I ended my travelogue about our trip to Ireland and England a couple weeks ago and now wonder what to write about in this blog. I love sharing my life through this blog, but what I’ve posted recently hasn’t been received well.
A friend told my husband if I wrote about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, I’d sell more books–that’s an interesting comment on today’s society. I’m afraid it’s true though, and this attitude permeates the blog world, too.
Here are some topics near and dear to my heart:
Travel – Lin and I have taken several cruises since we married and I have traveled to Mexico and Guatemala–adventures all of them
Writing–I’m a self-published author of four books and three cookbooks and have a wealth of information about writing
Retired Educator–27 years as a English, Spanish and computer middle school teacher who spent the last seven years of my career working at the district level with lots of education stories
Retirement–what it is and is not
Turning 65 years old–interesting pivotal change in my life–can I be sexy at 65?
Co-manage a ranch in southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico–during this drought, I have wondered how my Dad dealt with previous droughts when the ranch was his sole financial means
16 year old cat, Jesse–has feline diabetes and it’s been a struggle but it blesses me every day
Dancing–my husband and I square and round dance all over with friends from as far away as Sweden and Germany
After my cousin, Meghan and Mike’s wedding, Lin and I spent two delightful days exploring Bury St. Edmunds. On Saturday morning after another big English breakfast at the hotel, we went to the Outdoor Market held in the square a few blocks away. This tradition in Bury St. Edmunds has been in place twice a week–Wednesdays and Saturdays–dates back to before the days of William the Conqueror. Anything you might want was available at this market: food, flowers, clothes, hardware and technology. The booths went on and on.
The Saturday Outdoor Market Downtown Bury St. Edmunds
After the market, Lin and I wandered around the Abbey gardens–I couldn’t keep Lin away from there because of his love for gardening. The gardens took our breath away.
The Abbey Garden With the Cathedral in the background
We also toured Angel Hill across from the Abbey and saw the Atheneum and Angel Hotel.
In the afternoon, we took a free guided tour of the city, and the guide was exceptional. We went through the Abbey Gate onto the ruins of the Abbey which was gigantic.
Then still on the Abbey grounds, we saw the Old English Rose Garden, a permanent memorial to the American Servicemen stationed nearby and gave their lives.
The guide told us about a book we needed to read: Suffolk Summer written by John T. Appleby who was an American Serviceman who toured Suffolk County during World War II on a bicycle. The royalties from this book were devoted to maintaining the Old English Rose Garden on the Abbey grounds.
Because we both love to read, we hunted it down and finally found it the morning we were leaving Bury St. Edmunds at the Moyses museum–more about the museum in a coming blog.
We had so much fun reading the book and remembering places there in Bury St. Edmund’s that Appleby mentioned in his book like the Atheneum.
On the guided tour, we walked through neighborhoods of Bury St. Edmunds. The guide pointed out a wall in one area where rocks from the Abbey were used.
The Guide Points Out Rocks from the Abbey
Then he took us to the smallest pub in England, the Nutshell. I don’t drink and I had to take a quick picture inside because the bartender demanded you had to buy a pint for coming in.
We ended the day meeting our family at a nearby pub, then Lin and I had a delicious dinner at the Cafe Rouge.
The next morning we met family members at St. Mary’s Anglican Church for the morning service. I’m Episcopalian so the service was very similar to what I was used to here in the USA. Afterwards a friendly churchman gave us a tour of the church, and we saw Mary Tudor’s tomb–she was buried there.
Mary Tudor’s Tomb
After church, Lin and I went to see the movie, “Dunkirk” at the local theater. We had found the theater the day before and the times of the show. Not knowing the procedure, we went there thirty minutes or so before showtime, thinking we could get good seats. The seats are sold online, so the only ones left were in the front row. I felt the bombing and explosions happened right in my lap, and I screamed.
We both were so glad to see the movie in the country it was about–the British saved the day with all kinds of private boats and ships to rescue the soldiers. As the story unfolded, we could feel the pride in the theater grow.
We had a leisure dinner at the Bushel and made it an early night because the next day we were taking the train to Cambridge with all of the family for the day.
Have you ever been to this part of England? Lin told me if anything ever happened to me, he would sell everything and move to either Bury St. Edmunds or some village in Ireland–he loved it so much.
This was the day we were to leave London and neither of us were ready, but the whole reason we did this trip was to attend my cousin, Meghan’s wedding in Bury St. Edmunds. We had another big breakfast.
Our travel agent had pre-booked a taxi for us to pick up our rental car, but there was some confusion about the name of the car rental, the company name and where we were going to pick it up. Our travel agent booked it; I talked to her during the week on the tour bus but didn’t understand the name, so I thought she said we were picking it up at the 6th terminal at the airport. The taxi driver didn’t know either, so we had to call the travel agent.
She got a good laugh out of the mis-communication. I thought she had said to pick up the car at the sixth terminal. She had said the Sixt car rental office near the airport–sometimes speaking English and understanding it are hard! So away we went. The clerk at the car rental office, Susanna, was so helpful and saved us money.
Lin had driven for a couple weeks in Ireland and did fine. He didn’t want to drive in London so we used the Tube as our connection to London and did great. Here he was faced with driving out of London; he did fine. There was a lot more traffic than Ireland for sure. We headed north to Bury St. Edmunds.
In fact he did better with driving than I did with the GPS. I’m used to Garmin here at home. I learned the Tom-Tom quickly in Ireland, but this car had a GPS built in. The display listed the destination from the bottom up showing several turns coming up, but we made it.
We stayed at the Bushel pub and hotel and they had our room ready, even though we arrived early afternoon. We had to park around back of the pub, and Lin parked the car the best yet!
Quickly we changed into our wedding clothes–I had to do some touch-up pressing because these clothes had been underneath everything else for two weeks of traveling.
We had trouble driving to Raven Hall where the wedding was–again I had trouble understanding the GPS. We ended up on a closed road. As we came up to the road worker, he shot his hands into the air and screamed, “What are you doing? And how did you get here?” When he realized we were lost Americans, he directed us out of the construction zone, across the highway and to Raven Hall.
Thank God we left the hotel early, but we still arrived with time to spare. We walked into a room full of my cousin’s dad’s family, so we knew we were in the right spot. We met Mike Edwards, the groom before the wedding and some of his Welsh family who were fascinating and so welcoming!
The wedding was outside, simple and beautiful. The minister gave a beautiful wedding message. We set in the third row and I took lots of pictures. Afterwards we took the traditional pictures and some not-so traditional.
The rest of the afternoon and evening were delightful. There were American traditions observed and English traditions added. For dinner, we sat with my cousins (sisters of the bride) Kirstin and Lisa, Chris and Holly Carr from the USA and Nicole and her partner.
During the meal, someone spoke for Meghan’s parents, then Mike entertained us with stories about Meghan and him. Then Mike’s best man presented a PowerPoint slideshow, helping us get acquainted with Mike.
The evening continued with a dance, individual photos of the guests in a photo booth with a variety of props, cutting the cake and the bouquet toss. The cake was unique–one side for the groom (all Action figure characters celebrated) and the other side for the bride (her lavender colors and gorgeous).
The stereotype I had of the British people was so not true. I loved how they partied! As a whole, the group would dance like crazy, then they’d go to the bar and drink. The dance floor would be vacant except for a few of us, then the crowd would come back and the routine continued all evening.
We danced; we laughed. We enjoyed the mix of people there; they were so friendly.
Later in the evening, a sandwich buffet opened, and they served the cake.
As we were leaving, a hilarious story unfolded. My cousin, Lisa, had been charging her bar tab to Mike’s uncle’s room instead of her parents’ room. Mike’s dad was lamenting with much fanfare that “theseAmericans were going to break him” because he was paying his brother’s bill for the wedding. The camaraderie between the two families joined as this wedding was delightful. We left about 11:00 pm before the crowd left and got lost on the way home, meandering our way on back roads and wandering around. Again I read the GPS the wrong way, but we did make it back to our hotel.
Everyone was so friendly and hospitable and I told my cousin Meghan that next to our wedding, their’s was my favorite.
Wow! It’s been over a month since I blogged–please forgive me! Life got in the way.
I had been anticipating Stonehenge for the whole trip because it was one of my favorite destinations on our list. So, it was up early again, a walk down the crowded escalator to get to the Tube, on to Victoria Station and breakfast at the Starbuck’s.
Realizing our tour bus was a double-decker, we watched as the first people out the door pushed, shoved and rushed upstairs to the top level. When we approached the bus, Lin and I ducked inside the lower level and landed the front seat on the left side with lots of leg room, a spacious window to see out at eye-level, and our own shelf to put our bags and drinks. We lucked out!
The tour guide, John, noted famous sights as we drove through and out of London. He had a great sense of humor and was knowledgeable. The two hour drive took us out into the English lush countryside again.
Now about Stonehenge:
“Stonehenge is a prehistoricmonument in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of a ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, 7 feet (2.1 m) wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.[1]
Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC,[2] although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.[3][4][5]”
Driving into to the Stonehenge Visitors Center, we passed fields and cattle grazing–not what I’d thought I’d see near Stonehenge. John encouraged us to use the self-guided tour provided. We had limited time, so we used the bathroom, got on the shuttle and dashed to the site.
My first sighting of Stonehenge sent a shiver down my spine–I was standing near one of the wonders of the world. The layout of the self-guided tour and the walkway around Stonehenge was circular, starting at a distance from the back of the stones.
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I took tons of pictures with my camera and my iPhone. Here’s one of my favorites:
Me Touching Stonehenge
We enjoyed watching young adults set themselves up so that their photos looked like they were touching Stonehenge so we tried it.
Front Side Close
We listened to the audio, took more pictures and moved in closer on the front side. The information shared on the audio was informative.
Because we had spent as much time as possible at the stones, we rushed to get back to the tour bus and didn’t have any time to shop for souvenirs–OH, NO! It broke my heart not to have a t-shirt or hat with the Stonehenge logo on it, but the pictures I took became my souvenirs.
From there we drove to Bath, seeing thatched roofs and a patchwork quilt of green and gold fields.
Crystal Palace in Bath
We ate lunch at the Crystal Palace.
People congregated in the square in front of the Bath Abbey.
We did a walking tour at 2:30 pm with John. I had dressed in my rain coat but Lin didn’t, so he left us when the rain started. There was a downpour but we kept touring. My rain coat kept my camera and wool sweater dry, but my capris, socks and shoes were soaked.
Lin and I met back up–me totally soaked and him dry and looking sheepish.
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At 3:30 pm we did a self-guided tour of the Roman Baths. Again we had to rush because of time restraints. On our walk back to the bus, Lin found ice cream and we saw Ann-Marie, our tour guide for Stratford. I gave her a quick hug.
We had a two hour drive back to London–a relaxing drive. I love our drive through the English countryside.
There were several stops a long the way to let passengers off, and we were the last off the coach at Victoria Station. We rode the Tube back towards our hotel and received a refund from Oyster Card for four pounds. After a leisure walk towards our hotel, we ate dinner at The Swan, a local restaurant and shared Fish and Chips.
I spent that evening repacking my suitcase and surprised Lin that everything fit. This day ended our week in London. The next day we would pick up our rental car and drive to Bury St. Edmunds for my cousin’s wedding.
Have you seen Stonehenge? Bath? the Roman Baths? What was your experience? I would love to hear about your experience.
