Two final visits

While we are now in the middle of packing up all our things and preparing for the move back to Norway, I haven't written anything about our two last visits.

My father and stepmother came over for my birthday, getting here two days before and leaving the day after. We went what has now been established as the usual route with a visit to Denton house, a trip to the city centre and so on. In addition, we decided that making a trip to a garden centre we had visited earlier would be fun. As suspected, my father was quite happy to wander around there and they ended up buying some anti-squirrel cages which we'll be bringing home for them, as they are somewhat large.

On my birthday, I got the kitchen machine I have been wanting for a while, a choice between a mountain walking trip or some power tools and later in the day, my mother told me I would get to buy a leather coat. As my father is quite interested in birds, we went to the Cotswald Falconry Centre. Keeping birds of prey is legal here in the UK and so we have seen a bunch of both the birds as well as the flying shows they do with them. Still, quite good fun.

Just two weeks ago, my brother and sister came visiting. They were supposed to be here a few months ago, but an icelandic volcano and an ash cloud made that not happen. They got here in the evening and we had a meal and managed to get through an impressive amount of our alcohol stash, which is just as good, since we are going home soon.

We originally had planned to go to Blenheim Palace, but ended up going to Windsor Castle instead. Very large grounds and impressive amounts of armour and weapons, but we are getting a bit jaded in that it is just yet another palace, cathedral or castle, even if they are very, very impressive. My siblings did some shopping in Windsor before we headed home again.

We also spent some time in Oxford itself for more shopping and of course a visit to Denton, complete with a pub visit in the nearby village before we put them on the coaches to Heathrow and Gatwick.