Leaving London for Charnwood Forest

I forgot to mention yesterday, the astonishing number of French people in London--500,000 of them. Many own small shops and there are almost always French conversations on the underground trains and in the streets. After being in France for three weeks, it seemed really out of place--but at the same time familiar, as French no longer seems like a foreign language to us.

We finally fought our way out of SE London on to the M25 and on to the M1 and to Leicestershire, to Rothley where a Harrow neighbour of  mine, Lesley, now lives with her husband John. Their house is the first pic.

We walked in the afternoon to Charnwood Forest, the site of an old volcano, also was a  Saxon hill fort and now used for grazing exotic cows and alpacas and for forest walks. There are some interesting oak carvings along the paths and a field with some lovely trees--all specific shapes.

A nearby village has a small restaurant, of which the owner was runner up in Master Chef .

We stopped at a pub, where horses are welcome!