Lori, Michelle, and I met up on Tuesday for a quick lunch at one of my favorite cafes in Nottingham, Ugly Bread Bakery. We all enjoyed our lunch, each one of us trying something new. I got this roasted pepper sandwich, Michelle tried one of the great pizzas, and Lori tried these pita sandwich...well it was more of a taco. Next up on our list was a lonnnnggg walk to Wollaton Hall. Jeff and I have been here a few times. If you don't remember this place, it was where Dark Knight Rises (Batman) was filmed. It was about an hour walk, and very enjoyable as the weather held off on our walk to the hall. I think they were pretty impressed, especially the outside "wow" factor. The gardens were beautiful, and we were able take a stroll around the lake, which I had never done before. It was a nice trail around, mostly covered by trees which made it extra pretty. Although, it was sad that the deer were hiding, as it is a deer park as well as the hall. The inside of the building, which is a natural history museum, had changed a lot since the last time I went there. They took away a few of the exhibits, put in a tea room, and added guided tours (for money). So it still looks like they are making lots of changes at the hall.
Wayne Manor..I mean Wollaton Hall & Deer Park
There was a tree in one of the halls that asked what you liked about the hall, and I loved this sweet little answer. Love little kids! The picture to the right is Michelle pretending to be Batman.
This was BEFORE the squirrel tried to attack us. No...really. It was charging at us. We screamed and ran away.
Love this view! You can see Wollaton Hall in the background
We began our journey back, the weather started to look a bit sketchy. We kept going, but I think put our umbrellas up/down at least 5 times. HA! At one point, it was starting to hail, and we debated grabbing the next bus to head into the city centre. We pushed through, and I'm glad we did as we ended up at a pub that I had never been into. Lori and Michelle had a cider, which was yummy and I grabbed a pint I had never had before. I am excited to take Jeff back to this pub, as the restaurant portion looked amazing. It was in the back of the building, lit up with icicle lights and it almost looked like a cave. You know how Jeff and I are with our caves...
We grabbed some items at the grocery store, and then headed back to our flat to relax before dinner. Michelle snuggled up with Mackey and took a "quick" nap while I started dinner. We had a great meal, although Jeff was unable to join us as he had a late meeting. Bummer!
Mackey doesn't care if you're allergic or not...he does what he wants.
Wednesday, was Lori and Michelle's last day in England. They flew out of Manchester on Thursday and headed to Copehhagen, Denmark. Michelle is studying abroad for the next 6-weeks, so that is really exciting she gets to continue her European adventure! But back to Wednesday's adventures...I took Lori and Michelle and Derby for an afternoon day trip. We had pretty much done every attraction there was left to do in Nottingham, so we decided to try a new city.
We got into Derby via the bus. The bus was on its best behavior as it was only a 20-25 minute bus ride, and not the dreadful 45 minutes that it can be. We walked around the city for a bit, tried to go into the cathedral, but it was closed. We hopped into Primark, one of my favorite cheap stores. I think Michelle enjoyed it, as she picked up a couple items. We headed into the mall to pick up some candy that Lori and Michelle really like that is only in England. Then we were on our way to the Royal Crown Derby, where we had a factory tour of how the china is made! I was pretty excited to do this, as I had been to the Denby Pottery stores on site (located outside of Derby) before, but never the "fancy" brand in the city.
Definitely a small, but mighty factory
No pictures allowed, which was a bummer. Completely understandable as people were working, and that would be EXTRA annoying for tourists to be snapping photos of you when you are trying to do your job. We got to watch the entire process, the molding, kilning process, smoothing, and decorating. It was really interesting, especially since they use liquid gold on many of their pieces. It was crazy to see the gold when painted on, as it just looks brown. Once it dries, they buff it out and it shines. It was amazing! We definitely understand why one teacup and saucer costs 50 pounds ($75). So much goes into the process, and many of it is inspected and created by hand. We watched one lady use these decals, where she had warmed the plates, moistened the decal, and placed it perfectly around the rim of the plate. To meet quota (and get paid accordingly) she had to complete each plate in between 3 and 4 minutes. If it didn't meet expectation, the plate would come back to her the next day to fix. She would not get paid for working on the piece twice. How do they know it was her piece, you might ask? Each plate has an initial on the back to tell inspectors who was in charge of that one. That makes each plate Royal Crown Derby makes individual and unique. If you own any pieces, check out the little initials on the back of the product to see what I mean. I should have taken a picture in the factory shop.
I had this all planned out in my head that following the tour we would have afternoon tea. Unfortunately, they told me I had to book a day in advance. Which, I'm not going to lie, made me really mad because their website or the lady I was corresponding with through email did not say anything about. So, if you are reading this Royal Crown Derby...take this as my review and constructive criticism! Michelle and Lori were very understanding with my honest mess up, so we just had a cup of tea and a sweet to hold us over until our early dinner. It was fun still being able to eat and drink out of the cups and plates we had witnessed being made minutes before.
Tea and sweets. Is there any other way?!
Jeff met up with us in Derby, and we went out for an earlier dinner (given we had only ate sweets since we woke up...whoops!). I was pretty excited to try the Silk Mill, which is a famous pub in Derby. We had a couple pints, and the food was excellent. We all left will full bellies. Lori and Michelle were able to experience riding in a car on the "wrong side of the road" or as locals say, "the correct side of the road." We dropped them off at their hotel, as they had a 5:20AM train ride in the morning to head up to Manchester, to then get to Denmark. I can only imagine how tired they were!
What a great couple of weeks it has been, seeing and hanging out with so many loved ones. I can't believe we had 17 visitors (2 of them came more than once) over our time here. And 9 of them were in the last two weeks! That is basically an average of a person a month! CRAZY! A big thank you to everyone who came to experience "our world" while living abroad. It was fun to travel, show you our favorite spots, eat some of our favorite foods, and enjoy each others company! See you in a couple years when we do it again.....calm down, I'm joking.
On to the next adventure...
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