Great Britain 2003, 2004 and 2006

Ever since our first trips ‘Across the Pond’ before we were married we had a tugging to return and enjoy these lands that held great memories for us. It took twenty nine years for us to book a trip in February of 2003. It was a short trip to London with a day trip out to Cambridge. We stayed in South Kensington and used the Tube and Trains for our sightseeing. Our children were all able to care for themselves at this stage which made travel easy for us. Seems the travel bug took hold.

In April of 2004 we took our daughter to Great Britain for a graduation gift. Our itinerary included tracking down her favorite author’s haunts in Oxford, The Cotswolds, Bath, Devonshire, York, Edinburgh, and ended our trip in London. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, and Monty Python thrown in for fun.

In 2006 we traveled with best of friends in May to Wales, The Lake District, Oban, The Isle of Iona, Edinburgh, and York.

We left our fellow travelers in York and took a train back to Manchester Airport and on home. Our friends traveled on to Bath and London.

The next time we traveled to England was with our oldest and his bride and with a digital Camera!

We traveled in 2013, 2014 and in 2022 and those trips are well documented on my blog.

On this trip in 2023 we will return to York but none of the other locations we’ve been to before.

Today, Friday the 15th of September we land in Dublin with four of our family for a new adventure.

I’ll try to post a photo a day if possible while we are traveling. Cheers and Sláinte!

Grow Old With Me Hodgepodge

 

If it’s Wednesday, it must be Hodgepodge. Thank you Jo From This Side of the Pond for gathering the questions.

1. Tell us a little bit about the best birthday you’ve ever had. 

My 60th and 70th birthdays were over the top wonderful. Filled with face to face time with friends and family. Delightful surprises planned with love. Delicious food, beautiful flowers and precious gifts. So thankful for the time and energy and travel my dear friends and our family honored me with. The bonus on my 70th were the addition of one more daughter, son and two grandchildren.

 

2.  In what way(s) have you changed in the last five years? 

Four years ago I became a country mouse after being a city mouse for 66 years! My role as a Baba (grandmother) is a change in the best of ways. My body is letting me know I’m aging. The mirror is confirming that fact.

I’m becoming more reformed in my faith concentrating on a Biblical world view that is shaped by a better understanding of the Providence of God and the Sovereignty of God coming from the belief in the inerrancy of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Truth Matters!

3. What’s your favorite thing about the street on which you live? 

It’s mostly flat and I can make it to town when it snows.

4. The Hodgepodge lands on National Beer Day…are you a beer drinker?

Dear bringing our pints at the Castle Hotel in Conwy, Wales.

I’ve been known to enjoy a pint here and there. Soon I’ll be enjoying half-pints in cozy pubs. Reminds me of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit Pippin’s exclamation when Merry sits down next to him with a pint of ale, “it comes in pints?!”

Pippin:
What’s that?

Merry:
This, my friend, is a pint.

Pippin:
It comes in pints?

Pippin:
I’m getting one.

Buttermere Ale IPA at the Bridge Hotel in Buttermere in the Lake District 2006

What’s a recipe you make that lists beer as one of the ingredients? If not beer, how about yeast?

We have used beer in some marinades or in a stew here and there.

5. As I grow older I would like to be a woman who __________________________.

loves my God and Savior more, with the proof in the pudding…

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

This is our granddaughter’s drawing of me at my 70th dinner celebration. She was so enamored of the crown and the birthday sash.