St. Albans to Bedford

!st Picture is at the gardens outside the Cathedral.

2nd picture shows the bus sign that gave us hope!!

We left St. Albans at 14.45 after spending a lovely morning looking around the town and then having a very informative personal tour around the Cathedral. It is certainly a mishmash of all architecture styles through the ages and our guide brought it to life for us. The wall paintings are worth a visit in their own right. We all had lunch in the refectory restaurant before collecting our bags and making our way to the bus stop to begin the next journey to Bedford, via Luton. This we did on only 2 buses this time so we felt as though we hadn't travelled very far today. Joyce unfortunatly could not leave with us on Sunday due to illness, but we are pleased to say she recovered enough to join us today and we met her at St. Paul's church in Bedford. The church people are accommodating us tonight, so will inform you all of this with the next instalment.

Canterbury to St. Albans

Rev. Rachel and baby Isaac enjoying his breakfast

Boarding one of the 1st buses

What a day we had!!! Very enjoyable, tiring, interesting. With thanks to Colin we managed to get all 10 buses more or less on time and in the right places. This was quite an achievment to say the least. The evening spent in Whistable was good fun, and on mine and Rennie's part it was great to see Rachel and Barry with baby Isaac. Breakfast was fun with them all, especially seeing Isaac enjoying his banana and breadstick for breakfast.

We left Whitstable at 8.50 so had to pay for the 1st bus, got into Canterbury and had to wait for the next one for about 30 mins. This was the longest wait we had all day! As we progressed it all came together very well. Most of the buses were on time and not full up so we were able to chat to some of the passengers. One elderly gentleman even gave us £1 for the funds. One lady got the wrong end of the stick and thought we were asking her to come with us and she said that she couldn't as she had a doctors appoinment.
we had a 'lunch stop' at Bluewater. This was popping into M&S to buy a sandwich and drink to have on the next bus. As we left we all noticed that the bus notice display was saying that we were leaving 'PILGRIMS CORNER' we all thought this was very appropriate.
As we approached closer to the London suburbs the buses filled up more and especially at the end of school time they filled up with all the school kids in their smart uniforms complete with emblazoned badges.
Eventually we left all this suburban sprawl behind and as we approached nearer to St. Albans the countyside appeared again. We finally arrived in St. Albans at 18.45. All we can say it was an experience some of us may not be doing again, but at least the day is behind us now and all the coming days will be a doddle compared to this one. We had a meal in a french restaurant and the waitress was very interested in what we are doing that she made sure that we had 20% knocked off our bill. We have kept this and will put in into the funds. We all then went off to our various beds and slept.

The weather has played an enormous part in our efforts. If it had rained yesterday it would have been unbearable. We have been informed that this lovely weather is going to be our side all week. God must be looking down on us and helping us on our way, in fact we know he is.