Boisterous Buffoonery in Bedford

I woke on Saturday morning- earlier than I would perhaps have liked to on my first day of the holidays! I managed to get organised and ready and headed to St. Pancras station on the Underground train, to catch the overground train. I somehow managed to choose a carriage on the underground which had the distinct pungent smell of filth. One of London's homeless had made his way onto the train. I kept walking through the carriage until I was as far away from the stench as I could- which everybody else also did until the part of the carriage I was in filled up, and they had no choice but to share his space. Not pleasant... not pleasant at all!

I arrived at St. Pancras station and found a ticket machine; collected my tickets and proceeded to head for the board which tells you which platform your train is leaving from. It read PLATFORM 1, so I headed in the right direction and found the correct platform, but couldn't see where the carriages were labelled. I saw someone who worked there and just asked - he said to climb aboard and sit anywhere. I double checked it was actually going to Bedford- thankfully it was. My ticket said my train leaves at 10am so I was relieved I had made it with 10 minutes to spare. WRONG! The train left about 45 seconds after I had sat down! Stoked I made it. Although I later found out there are always trains and I could have hopped on a later one had I missed it. 

I passed the time by surfing Facebook on my iphone and chatting online to a few friends back home and finally arrived in Bedford at 10.45am. I easily spotted Ian and Portia who were there to collect me. It was really lovely being greeted at the station and not having to find my own way! 

Ian and Portia had planned plenty of fun for my weekend in Bedford, starting with a visit to IKEA - just for fun. None of us needed anything, but IKEA is so much fun just to wander around in. It's my idea of a theme park! I came away with three coloured handled paring knives for £1.62 and a dish brush with a suction cap for £1.20. Awesome. 

Welcome to IKEA... 

Ian and Portia get raunchy in the office

Ian takes a public shower...

Then Ian does some cleaning, much to Portia's surprise!

Sarah's got her hat on, hip-hip-hip-hooray!

After *many* photos doing various things in IKEA showrooms, we moved on to a shopping centre where we found a Wetherspoons Pub for lunch and wandered around a shopping centre in Milton Keynes. We finished up our adventure for the afternoon with a trip to Tesco to buy "supplies" for the evening. We needed Malibu, Juice and Champagne so we could recreate a "Brian Ave" cocktail that evening. 

Ian... creating the Brian Ave masterpiece...

Cheers, Brian Ave!

We also ended up buying an easter egg each- but when you're offered a deal "Buy one, get two free", how on earth can you say no? So we got three Creme Egg boxed mug and egg sets which only cost us £6!! Amazing bargain. We ventured back to Portia's mum's place again (which is huge- Ian was saying 9 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms; it's a beautiful old Victorian place) and chilled for a bit before heading out to a local pub for dinner where I had the best pub dinner I've had since arriving in England. It was a beef chilli salad served in a deep fried flour tortilla bowl. Nom-ness. We finished the evening by watching "The Hangover", drinking Brian Ave cocktails and having an early easter! I think I've now seen that movie five times and it still cracks me up! Bring on the sequel! 

Happy Easter!!

Hooray for Easter egggggggs!

Amazing pub meal! And Mixed Berry Kopperburg Cider... a combination of Ribena and Tixylix... mmmm!

On Sunday morning we piled into Portia's Mum's car with Portia's mum, Liz, her brother, Max, Ian and Portia and travelled to Cambridge. What an amazing place. There was so much to see! Beautiful (huge) old buildings and cobbled streets- amazing. After walking around for a while we found the men who organise the punting trips on the river Cam and Ian got a quote. We walked further along and came across another company and Ian asked if he could do a better price than the £40 we had just been quoted, but no- apparently £40 was lower than the norm- and they couldn't better it. We got a little further and saw another guy advertising punting. Ian said "You can't better 40 quid, can you?" and would you believe, the man snuck us around the corner all secret-like and said he could offer a "special deal", just for us- £35.... Take it or leave it. We took it. 

Just a Punt on the River Cam

The flat bottomed punts were really comfortable- and our punter was outstanding. He had awesome control of the boat and excellent knowledge of what he was showing us which stretched all the way along the river Cam. Evidently, the public can rent their own punt and go out on the river. It is easy to tell them apart from the men who *know* what they're doing because they aren't crashing into everyone else or making them look like they will capsize. Our skipper (??) told us later it takes 6 heavy mean rocking the boats violently to actually capsize them. It's been tried and tested! 

Pleased we weren't in that guys boat! He fell off more than once!

On Sunday morning we ventured out Woburn Safari Park in Woburn. It is a park full of safari animals that you drive around in your own car! What an awesome idea to have somewhere like that in England - who needs to go to Africa!? It was really awesome- the animals seemed really happy and were relatively free to roam. The carnivorous animals were obviously kept separate. It was a bit like Jurassic Park with huge gates that opened- and once there were about ten cars inside, the gate behind you would close and a gate in front of you would open. It was really cool as the animals would sometimes come right up to the car to have a look! We had a pack of Bongo's who were right next to us, got a fright from

something and ran away which was a really cool experience. We went around the park and took heaps of photos. We then decided to stop for our picnic (in a picnic specific area- not alongside the animals haha)

At the park entrance.

I love the dainty way this Rhino is standing!

That't right - it is a BEAR and he walked *right in front* of the car! Aghhhhh!

Much like the lion did... insane to be so close!

Nawwwww!

OMG! You did WHAT??? (ooh... I think I peed a little....)

After lunch we decided to drive around the park a second time. On the day you buy your ticket you can choose to drive around the park as many times as you like which is cool. Our second time around was the charm! We saw a bear up close- he walked right in front of the car! We also saw monkeys climb up on top of cars, hang off wing mirrors and climb all over car bonnets. We really wanted the monkeys to do that to us, but they were just not playing the game! It was such an awesome day, and such a new experience! I'd definitely recommend taking kids there... Amazing! 

Now I'm on the train, heading back from Bedford to London. I had a wicked weekend, it was so good to catch up with Ian and Portia and nice to get out of London. There is only one week tomorrow and I head to Istanbul for three days of adventures by myself... And then the tour begins! Ridiculously excited... It has to be said! 

Until next time, I hope this has been enough to whet your appetite for an inside look at my amazingly interesting life...

Cheery Bye :)