Downton Here I come!

I'm rushing around in crazy mode this week because next week we're off to England. Our primary purpose is to go to the Olympics. A friend in London has a house within walking distance of the stadium so it was too good to miss. The slight glitch was that we couldn't get any tickets to any event in the stadium. We put in for 5 days of track, 5 days of swimming and got ZILCH.

It's all done on a lottery system and tickets are..well, rather expensive. We decided the maximum we wanted to spend per event and decided we really couldn't bring ourselves to spend $500 to watch Michael Phelps swim up and down a couple of times. So we've ended up with a strange mixture of events--the only one at the Olympic venue is women's water polo (and of course we have a strong tie to that sport as our daughter Jane is an All American who used to play on the US team)

Then we have women's soccer semi final (should be good), a day of badminton (not my idea--John's. Could be boring) And two days of tennis. At Wimbledon. Yeah! Go Andy Murray. Maybe he'll redeem himself and beat Federer for the gold?

And when I'm not Olympic watching I've got some other fun things lined up: a tour of Buckingham Palace. I've been to the Queen's Gallery before but never through the actual state rooms.(although I did have tea with the queen, it wasn't at the palace).
Then a tour of the Harry Potter experience at Warner Brothers studios. The actual sets and costumes etc. Big Harry fan.
And last,but not least... a tour of the real Downton Abbey.

Is this going to be fun or what? And to crown it all, we're coming home on the Queen Mary 2. This in anticipation of sending my heroine Lady Georgie across the Atlantic in next year's book!

I am so glad I worked hard at my physical therapy so that I can walk well again, otherwise a lot of this would have been impossible. So expect reports from me during the coming weeks. I'll be Our Gal in London to give you the latest scoop!