Day 7 – June 30
Thursday was the last day we had anything planned or pre-booked. Today’s adventures were a boat ride to explore the “Jurassic Coast” and then meeting up with Rasa’s colleague Dai and his wife. The boat was leaving from Poole, a little bit further along the coast than Bournemouth (where we had been a few days earlier and where we would be meeting up with Dai) and since it had a precise departure time, so did we.
Day 6 – June 29
Honestly, today was the day around which this entire trip had been planned. Today was the day we were going to Paultons Park, home of Peppa Pig World. I’m not sure where we first heard about it, but once we did know it existed, Monki was determined to get us there. The park was about 20 minutes from where we’re staying and I was determined to get there early, like when the park opened, not having faith that it wouldn’t be crowded like Legoland was.
Day 5 – June 28
Tuesday, after Legoland, was supposed to be a rest day. In our planning, we knew we’d have been going strong for several days, sleeping in four different places in 5 nights, and so we figured that we’d take it easy before heading off to Peppa Pig world on Wednesday.
Except…
Day 4 – June 27
Monday morning came and Amy had to go to work. Luckily, we were up early enough to say good-bye and thank her and Clive once again for their generosity. We also had to say goodbye to the cats.
Day 2 – June 25
Waking up in Nottingham, we had to figure out our plans. Before we had parted the night before, I had declined John’s offer of attending a birthday party for the child of a friend of his so we were definitely Oxford bound, it was just a matter of how and when to best get there. We would spend the next few days staying with my old friend Amy and her husband Clive. I met Amy somewhere around 28-30 years ago when we both worked for the Groundlings in LA. I was a booth jockey and she was a stage manager. Since then, we’d kept in touch over social media, even managing to see each other once or twice since she’d moved to the UK. Now, she had graciously offered us all a piece of futon covered flooring in her craft room and we gladly took her up on the offer.
Prologue
Back in February or March, Rasa was informed of a conference in her field coming up in Manchester, England at the end of June. We talked it over and decided it would be a good idea to go. It would be her first in-person conference as a PhD student (due to the pandemic) and was scheduled to include a number of big names in her field as participants, including her unofficial supervisor (whom she would be able to meet in person for the first time).
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 