A Walk Along the Thames

While we were in Henley on Thames we had some wonderful walks.

These canal boats were so interesting and varied. We liked this one since it was named “Katie”. We saw it putt away later in the day…

We had several fun encounters with these three ladies as we walked along the banks of the river.

You could really feel the inspiration behind The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. We found the Wind in the Willows museum along this stretch of The River Thames along with a Rowing Museum and I’ll share the photos soon.

“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat in all my life.”

“What?” cried the Rat, open mouthed: “Never been in a – you never-well, I-what have you been doing, then?”

“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leaned back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

“Nice? It’s the only thing.” said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leaned forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing.”

The first time I read The Wind in the Willows was as an adult and just a few years ago. If you’ve never read it I would highly recommend it.

In the spirit of the tales in this book I will share the saga of the hotel we stayed in while in Henley-on-Thames in a future post. We only had one night in Henley and we were glad to check out of the hotel but we could have explored the lovely town for another day. Maybe in the future we’ll re-visit with a better choice of lodging.

Hope you all had a nice weekend. We did here at this old house.

InSPIREd Sunday ~ Henley-on-Thames

The Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Henley-on-Thames, England.

“The exact origin of St. Mary’s is unknown, but is likely to be around 1000, and the first recorded priest is Aumericus de Harcourt, in 1204.”

Linking up with Beth and Sally for InSPIREd Sunday.

The Road to Henley…

On Monday July 14th we left our self-catering lodging in Ross on Wye and headed East to Henley on Thames.

Our route was close to 100 miles and as you can see the roads were nice and wide compared to the country lanes we had been traveling on. When we left the M roads as we got close to Henley on Thames we enjoyed driving through some picturesque towns.

We crossed over this bridge as we entered the main streets of Henley on Thames.

This was our hotel for the night and if we knew then what we would soon discover we would have made other arrangement immediately. Live and learn.

This was a wonderful town to stroll through and the walkway along the River Thames was quite nice. More from Henley on Thames soon.

Today, Saturday October 4th I’m heading to the Seattle Center to attend a Tea Festival with our daughter Katie and some friends. I hope to have some fun things to share. We have had a most glorious introduction to October weather wise here in the Seattle area. I’m most thankful for the beauty that we are enjoying.

The River Wye, Hereford

If you click on this link you can read about this “exact replica of this Hereford Bull” that was donated to the city.

From Hereford and Ross-on-Wye we traveled East to spend a night in Henley-on-Thames and then our two last nights in Windsor, England. I’m working hard on wrapping up the posts of our wonderful time in Jolly Old England.

Inside Hereford

The Silver Gilt Corona was designed by Simon Beer and installed in 1992. It holds 14 candles and which represent the 14 deaneries in the diocese. The design symbolizes Christ’s crown of thorns and his crown of glory.

There are always so many wonderful details to see in a Cathedral. It can be overwhelming to your senses and there is no way to take it all in on one visit.

I’m moving along with my England posts. I have one more for Hereford that includes a Hereford Bull. We also finally made it to the River Wye which is a long curling river. When in this part of England and Wales we stayed in Ross-on-Wye and visited Hay-on-Wye and finally crossed over the river Wye on foot while in Hereford.

I do enjoy Autumn and am happy to welcome October. Hope all is well in your October world.

Hereford Cathedral

You can read about the history of this cathedral by clicking here.

Next time we’ll walk through this door and see all the amazing wonders within.

I’ll be linking to InSPIREd Sunday with this post. Thank you Beth and Sally.

Gates ~ Hereford Cathedral

For Good Fences which also includes Gates here are some beauties from the inside and outside of Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, England. In the next few posts I’ll show more architectural wonder from this amazing structure.

Dear and I visited the town of Hereford on a Sunday in July and we really enjoyed our visit to the Cathedral.

These gates were the entrance to the beautiful cloisters courtyard.

We made the mistake of visiting this cathedral on Sunday instead of a weekday or Saturday when the Chained Library is open and the Mappa Mundi exhibition is open for viewing. Arrgh! I was very disappointed. The other thing that we missed was a good meal at the Cathedral Cloister Cafe. We did enjoy the amazing history and architecture and beauty throughout the cathedral!

Thank you to TexWisGirl from Run*A*Round Ranch for hosting this weekly meme.

It’s All About Books…

You know you are in Wales when you start seeing signs in English and Welsh and of course the Welsh is listed first. We traveled from Ross-on-Wye to Hay-on Wye which is situated in the southern part of Wales.

Hay-on-Wye is the town of books. We have always enjoyed spending time in used book stores so visiting this town was a no-brainer.

Murder and Mayhem was the only bookstore that we bought a book in. We found a paperback by Dorothy Sayers who is a famous British author and a friend of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

The town was easy to see in a day and we enjoyed our time there but it’s not one of the towns we’d want to take the time to re-visit.

We enjoyed a wonderful cup of coffee and a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam at Oscar’s. Delicious!

The day we visited Hay we ended up enjoying a local flea market and also visiting thrift stores, besides enjoying the used book stores.

The drive to and from Hay-on-Wye was filled with lovely views. We stopped at a grocery store on the way home to buy some take-away complete meals to warm up at Eastview.

Next up on our time in this part of England would be a trip to Hereford to see the Cathedral.

How was your last weekend of Summer? We were busy at this old house. Dear is almost done with the “fixes” in our bathroom and soon I’ll be sharing the finished project with you and thankfully no Murder or Mayhem was involved except reading a fine murder mystery to escape it all.

Ross on Wye ~

Our second self-catering experience in England was in Ross-on-Wye. It was so different from our first cottage experience. The amenities were more modern overall and the location was on a “B” road so there was traffic and easier access to other major roads. The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK, stretching some 130 miles from source to sea. For much of its length the river forms part of the border between England and Wales. Ross-on-Wye was in England and from this location we would travel to Hay-on-Wye in Wales and to Hereford.

That spiral staircase took us up to the bedroom. We were happy to have a night light to help us find the bathroom which was on the main floor.

The views from the back of our little 2 story apartment were delightful.

I still have several posts from our time in England…can you believe it?

Things keep moving ahead here at this old house with bathroom renovations. We have one more piece of baseboard to be delivered by the renovation company and we will never have to see them again. A job promised to be done in two weeks has taken nine weeks to complete. Yes…we are fed up with them. But soon with Dear’s expertise and fixes the bathroom will be ready to show to you all. Dear is also progressing with the siding. I’m happy to be home this weekend, the last weekend of summer!

What are you doing this last weekend of Summer!?

The Tailor of Gloucester

I started my Beatrix Potter Figurine collection on my first trip to England in 1973. I also bought a complete set of the books that Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated. We knew about this shop in Gloucester and were determined to visit it while we were in Gloucester 41 years after I started my collection.

There are lots of shops relating to Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit in England.

This shop had a lot of fun displays filled with memorabilia.

Here is my “Tailor” and the books I purchased in 1973. Some of them are a little worn. I have 27 figurines. I’m just going to share a couple more for this post.

Here is Pigling Bland. The book to the right of Pigling Bland is Little Pig Robinson and when Josh was a little guy he figured out that this book was one of the longest in the series so he’d ask to have that one as his bedtime story knowing sleep would be delayed just a tad longer.

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is one of my favorites.

Of course Peter Rabbit is the most recognized of Beatrix Potter’s beloved characters.

Have you read Beatrix Potter’s books? Who is your favorite character?

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: England