Toepath or Towpath?

Today is Friday, so the American Women's group went on one of their long walks as they do each Friday-and I joined in. I brought Kristen Millisor (senior) along too. I think this was my third walk with them. They're about 6-7 mile walks starting at 10 a.m. and finishing around 12:30 at a pub/restaurant. They are always fantastic and usually out in the country, but today was a different walk. It followed along the river beginning at Hampton Court Palace and ending in Richmond-upon-Thames (where Mick Jagger and numerous other famous peeps live). Anyway, we walked along the towpath...or is it toepath? When I first heard them say towpath-I imagined in my mind "toepath" because we were walking-and usually the paths are called footpaths, so this made sense to me. But then I wondered why this one was called a toepath and not a footpath like the others. Anyway, as we arrived into Richmond, I saw a sign next to the path that said "towpath" and so I said to Kristen Millisor, "Oh, I thought it was toepath, like as in toes...why is it towpath? What does that mean? Who's towing what along the path?" She had no answer. Turns out its towpath because it's along the water and they towed boats or something like that. The ladies found it quite amusing that we thought it was toepath. In any case, the was was wonderful! The weather was like a true summer day (even though rain was predicted). Blue skies, warm, fairly sunny. It was just so beautiful all the way...I loved looking at all of the houses whose backyards end at the river. What a great backyard. Many of the houses were really fantastic too. And so many different kinds of trees along the way. I think I said out loud at least 3 times that "I love this country." We ended at a restaurant right along the water. It was a really pricey place, especially for lunch...but I found a cheap way out and just got a side salad as a main-for £5!! The mains were £13-£19 so I felt pretty good. Kristen was even cheaper-she just got chips (fries) for £3! After lunch we hopped on a boat for the ride back to Hampton Court. What a fantastic day.
This week has been great and breezed by. Wednesday I headed into London with my ladie's bible study group for a sort of "send off" to the 3 women from our group that are moving this summer. We went to this art museum for lunch. It's actually in a mansion though, so it's this pretty amazing place. Didn't have time to view the art, so I'll have to go back. The food was pretty great-pricey of course-but my ladies are so kind and generous and I did not even have to pay a pence. They're great. Anyway, I found another new favorite place in London. It's right off of Oxford Street and it's called St. Christopher Place. The next street, James street, is my other new favorite. We walked down James street to the Wallace museum, and walked back up St. Christopher's afterward. James has tons of little bitty street cafe's and St. Christopher's has lots of unique, but expensive, boutiques. It's just a super cute area. I found one store called Marimekko that made me ever so happy because it's my bedspread store!! The bedspread that I have on my bed in Texas is Marimekko-it's these huge red and hot pink poppies and I love it so much! It's so beautiful and bright and happy. So I saw Marimekko and peaked in and there was my exact bedspread design on a raincoat!! And on dinner plates and cups and all sorts of other things. Soooooo expensive though. So anyway that was a super fun time. And then that night my high school girl's Bible study group had our little dinner party. It was our last time together and Emily made cookies and brownies and Singapore noodles with prawns and chicken. So good! Kelly also brought these fantastic little white chocolate raspberry cookie bar things that were incredibly yummy. We had a good time.
Now I am just about to go to Megen's house for French night. We planned this ages ago after we went to Paris together, but it's been rescheduled and rescheduled until now! We are going to watch Amelie and make crepes for dinner and read all of our haikus that we wrote in Paris. I'm pumped!