Day 26 Bourton-on-the-Water England Wednesday 25th July 2012

OMG- it's a heatwave here in England and all the people here in the village were beside the river and on the village green last night trying to cool down. It reached 29 degrees yesterday and it is forecast for 30 today - goodness me I don't think they will cope at all today. They would certainly not survive 40 degree temperatures that are a regular part of our summers in Perth!

Yesterday we left a very wet and cold Belfast for the 40 minute flight to a Birmingham of sunshine and heat. After picking up our hire car we headed for Althrop, the Spencer family estate in Northhamptom to visit Princess Diana's final resting place. The hire car is a brand new Vauxhall and can you believe it, it has a sunroof!!!

It was too hot yesterday to have it open but hopefully by the time we get to London we can open it whilst driving. Althrop is a massive estate, beautifully landscaped and it was wonderful to see where Diana grew up.

We saw a display on her early childhood, moving then into her engagement days through to her wedding, children and the years after that. Her wedding dress, shoes, flower girls dresses and jewellery were on display and it was fantastic to see them for real.

In another display were Diana's iconic outfits and dresses, shoes and handbags - inspiring but sad when you think about what happened in that car crash in Paris.

Just before we came out of the museum there was this huge cabinet with thousands of condolence books from all over the world which was particularly interesting as I remember signing one myself. We looked for the Australian books and there were heaps of them.

After the museum we took a tour through Althrop Mansion where Earl Spencer, Diana's brother Charles was signing books so it was great to actually see him in the flesh. Then we walked down to the lake to see Diana's final resting place. It is so very beautiful and peaceful and I think she would be very happy coming home to this wonderful quiet place with no papparazzi anywhere to be seen!

Diana's Island - you can see the urn that is Diana's final resting place.

We really enjoyed our time at Althrop and afterwards we drove towards the Cotswolds on our way to Bourton-on-the-Water for the night. It was lovely to visit all the small villages but we were feeling quite tired when we reached our accommodation. There is a famous restaurant in the village called The Croft Restaurant and of course we just had to eat there which was delicious!

Today we are heading towards London and plan to end up in Windsor tonight stopping off at Oxford and other villages on the way as well as going to Windsor Castle and Royal Ascot Racetrack.