Three Crises

Last Saturday, I personally welcomed 40 brand new students to the London Centre for spring term. They seemed a bit tired from the journey, but excited nevertheless to experience London.

I handed each of them £100 to buy a monthly tube pass, gave them a mini-orientation, and guided them out the door to get crackin'! Each student must complete a set of "London Walks" as part of the curriculum; and so the first "walk" is entitled A WALK AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD. On this jaunt, they familiarize themselves with Notting Hill Gate, Queensway, and Bayswater Tube Stations, as well as the local environs.

I also had to break it to all our pupils that the dorms' boiler blew out a few days ago, and THERE IS NO HOT WATER! So it's cold showers, unless any student wants to make an appointment with a faculty member where the hot water flows freely in all flats. Tomorrow we have our first shower appointment.

Mom took a picture of the spent boiler to document the occasion. Mom takes pictures of everything. Mom has turned into a picture-taking machine. She is a digital camera diva. When walking with her anywhere, it takes twice as long to get from point A to point B because she takes pictures of anything that she can see through her viewfinder.Even before 24 hours with the new group had passed, we had a crisis here and there.

The crisis HERE was when Lisa Ann locked herself in Dorm #3's bathroom toilet and could not get out because the latch had broken. It just so happened this was 15 minutes before we were all to leave for the Hyde Park Ward. So Mom herded all the other students across Hyde Park to the chapel while I remained with Lisa Ann and took the door apart with a screwdriver, finally springing her from her entrapment.

The crisis THERE was when Kimberlee left her wallet on a chair as she was trying on shoes up at a store on Queensway, and POOF! After 30 seconds it was a goner. She thinks the store clerk is the culprit, but when Kimberlee confronted him, he basically laughed at her.

She came to our door with her sister Caitlyn, and sobbed to Mom for about an hour. Gone are her $200 in cash, the month's tube pass she had just purchased, not to mention her credit cards, driver's license, etc. Aren't big cities FUN? I told her about when I had my wallet lifted in the Newark airport 10 years ago. I think it helped. She's actually a great girl, and will be fine, I'm sure.

Where's Tom?

This game was actually intended for the grandkids, but my mom said anyone is welcome to play. I wonder though if my dad knew what was going on here.

Norwich Castle Museum

Norwich Gardens near hotel

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cromwell Museum

Hatfield House

Exeter Cathedral

(I can't find him)

Where's Becky?

"How I Wish Once Again in the North I Could Be..."

Here is a rather lengthy update from Mom -- I cut it down a bit. I added headings so you can pick and choose to read what you will.

The words in purple are simply to highlight how affected my mother is after being in England for almost 4 months. The editor in me has been correcting all her misspellings and nonsense up until this point, but now I just think it’s funny.

I want to write a general overview about our northern trip because we did so much, it is so beautiful, and has probably been my favourite group trip away from the centre.

Haworth

Our first stop was the Bronte Parsonage. It still amazes me to go there and know that they all lived there, wrote their books there, and rarely left. Each time I go they improve the Parsonage museum. It was March 17 and just happened to be Patrick Bronte’s birthday (their father – who outlived them all!). They had some flowers and a notice otherwise I wouldn’t have known.

The landscape is so beautiful, even without leaves on the trees. I had arranged to take the DVD (the newest one) of Jane Eyre for everyone to watch on the coach. Fortunately they all got into it and by the time we got to Haworth they had a better grasp of what it was all about. It’s a long video and so we continued to watch it as we went to Bolton Castle. The castle is up in the Yorkshire Dales and so as we watched the movie we saw the landscape firsthand.

Even though it was early, there were some lambs. There had been a notice in the papers about pregnant women and lambing season. They are advised not to get near the lambs or their mothers because some sort of germ causes problems with the pregnancy and birth.

Bolton Castle & Fountains Abbey

Bolton Castle is where Mary Queen of Scots was held for a few months on her way down to England. It has a great view of the countryside. They opened the castle just for us because it was so early in the season. The sun was shining and it was warm enough to relax and enjoy ourselves. There was a little church adjacent to the castle called St. Oswald’s. I bought the booklet inside (honour system- put a pound in the box). It said this church was one of the last churches to implement public apologies. I’m going to quote to get it right.

“An interesting reference to an old traditional custom is made by Ella Pontefract and Marie Harley in 1936. It reads: Probably one of the last instances of public apology took place here. A woman had slandered another, and the apology was demanded by the whole village. During the service she had to walk up and down the aisle, and at theend of it make her apology, which she did in rhyme.” Ah, those were the days.Having spent the night in the Ibis in Leeds (a luxury compared to the hostels coming up) we went to Fountains Abbey. It was kind of misty which makes it all the more ethereal. The abbey was destroyed by Henry the VIII’s men and left in ruins. It’s so majestic against the green lawns that I can’t imagine it any other way.

York

From there we went to York. We just let everybody loose. Of course we “did” the Minster. There was a choir and orchestra rehearsing Zadok the Priest which was very exciting – love that piece. It’s sung at the coronation of every monarch. Dad and I then went and had tea in Betty’s Tea Shop. Kind of a tradition. We wandered a bit and then went to the hostel. We actually had a TV (no bathroom) and watched the tragic news about Natasha Richardson.

Durham

The next morning we left for Durham. Again we were rushing and our guide Roz at the cathedral wasn’t rushing with us and so Dad and Jess had to keep prodding her. It’s a magnificent cathedral but the girl’s have lost their enthusiasm for cathedrals. The first time we went to one at the beginning of the trip they were ooh-ing and ah-ing and snapping pictures left and right. Dave Shuler said to one of them, remember how you feel right now and try and keep that up through the trip. Human nature being such as it is, they weren’t able to muster up the energy to find the same excitement. Dad and I love all of the unique features and quirky stuff about each one we visit and we understand that not everyone feels that way. Especially 20-year olds.

Hadrian’s Wall & Lucy’s

From there we went to Chester’s Fort to see the remnants of Hadrian’s Wall. The construction of that wall is an amazing feat and it is really something to see what is left. It’s not just the wall but the “stations” – almost like little cities – that were built along the wall every several miles. We also stopped at a place called “Once Brewed” to see an especially long portion of the wall itself. The drive down into Ambleside in the Lake District was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was setting and it was really magical.

Although the Youth Hostel was horrible and our room was about as big as our clothes closet back home, we were right on Lake Windermere which made up for everything. Dad and I opted out of dinner and walked into Ambleside – about a mile- and found the restaurant that we loved that last time we were there – Lucy’s. It’s very good food - Lucy runs a cookery school. The menu is different everyday so she prints up a sheet that begins by talking about the weather and the news. She welcomes by name anyone who has booked a table and it’s really fun and personal. We went back to the hostel and tried to sleep through the girls out on the dock dropping each other into the freezing water.

Lake District

The next day we spent driving around the Lake District. First we went to Dove’s Cottage – Wordsworth’s home. It’s a great little place but when Terri said she was going to walk into Grasmere with Julie and Jaivri I went with them. It was only a 10 minute walk and Grasmere is even more quaint and picturesque than Ambleside. There is a Wordsworth daffodil walk near the cemetery where is buried and since its daffodil season it was in full bloom.

Right at the end of the walk there is a tiny gingerbread shop that is very well known. We went in there and bought Grasmere’s own special kind of gingerbread. It’s really flat and is very ginger-y. Almost like a cookie. We bought a bunch of that, stopped in a couple of shops and then figured we’d better get back.

We stopped in Keswick for lunch and to go to the Keswick Museum which claims to be the third "strangest museum in England." Their prize and joy is a 600 year-old petrified cat found in a slate roof. I'm not too sure why we went there but it was fun.

From there we went to the Bowderstone. We’d wanted to go to Castlerigg, a stone circle, but Tony couldn’t get the coach up there. The Bowderstone is a riot. It’s a huge stone that they’ve traced to Scotland that must have come down during the ice age. It’s in a very precarious position, resting on kind of a corner. There is a ladder you can climb to the top. At the base, somebody dug a hole in the dirt that is just barely big enough for you to reach your arm through and “shake hands” with the person on the other side. It was so fun because we’d never been there before. By then the sun had come out and it was a pleasant hike to the stone.

After that we went to Hawkshead. It’s yet another charming village. Wordsworth went to school there as a young boy. People from all over England would send their boys there to be educated. Again, they opened it for us and we had a terrific guide who gave us a real taste of what it would have been like to go there. We all got to sit in the old desks, some from 1500, while we listened. Evidently Fletcher Christian’s (Mutiny on the Bounty) brother was a schoolmaster there. We had a little time to roam and so I went up to the church and the cemetery. Dad was over in the field with the sheep but he kept baa-ing at them and scaring them away.

It had been a wonderful day and we celebrated by going back to Lucy’s.

Preston Temple

Saturday we went down to Preston on the way home. One of the members of the church – Peter Fagg – took us on a tour of the city and its LDS historical sites - the River Ribble, etc. We stopped at the Temple to take pictures, but it got very cold and windy and so we headed back to London and crashed.

As always, wish you were all here with us.

Love,

mom/Becky

Henry VIII and Kirsten Dunst

The travelogue continues with a quick stop at Hampton Court and Wimbledon. Both are in the same neck of the woods so we spent the morning at Hampton Court and then the afternoon at Wimbledon.

Hampton Court has always been one of my favorite places. I love all of the chimneys. Evidently after 500 years they need to be rebuilt and so it is going to cost £20,000 each to preserve them! I think are 241. I also really like the kitchen, but I spent more time in other parts of the palace that I've never visited even though I've been there twice before.

They've really stepped things up to encourage tourists and so Henry VIII and Catherine Parr were strolling the halls before a staged wedding ceremony was held downstairs and we caught a glimpse of them. We also were speaking to guide who was so nice and opened up an out-of-the-way door to show us a hidden staircase that Henry used when he stayed there.

I'd like to go sometime without students and spend the whole day there. There is never enough time to see all of the grounds which they spend so much time on. We always have to go see the grapevine that Capability Brown planted that is hundreds of years old. It's some sort of obligatory ceremonial communion that Dad has to experience each time we go.

Wimbeldon was more fun than I anticipated. We had scheduled a guided tour that was to be 2 hours long! Fortunately our guide was excellent. His name was Andy and he is a blue badge guide that does all kinds of stuff in London. He moved things along and was fun and interesting.

The pictures I'm sending are of him telling us how poorly Kirsten Dunst served the ball in the movie when it was being filmed there. He demonstrated how she had about 20 takes until they finally had something they could use. When we went and sat in Court 1 that was really fun because he told us all about the electronic fences they have up to keep the foxes out and then a hawk called Hamish they bring in to scare away the pigeons - especially in that court. He doesn't attack them or anything. They are just afraid of him and so they stay away. Of course, this is the stuff that would interest me since I'm not what you'd call an aficionado.

They are building a roof over Centre Court which is controversial but necessary I guess and they are building a new Court 2 which is good according to some because I guess it is supposed to be jinxed.

We also went in to the BBC desk which is almost sacrosanct but they let Dad and Jess do a little "commentating" while we took photos. Then we went to the press room where the players are interviewed and the girls each got to take a turn sitting there. It was a fun outing because it was different than what we usually do.

The guided tour did last over an hour and then there is a state of the art interactive museum downstairs. (See hologram of John McEnroe.) So, it was a fun day AND the weather cooperated.

love,

mom/Becky

Iggy's Flock

Here is Iggy with a Parliament of owls. I assume one of those little owls will be in my house one day.

It's just a hunch.