We Bid Adieu to Great Britain from London…

Wrapping up our 2004 Literary Tour of Great Britain with our daughter Katie with our old fashioned film camera. London was our final stop after a long train ride from Edinburgh and lugging our luggage across the train station to the tube that would take us to our tiny room with 2 beds that covered almost the entire floor minus a 6 inch space between them to walk to the very tiny bathroom. Oh boy! I forgot to mention the 3rd floor we had to haul our luggage up to. We managed to recover from it all and enjoy some great spots in London.

Katie and Dear mastered the tube stations quickly and they always knew the correct trains to catch.

The Tower of London was on the list of places to explore.

We were in London for the Queen’s birthday on the 21st of April we saw and heard the 62 gun salute.

While walking toward Buckingham Palace we were told that a better close up view option of the changing guard would be at the Horse Guards Stables. We enjoyed viewing the Queen’s Horse Guard.

Up close and with a lot fewer crowds around us. I’m thinking by now the word has gotten around and the crowds are probably crazy here, too.

Dear and Katie in Trafalgar Square.

The pigeons decided they were a great perch.

Our favorites in London were the National Gallery and the British Library where so many great literary classics and authors are featured. Katie and Dear toured Westminster Abbey and viewed the small tablet to the memory of Jane Austen in the Poet’s corner of the abbey. We also enjoyed attending the live stage performance of Les Miserables.

Thank you for indulging me as I documented our trip from 12 years ago!

Edinburgh and Monty Python…

This will be my second to the last post on our 2004 literary tour with our daughter Katie. We traveled north by train from York to Edinburgh. We made arrangements at a self catered apartment for our days in the city and beyond.

We walked from the train station to the street where our rental was and found no one there to answer the door. We finally were spotted by some neighbors who happened to have the key to the flat and they let us in. It was nice to have a tea tray waiting for us.

We toured Edinburgh Castle and walked down High Street where St. Giles Cathedral stands.

We ate at the Royal Mcgregor where Katie had her favorite hamburger on our trip.

the-royal

Our main side trip from Edinburgh was by bus to Stirling with a connecting bus to the little town of Doune where you’ll find Castle Doune. Castle Doune is the sight of some of the filming of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This was a must stop for our daughter Katie. We were the only people at the castle (it was part of our Heritage Pass). To those of you who are familiar with this film you are handed coconut shells to walk around the grounds with. We were throwing out lines from the movie (Run Away, run away!) and making horse clip clop noises (with the coconut shells). They even take a picture of you here and post it on the official web page for Castle Doune and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Hilarious fun.

From Edinburgh we took the train south all the way to London where we would finish off our literary tour.

We are entering a busy week leading up to Easter. I love Easter and all the preparations that it involves.

La Conner

In 1869 John S. Conner purchased the trading post on the Swinomish Channel and named the area in honor of his wife Louisa Ann Conner and that’s how La Conner got its name.

After we mucked about in the fields of daffodils my sisters and I drove a few minutes away to La Conner for lunch and a little shopping.

We chose Nell Thorn on the channel with good food and nice views.

Lana, Kathy the youngest and oldest and me and Vera in the middle.

We each chose something different for our lunch and everyone enjoyed their choices.

Whew! Happy my sisters were here last weekend instead of this weekend as we had quite a wild Sunday. Our power was out for 13 hours and we were happy to wake up to electricity again. Schools in our area are cancelled today as 85,000 are still without power. Trees were down and some of the trees brought down power lines, too. Here’s our light sources from last evening…

Hope you all have power today and are enjoying the light!

A Host of Golden Daffodils!

Oh what a glorious Saturday my sisters and I enjoyed on a 10 hour outing north to Mount Vernon and La Conner and then beyond to Whidbey Island over Deception Pass and south the whole length of the island. In this post I’m showing the fields of daffodils we enjoyed. But…first things first, when visiting tulip or daffodils fields it is good to don your mud boots!

I was happy to be able to come up with 3 pairs of good mucking boots/shoes and borrowed the fourth pair from our DIL.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

William Wordsworth

From Mt. Vernon we traveled a short distance to La Conner for lunch and shopping. I’ll share some photos of our time there next. It was great to have leisurely time together to share about the challenges my oldest sister faces in caring for our dear old pop and the life changes my sister Vera faces in widowhood and moving out of the home she shared with her husband Nick. It’s good to let the tears roll freely and also to be able to laugh heartily with each other. Just for the record…we sisters have four brothers, too.

The Walls of York…

After we spent time in Derbyshire we traveled northeast to the city of York and dropped off our rental car for the remaining days of our literary tour. For York we had a walking guidebook that Katie was in charge of and we saw many things we would have missed otherwise.

We weren’t looking for any of our literary favorites here but just enjoying the walls and history surrounding this city.

We attended our first evensong at Yorkminster and were so blessed by that hour of singing and readings. Katie and Dear also climbed to the top of the minster and Dear took this great photo above.

We went to a history museum and donned these heavy helmets for a photo op.

And…of course we had to take a photo of the Pharmacist in front of the Apothecary.

From York we boarded a train to Edinburgh where we would enjoy the city and take a bus to Stirling for some fun with Monty Python. Two more posts to go to wrap up our 2004 Literary Tour of Great Britain.

Back to the present…I’ve been very busy with my sisters the last few days. On Monday my sister Kathy flew home and on Tuesday my sister Vera will be flying home. I’ll share our Saturday road trip when I have some time to create the post.

Blenheim in April, 2004

Before we left Oxfordshire on our daughter’s literary graduation gift tour in April of 2004 we stopped by Blenheim Palace.

Blenheim Palace is home to the 12th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. I’m sharing a few photos with quotes from Churchill and one from the Bible.

Winston Churchill was born here in 1874. “At Blenheim I took two very important decisions; to be born and to marry. I am content with the decision I made on both occasions…”

“Never was so much owed by so many to so few…”

We were really taken aback by the grandeur of these Cedars of Lebanon that were planted on the grounds. We had Katie stand beside it to give some perspective…

The Lebanon cedar (Cedrus libani) is a conifer that originates from, as its name might suggest, Lebanon and surrounding areas in the Middle East. Original old growth groves of this tree, that is mentioned in the Bible, are now very rare. This tree can live for thousands of years and became a popular exotic specimen tree in European landscape gardens in the 18th, 19th century.

Psalm 92: 12-15 (ESV)

¹²The righteous flourish like the palm tree
    and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³They are planted in the house of the Lord;
    they flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴They still bear fruit in old age;
    they are ever full of sap and green,
¹⁵to declare that the Lord is upright;
    he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

“You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”

We enjoyed our time at Blenheim and toured the grand home with all the amazing artwork and furniture and walked about a small part of the 2100 acres landscaped by Capability Brown!

Now…back to the present. We are thinking about quarantines at this old house as Dear’s ick seems to be spreading to the rest of us here. Oye and Ugh! Hope you are sore throat free and living in a non-coughing zone!!

In Search of Jane Austen…

Besides the Tolkien and C.S. Lewis part of our graduation tour of Great Britain in 2004 in Oxford and the Cotswolds we went in search of Jane Austen haunts. We first traveled South to Bath from our B & B in Cheltenham.

While in Bath we visited Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths. You can see Dear and Katie to the left of the statue on the right. If you look straight down from where they are standing you would see the Roman Baths. The Roman Baths are one of the finest historical sites in Northern Europe.

In the middle of the photo across the bath you can see Dear and Katie again.

There is a Jane Austen Centre in Bath where the tour guides dress in period clothing.

“Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. ”

Katie and dear under the Milsom Street Sign in Bath.

Anne and Admiral Croft parted ways. The very next time Anne Elliot walks through Bath, she goes to Molland’s, a pastry cook’s and confectioner’s shop on Milsom street. Jane Austen wrote that the marzipan was delicious.

Another Jane Austen site where we stopped for a photo op was No. 1 Royal Crescent.

No.1 Royal Crescent is a Georgian town house that creates a wonderfully vital picture of life in Georgian Bath.

From Northanger Abbey ~ ‘They arrived in Bath. Catherine was all eager delight; – her eyes were here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was come to be happy, and she felt happy already’.

After our trip to Bath we left our first B & B and headed to our second location in Sheffield, England. Not my best choice and since this trip I’ve learned a lot about choosing places to stay. We still managed well on our trips out from the B & B to see some nice sites.

The other part of our trip that was in honor of Jane Austen was Chatsworth House and Bakewell in Derbyshire.

These two photos have Chatsworth House in the distance. Jane Austen based Darcy’s family home, Pemberley, after this house. The new Pride and Prejudice movie actually filmed segments here. We were here in 2004 before the new film. The estate was quite breathtaking. The small village of Bakewell close by was very reminiscent of Lambton where Jane and her Aunt and Uncle stayed in Derbyshire.

“Every disposition of the ground was good; and Elizabeth looked on the whole scene — the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it — with delight.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

We loved seeing the daffodils blooming at Chatsworth House.

After we enjoyed the grounds and a tour of Chatsworth house we drove to the village of Bakewell (Lambton) across this bridge. We had to buy a famous Bakewell Tart!

The Chatsworth Estate Farm Shop was an amazing bonus to our time at Chatsworth House. We walked around and wanted to fill a cart with goodies but being travelers we just bought what we could eat then and there. If I was there in this new age of digital I would have taken lots of photos.

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

There is so much more to see and do in following the footsteps of Jane Austen and her books. We had to move on in our adventure and we traveled to York where we turned in our rental car and began the railway, bus, walking and tube part of our trip starting in York, then North to Edinburgh and south all the way to London. Those posts are coming soon.

Today is Sunday and we’ve been to church and the grocery store where we bought all the fixins for a slow cooker roast. I’m getting so ready to eat that meal since the aroma is filling the house. Oye. It won’t be done for a couple hours yet! After our beautiful sunny and cold day yesterday we are colder yet today and have rain again. We are promised some nice sunny days this upcoming week. Hope your week goes well!

Cotswold Five…

It’s time for Five on Friday hosted by Amy and Friday’s Fave Five hosted by Susanne. Today I’m continuing my reminiscing of our time in Great Britain with our daughter Katie in April of 2004. After our day in Oxford we took a day to drive through the Cotswolds.

This was a literary tour for our daughter to see her favorite authors haunts or inspirations for the books they wrote. We were hoping to see a Hobbit in the Cotswolds. Our first stop was for a snack of treacle close to the Cotswold way. I fantasized about walking the whole of this trail once…

The closest we came on this tour of seeing Hobbit land was just seeing the countryside and coming upon this little village of Buckland which I’m counting as stop number two. Buckland has a lot of history we weren’t aware of when we stumbled upon it. Isn’t that the way it goes when you blog? You come home and look up a stop you made to research for a blog post and find out everything you missed! I wasn’t blogging in 2004 so I’m letting myself off the hook for this trip!

Our third stop in the Cotswolds was Hailes Abbey. Built in the 13th century by the Duke of Cornwall, the beautiful ruins of Hailes Abbey are set amid delightful Cotswold countryside. There was a small church with this graveside next to the Abbey.

Stop number four was Hidcote Gardens. This was early in April and the blooms were still not at their prime except to our delight the daffodils!

All these photos were taken with film not digital. The manicured hedges are always a treat to see.

Lambs were in plenty.

One more stop halfway on the Cotswolds Way was St. Mary’s Church in Painswick. The church of St Mary (originally Norman) was extended around 1480 in the English perpendicular style. The churchyard with 99 yew trees (legend has it that the 100th won’t grow) also has unusual tabletop tombs.

This past week afforded me the time and effort to scan our film photos from our trip to Great Britain in 2004. It’s nice to look back and remember the good things that God has allowed in our lives. This trip was a good experience for Dear, Katie and me. I still have the Jane Austen portion of our trip to share and the Monty Python portion, too. I’ve already shared the C.S. Lewis and Tolkien portion in Oxford.

These five stops could be way out of order but I don’t think that matters now. Hidcote Manor Gardens and Hailes Abbey are part of the Heritage Pass that you can purchase for your touring pleasure…

Dear got home from Austin Thursday night so all is back to normal around this old house. I made it to the accountant in the big blue truck and he was helpful as usual. I have a few more things to dig up for him so we can get a few more deductions. I was able to get out and walk in between rain showers by myself while Dear was in Austin which was a great accomplishment for me.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

This is a long post already but today on Mennonite Girls Can Cook I’ve reposted my Chicken Quesadilla recipe with a new twist. Click over to check it out. Also on some of your blogs my comment link takes you to the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog instead of to my home blog (The Happy Wonderer). That happens when the pull down choices for comments don’t include the Name/URL option or the double choice blogger and open ID. On those that give you 5 choices with open ID it won’t let me switch from my blogger ID to my WordPress Blog. TMI? It’s just one of those weird things. Sheesh…I better just let you go now and enjoy your day!

Good Fences

These photos were taken in San Diego along Harbor Drive. We call pigeons rats with wings.

It’s time for Good Fences #100 with TexWisGirl. Click over to see fences/gates from around the world.

Today is my day to go see the tax man. I always like to be on the other side of this appointment. I get to drive Dear’s big truck to the appointment since he took my car to the airport. Hopefully I can find the right keys for the truck. I always like to get money back instead of paying more money in. Do you do your own taxes or do you use an accountant?

Signs at the Harbor

Happy Trails to you until we meet again… Did you watch Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in the 50’s?

The Roy Rogers Show (“Happy Trails”)

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here’s a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smilin’ until then.

Who cares about the clouds when we’re together?
Just sing a song, and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you,
Til we meet again.

Do you think there might be a very large sapphire on board?

These were all taken in San Diego a few years back in February of the year. Can you tell I’m a little landlocked right now?

I’m ready for a nice string of dry days here in the Pacific Northwest. Dear is on an overnight business trip to Austin, Texas and the forecast there is 79 and 80 degrees. That will be different for him. What’s happening in your neck of the woods?

I’m linking up with Lesley for signs, signs.

I’m running out the door now to try to get my walk in and I’ll “sing a song, and bring the sunny weather” while the rain is taking a pause…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Travel