A visitor's guide to Guildford

In the Easter-week, my aunt Marit came from Oslo to visit us. It's been over a month since the last visit now, it's almost been quiet. Tollef was away working in Amsterdam for a couple of days, so the first day it was just the two of us. We went shopping sports clothing and food, and had a rainy but nice walk around Denton House, before Marit had to be the stable hand's helper and help taking the horses in.

On Wednesday Tollef was back, and we went to the city centre, visiting the Covered Market and ShakeAway as the compulsory visits, and more of the shopping centres. I found myself some needed work clothing, before Tollef and I left Marit to do a bit more of shopping on her own. Despite being sunny, the weather was quite cold, and it was good to get back home to a hot cup of tea. As an experienced English citizen and tea-drinker, we had some cups of tea during this visit, we are not always good enough at putting the kettle on.

On Thursday I was off work, and we had planned a trip to Jane Austen's House Museum and Guildford, where Marit lived when she was here. Tollef had gotten a severe cold after the trip to the city centre, so he and Odin stayed home, while Marit and I left quite early heading east. The Jane Austen's House Museum is a museum that is set up in the house where Jane Austen spent her last years, before she died from illness. She lived there with her mother, sister and a friend, and they loved it there. The house kept several original furniture and general furniture from the time period, as well as writings and accessories from Jane Austen. After the visit there we had lunch in Cassandra's tea house across the street, which was very nice.

From Chawton we went on to Guildford, the university city where Marit studied. We went to the Friar Square shopping centre, and the main shopping streets. Unfortunately, the castle keep in the city centre was closed due to frost damage. But at least it had a lovely garden that we got to see. We also went up to see the cathedral, which was very different from all the other cathedrals that we have seen so far. Most of all it was more modern, as they started building it in he 1930s. It was very nice though, and I really like the gold angel on the roof.

On the way home, traffic reports warned us of queues on the main roads, and it was also heavy rain and even hails. We ended up taking a detour around Staines and Windsor, a very nice detour despite the weather. Safely back in Oxford we did some shopping, and Marit could stock up on some Indian ready meals, before we got back home. A very nice three days before the Easter weekend got here!

Karianne