Only 31 photos left in #project365 – here’s November

I took a deep breath at the start of November – there was an incredible amount to fit in!  Sitting here in December – I managed it and I’m not exhausted!  Flights being on time (and flat beds) really do make travel much easier to cope with!

So – November dawned like another day of summer, in fact it was easy to think it was, we even had the backdoor to our garden wide open! Very quickly, the cold weather arrived!  In fact rain by the 2nd when we went for a walk round Chichester Harbour!  We had a week based in London which made a nice change, and saved a lot of commuting!  Staying at the Hilton by the Tower of London gave great morning views – one day of the poppies as the sun came up (even then the number of people paying their respects was staggering) and another from the hotel room of London at her best!

Anyone that follows me on instragram will know that I’ve been on the #paddingtontrail when in London – I love this little bear, I still have one in my bedroom at my parents house!  I used the saved commute time to find a few more!

November also means it is the return of the Rugby Internationals – and it is something of a tradition for us to watch this in the Grapes pub in Southampton – famous for being where many of the crew from the Titanic had their last drink before setting sail!  We didn’t manage to catch any other matches, but we saw enough – England have a lot to do ahead of next year’s World Cup…

November 1st-11th

London on Remembrance Sunday I watched on TV, quite incredible – especially with the clapping for the Queen which was incredible.  The cenotaph looked quite incredible the next day on armistice day.

Who’s seen Wicked at the theatre?  I now have and I could definitely see it again!  Really good – Southampton is part of the West End tour and so we are really lucky with the shows that come to town!  Loved this one!  A fantastic bit of corporate entertainment.

Mid month we took a long weekend to Vienna.  Little did I know when we booked a visit to friends that we’d time it to coincide with the start of the Christmas markets – happy days, or should I say weekends!

Next up America!  After just a day at home, I headed off on my US tour – London to Miami (with American Airlines), then on to Tallahassee, then Charlotte and finally up to Washington.  Incredibly tight schedule and happily every flight was on time!  Even so, taking an internal flight most evenings and suffering with jet lag was quite a challenge!

November 12th – 21st

I was surprised by 2 things – first at Hampton by Hilton who celebrated the fact that the bedding was clean and fresh…. Well yes – I rather assumed it would be!  And then again when there was a thick frost on my windscreen in Florida…. Er – I thought this was the warm bit of my trip but in fact I needed my gloves!  Later in the trip when I was in DC, the temperature was in the twenties… Random! (In fact the day after that, when I had gone home – well it snowed!! So much more than a normal diurnal temperature range!)

Washington is, I have now decided, my favourite city.  It is beautiful and I loved the fact that being jet lagged I was up early on the Saturday I was there and saw the city before other people arrived.  I’ve been before and so knew what I wanted to see – dressed in my warm clothes I went and saw it!  I did a few of the museums – the Air and Space was my favourite, but as I agreed with a colleague today – the buildings and the outside space are the absolute highlight (free museums are just a perk on the side)!

I’m lucky to have family that live in Maryland, so pining for some company it was lovely to spend the sunday with them!  We went to Great Falls national park which was gorgeous – and fresh air after a week in air conditioned bed rooms really was rather good!  After that I just wanted to get home, watching the BA app until I could check in and wishing the time away so I could leave the lounge and get onto the plane!  Whilst the plane was a means to an end (home) – it was also my first timing trying BA business on the A380 -which was of course good!

November 22nd-30th

Coming home I spent the end of the month battling with jet lag, but managed pretty well to get straight back on to UK time – a few long days in the office made sure!  I came back to a new kitchen floor and then off we went again – up to Anglesey to see our friends for the weekend.  The weather played ball for our visit and we saw Snowdonia and Anglesey at their best with our very professional tour guides!  Whenever we’ve visited, Snowdon always seems to be hiding in a cloud, but we couldn’t have had a better view of it than we did this time!

And so it’s December – and only 31 photos left to take! In a way that is quite sad, but having almost finished this – much as it is great to look back on a year, I can say resolutely that I am never doing project 365 again!!!