it to be easily seen from the air. Sure enough, there it was, winding over the hill-tops, complete with guard-towers. It was exciting to get this first glimpse of a man-made phenomenon we had known of most of our lives.

What did surprise us, was how long it seemed to take to fly over Beijing. But when our tour guide explained that Beijing has the same area as Belgium, then that made sense. (She may have been a little over enthusiastic as web research says the area of Beijing is 16807 km2 compared to 30528 km2 for Belgium.)

Everyone on the tour was very happy to accept the offer of a couple of hours at the hotel to recover before the first optional outing which most of us took. We were taken to the old part of the city where the streets are too narrow for traffic so the transport through the Hu Tongs was via rickshaw.

The traditional, single level, dwellings behind the high walls fronting the streets are based on quadrangles with strict adherence to the compass points for the various room uses. We were privileged to be able to visit a private home to show us the typical arrangements inside a quadrangle and although the land value in central Beijing would make the place worth more the £1 million the residence did not include a toilet, public facilities on the street provide the necessary relief.

After a fairly average Chinese meal for dinner we walked across the road to the Olympic Green park and down to the Bird's Nest stadium. Although it was bitterly cold it was great to have a look at this fantastic structure a close quarters.

Before being delivered back to the hotel we had a wander along the food market selling all manner of deep-fried delicacies; rat, silk-worm cocoons, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, sea-horses and so forth.

Old London Town - 17 December 2011

It never ceases to amaze us, the things that one can discover in London. There is a set of stairs by Temple Station that features in many movies set in “old London town” and right beside them is a building that we have walked past many times and admired from outside and which has recently been opened to the public.

2 Temple Place is an absolute gem; a Victorian Gothic revival, built as the London abode of the Waldorf Astors when they moved to the UK from the USA. With the funds at his disposal, no expense was spared on the internal fit-out of this town-house which is now owned by Smith & Nephew.

The building has recently been opened to the public as a gallery, currently holding the contents of the William Morris gallery which is undergoing refurbishment. This means one can see fabulous tapestries, paintings, tiles, wallpapers and sundry other William Morris/Burne Jones items in absolutely sumptuous surroundings.

Having had our fill of Victoriana we wandered outside to see that the next-door Inner Temple area had been commandeered as a film set for a new production of Great Expectations. Unfortunately the “heavies” near the entrance made it abundantly clear that the public were not invited to watch!

Crossing the Thames we set off in search of a photo-op of the, under-construction, Shard tower and stumbled into the back of Borough Market. It is never a hardship to wander through this part of London and having sampled the mulled wine we set off for home.

Christmas in the country – 10 December 2011

Every year we enjoy visiting grand country houses, decorated for Christmas. This year, the real treat was that the house we visited today, was very close to our new home.

Hughenden Manor was the home of twice Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli. It is a lovely liveable home, and today looked even more inviting, decorated for Christmas. Disreili was a friend and confident of Queen Victoria, and she even visited him there.

A fascinating exhibition explained the war-time activity conducted at Hughenden. The house was requisitioned by the army, and used for top secret work by map-makers. Like Bletchley Park, nothing was known of what went on there until very recently. The exhibition showed photos of the rooms converted into map-making studios. The maps were drawn from aerial photographs, and maps produced here, were used for the D-Day landings and the Dambusters raid.

'Downton Abbey' - 3,4 December 2011

After watching every episode of Downton Abbey, we couldn't miss the opportunity of visiting 'Downton Abbey' aka Highclere Castle, open especially for Christmas.

Even though it is only an hour from home, we decided to make a weekend of it, and booked a night at the nearby 'Bell at Boxford'.

A circular drive starting near Boxford, took us through lovely countryside and many beautiful villages. The best architecture had to be in the two big towns of the area – Hungerford and Marlborough. Both were prosperous market towns, it is said that 200 coaches a week passed through Hungerford in the 18th & 19th centuries, travelling from London to Bath. We had never properly explored this town before and it is really delightful, with a stylish Victorian town hall.

The road from here led through the Savernake Forest. This is a private road (although available to the public) and has deteriorated considerably since we last visited in 2007. The large and frequent pot-holes made driving with a small sports car very difficult.

Marlborough is larger than Hungerford , with wonderful 17th century buildings. It was delight to walk around the shops admiring the Christmas decorations.

Not far from here was Aldbourne, the best of the villages we visited. A large green, handsome church and cute houses, several pubs; it was a great spot to stop in. The church has two hand-operated fire-engines donated in 1778 after a disastrous fire in the previous year.

On Sunday we visited Highclere Castle, along with hundreds of keen Downton Abbey fans. The Christmas decorations were rather minimalist, but it was still interesting to see the castle again, as we now had the TV series to place in the various rooms.

Chorleywood – 26-27 November 2011

Having just finished our move to the country, Saturday was the ideal day to do the explore the town centre. There are no empty shops here, the town is well cared for, although not full of lovely historic buildings, it has lots of cafes, and all the useful things like a Library and Medical Centre.

According to the Web, Chorleywood was voted as one of the 'happiest' places to live, in a 2004 government survey. More recently, it has been rated as one of the 'least deprived' areas. We have certainly found it a pleasure to come home to.

Sunday was a glorious day, so we caught the train to Chesham, and walked the Chess Valley walkway, back to Chorleywood. The beautiful balmy winter weather seemed to get lots of other walkers out of doors, as we've never met so many people on a walk before.

The valley is known to have been settled from at least Roman times and the river provides the ideal conditions for watercress cultivation with one commercial cress farm still operating. Just before we arrived at the cress farm there was a free-standing brick tomb seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

In the past there was a church nearby but in 1777 the current occupant decreed that his body be buried here, well away from the church-yard as he wanted to make sure that his bones did not get mixed with others come the resurrection. His cunning plan was somewhat foiled when his wife was buried in the same tomb some 30 years later.

Lunchtime in London - 23 November 2011