York England the walled city

Here we are on the walls that surround the city.

Not raining then, but drizzling most of the day

York, England - Bars

York was first settled in AD 71!

An old town for sure. Although it wasn't always called York. The Romans first built a fort and surrounded it with a wall. The pictures below are the gates through the wall. However, they are not quite as old as the town. Evidently, many future invaders took turns ripping the wall down and putting it back up again. So... what you see was built between the 12 and 14th century.... still old in my book. For some reason they call their gates "Bars" so this is Walmgate Bar.

"Micklegate Bar"

Thanksgiving week vacation

Don had this week off and we decided to go to Scotland for Thanksgiving. It is about an 8 hour ride to Edinburgh, Scotland which is one of the first big cities you hit coming from England.

We drove to York, England the first day, which is about halfway. Had heard nice things about the city so we spent the afternoon exploring. We stumbled upon "The World's Largest Railway Museum" and Don was thrilled! This was taken for my niece Erika. She evidently likes Thomas the train and thought an earlier steam engine I posted on the web was a friend of Thomas.... so Erika....here he is! A somewhat smaller version I think....
They had a section for the Royal families trains. Some were pretty elaborate. This was the front of one of them. The inside were very luxurious.
Okay this section was full of memorabilia from trains, stations etc. Check out the sign "Platform 9 3/4...... any Harry Potter fans?

Rain Rain Go Away

For this trip, think ducks, Wellies (English rain boots), umbrellas, clouds. Why? Cuz it rained and rained and rained! So much so that my evenings were spent with my hair dryer, blowing dry my shoes!
Good weather for ducks!
Above is a handy machine for when it rains....(hence it's there all the time). We found this in a castle in Scotland. All you have to do is stick your umbrella in the slot and it gets put into a plastic bag for which you can carry your umbrella. Now your umbrella won't drip all over their floors! How about that? You know it's a rainy country when machines are available to do that!

Norwich Cathedral revisted

Mike by one of the elaborate carved wood seats. Soon after this a priest came up to tell Mike to take off his hat! Whoops, we forgot.

Norwich Cathedral

Took Don and Mike to Norwich last weekend for a Ale tasting at one of the pubs. Had good food and did taste some ale. Then we went exploring and went back to the Cathedral. Here we are in the courtyard surrounded by the cloister. Mike with his hat on....
Without hat!
These are the tops of the columns that support the church inside. They are made of stone!

Mike's Last Game

Mike played his last High School Football game. Kinda sad...They beat a team that was the best in the league and it surprised all of us. It was a nice game to watch. However, tensions were running high at the end and some scuffles ensued. Not a good way to end the season. But the team did improve greatly and that was nice to see. All the seniors at the coin toss

British Pedestrian Crosswalk Signals

British Pedestrian crosswalk signals

Don's Helicopter Ride in July

Looking out the back of the helicopter. After the ride the crew was off to the North Sea for target practice which is the reason for the gun.
Inside the helicopter....Don was the only civilian on board.
Doing a tight turn off the end of the runway at Royal Air Force Lakenheath
You entered through the back of the helicopter via the ramp. The ramp stayed down during the flight....the place where they stood to take the pictures. This helicopter is operated by the Special Operations Group at Royal Air Force Mildenhall and is used to rescue shot-down pilots. (Mildenhall is a 5 minute walk from our house)

Finally got the pictures to show that Don went on a helicopter this summer. Actually, this is the second helicopter, the first one had a engine failure, at least in happen on the ground. It is a big beast and below is Don, attached by a rope at the waist looking out the back end while in air! They had to talked to each other through a microphone and headphones.

Don's Helicopter Ride

Don was fortunate enough this summer to experience a Military Helicopter, MH-53, ride due to his job at Lakenheath. Unbelievably, to me, they fly around with the back end open. There are belts that they attach to their waists to keep them from falling out! Don is braver than I certainly ever could be. He enjoyed it tremendously and said it was better than any roller coaster ride he's been on! The video clips were taken by another occupant.

Inside Burghley House cont.

This is the Chapel for the family. There is a large entrance in the back (beyond the arches) that is for the hired help.
This house has had at least three major films filmed inside. This is the dining room where they shot a scene in the "The Golden Age" (Story with Queen Elizabeth in it). The two other films are The Da Vinci Code and Pride and Prejudice.

This is one of the bedrooms. The canopy is made from wood, hand carved, and covered tightly in red silk! That alone would have taken awhile to do! The bed cover was hand embroidered flowers, appliqued onto the cover. In looking at all the details in each room, I just can't imagine how much time and labor went into this house over the years!

Heaven and Hell Rooms Burghley House

They didn't let you take any pictures inside the house so I bought a booklet with pictures inside and scanned them for you. The two most famous rooms are the Heaven Room (above) and Hell Stairway (below) They are hand painted walls; columns, flowers, everything.
Sorry about the quality but you'll just have to come over and see for yourself!

Most of the rooms had floor to ceiling (including ceiling) paintings on them. Those that didn't had portraits covering all the walls. You could spend hours in each room!

Burghley House grounds

The grounds cover 1400 acres and have huge old trees
They have beautiful gardens, but we didn't enter those, we walked around the grazing areas of hundreds of deer. They were so tame they would eat out of your hand. They also seemed to be the grass cutters of the property!

Burghley House

This "House" was an unexpected wonderful surprise! Don and I had intended to drive to Peterborough this Saturday to see another cathedral and while browsing their town's website I learned of this place that was nearby. So we thought we'd try to do both. Burghley House, being in another town called Stamford, was a little farther away from our house so we went there first to save the cathedral for on the way back. Stamford was only about 1 3/4 hour away.

OH MY GOSH!

What a fantastic "side trip that we almost didn't do!"

This is the front view of the "HOUSE". Rather large eh? Sir William Cecil bought the house in 1563 and over the ensuing years he and his ancestors have added on. William became a Lord when Princess Elizabeth became Queen. (He risked limb and life for her during her bid for the throne and she rewarded him by making him her Secretary and Treasurer when she succeeded.)
Lord William's descendants became Earls and Marquess and thus added to the wealth of the place. There are a large number of paintings (or pictures as the British call them) throughout the house and the 5Th Earl bought over 300 himself when he and his wife traveled over to the continent (Italy, France etc) ! There are hundreds of rooms and we saw only 18 of them. But they were spectacular! (There is 2 acres of roof alone!)
There have been 18 generations that lived in this house. It is still occupied by a daughter and her family. (It was funny to see Little Tykes stuff in the courtyard from her children.) Their living areas were below on the main floor and according to one guide their private apartments are 10 times as luxurious as what we saw! They only open the house Spring through Fall and will close it this weekend. (It is hard to keep heated)

Side note: Another 2 descendants live in Oregon, USA, on their "other" properties. I wonder how grand that property is that they don't live here?

Homecoming dance

Mike and his date, Dana with another couple on their way to the homecoming dance. The theme was Chicago in the 30's and so the colors were black, white and red. They had a great time.

Mike gets tackled

Mike's homecoming game was held this weekend and his team did a great job. They lost, but improved greatly as this team beat them 48-0 the first time they played together and this weekend they only won 27-14. It was a really good game to watch. The clip I have is when Mike gets tackled by 3 very big players (in the yellow). Mike is in the blue and at the end of the clip he is the one on the ground (very middle). It is not something a mother likes to see and amazingly he got right back up and played. He did say he got dizzy, but he is fine today!

Norwich Cloister

Now for some Latin terms...(I know.... it boggles the mind that I'm becoming so bilingual! Yeah right !)

Norwich Cathedral was a Benedictine Monastery and so also has a Cloister. Cloister comes from a Latin word meaning "enclosed spaces". Cloisters are covered walkways. They were made to provide a place to study or play on wet days. (Frequent in England at least!)

In this cloister, outside in the grass, it had white stones in a circular pattern. I'm not sure what they were for, but while we were there, an obviously Scottish lad (He had on a kilt) had a group of British school kids and he was walking around the circle as if demonstrating something to the kids. I'm thinking it might be a maze of some sort? Will have to ask someone sometime.

Norwich Cathedral

This picture was taken from the website as I didn't get a good one of the front of the Cathedral

Side of the cathedral
To become a cathedral, you don't have to be large or have a bishop in residence. Cathedral comes from a Greek word, meaning "a seat" and so the Cathedral is where the seat (chair) of the bishop is kept. This Cathedral has the bishop's throne, where every Archbishop of Canterbury has been "enthroned". Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures inside as it was too dark.

It is a Norman Style building which means it was built between 1066 and 1190. It has rounded arches, and big columns inside and the bell tower has lines of arches. I took the last picture because I have always liked the term "Flying Buttresses" and these had some splendid ones!

Norwich Cathedral entrance

Medieval gateway in Norwich

This is the gate to the cathedral in Norwich. In 1095 they moved the bishop from Thetford to Norwich and began building the cathedral. The cathedral has been damaged a few times, but the inside is pretty much as it was first constructed.

Norwich Castle

Norwich Keep castle with it's modern day addition of an elevator and some shipping crates way on top. I don't know what they were being used for!
Walkway that use to be the moat

Went with a group called "John's Journeys" yesterday to Norwich. "John" journeys once a month to a different city around the base and for one low fee, they drop you off to explore and pick you back up at the end of the day. Since this city is an hour away and a rather large city, it was great to not have to find a parking place!

Norwich is near the coast in the north eastern corner of England. It is known for it's castle and cathedral and today, for it's modern day shopping mall!

William the Conqueror built his castle at Norwich in 1067, using the townsfolk as forced labor, and the present stone castle was built on the same mound some 60 years later.
It was a city jail from 1220-1887 (after they didn't need the fort anymore) and is now a museum . (A "keep" is a building, usually a tower shape, that was built to protect the soldiers, kings from attacks. (Like a bomb shelter). This one, as many that William the Conqueror built, is made in the "Motte and Bailey" type, meaning they built it in an enclosed area with a moat around it. The dirt from the moat was piled high and the "keep" was placed there. Surprisingly, the "Motte" is the mound of dirt and the "Bailey" was the land behind the wall. I thought the "Motte" meant the moat! )