A Weekend Close to Home

So back to catching up, and less whining about the weather (although today is our fifth day in a row to see at least an hour of sun... it’s terribly exciting). 

The weekend of October 17th/18th I had two papers I was working on, so we decided we would have a quieter weekend. Rebekah also had a trip coming up as well, so it made sense for everyone. 

I arrived at Rebekah’s apartment a little earlier on Friday afternoon and immediately began work on my paper so that by the time she arrived home I was ready for a good break and some dinner. After a night of goofing off mixed with a lot of studying, we started a little later on Saturday morning at Basildon Park, the house they used during the filming of Pride & Prejudice. No, not the proper version, the one with Keira Knightley. It’s still good, just not our favorite. :-) 

Unfortunately at this particular property the majority of the house had scaffolding across the front (and back) so they could begin a cleaning project. It did not seem terribly logical to either of us to block both the front and the back of the house. That’s when you would think they would choose just one half of the house to clean at a time. So you would think. 

However, the inside of the house was really lovely, and there was this gorgeous grand piano in the Hall, that I ended up giving an impromptu concert on, it was really fun for me, since I don’t have regular access to a piano. Crazy pianist, yes? 

After Basildon Park we tried to go to a couple of other places, but one was really expensive (they wanted to charge us 12 GBP without parking...) and the other we wandered until we finally gave up. Looks like the GPS wins another battle. 

On Sunday we drove into a section of London known as London so we could see Marble Hill House and Chiswick House, which were both Georgian Palladian style structures. I now know more about why this architectural style was in fashion than I think I ever cared to know. However, both houses were very interesting, and it was a nice light day that enabled us to arrive in Reading early enough that I managed to catch a bus back to Oxford so that I was home before it was ever dark! 

Photos of this particular weekend can be viewed here. 

Sunrise, Sunset and a little reminder of Spring

I have an ironic title for this post, considering I never see the sun. However, today was one of those rare days when the sun conquers the clouds for a few moments (commence the rejoicing parades). On this particular sun trumping rain and fog day I was sitting inside for most of it near my open windows (yes, I'm a mite chilly, but that's okay, it's like still having my sister with me) trying to accomplish some reading. But lo and behold, I looked up at almost 17:00, and realized... the sun had not completely set yet. It's beginning to be a little overcast, but it's definitely still daylight out there.
How intriguing. When I left England to go home for that two weeks, the sun was setting almost before 4:30. And now it's almost five before sunset?
Hallelujah, praise Jesus! The end of winter is in my sights!

Sussex, Reenactment, and the beginning of the goofy trips

The weekend of October 9th/10th, my older sister Rebekah and I took a trip to Sussex, where we spent the weekend touring around. Our first stop on Saturday, was to Hastings, very specifically to the grounds where the Battle of Hastings took place. On this particular day that we went, English Heritage was sponsoring a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings. 

It was pretty cool.

When we first arrived (earlier in the day from when the battle would be, around 10:00am) there was not much going on, and so we just wandered around the tents and booths they had set up. It was sort of like a laid-back Renaissance Festival. It made me wonder if the people who were involved with the reenactment were also involved with the “Medieval Fairs”, the English equivalent of a Ren Fest. After awhile we headed up the hill to the Abbey that William the Conqueror had built after the battle in 1066. Inside the Abbey there was a demonstration of period music, which I enjoyed enough to actually purchase a CD. After the music performance was over we went and searched for seats at the battle ground so we could watch the Norman cavalry demonstration. While we watched we ate our picnic lunch (I make a mean sandwich) and were incredibly silly with these precious older women who were sitting with us. One of the Norman knights actually came over and told us to quiet down. Yeah, that’s us, and our reputation for causing problems. 

After the demonstration we hunted out center front row seats, and then agreed someone had to protect them (seating was DEFINITELY at a premium). So she stayed and I went to walk around the Fair for awhile. I went to a talk on the Bayeaux tapestry (because I didn’t actually get enough of studying that in high school Mom!) and tried the old fashioned drinks like Mead and Ginger Wine. Pretty tasty, but the Ginger Wine burns on the way down. After I had my fun, I let Rebekah walk around where she went to a falconry display (I think she went to try the Mead too!). After that we were finally ready to watch the actual reenactment, which was all kinds of silly and ridiculous, because it’s a little hard to reenact a battle that happened almost 1000 years ago. 

On Sunday we drove the long route by the coast (more scenic) to Pevensy Castle, which was mostly ruins, but it was an English Heritage site, so it was free for us, plus free audio guides! After that we visited Herst-Monceaux Castle, which was never really a practical castle when built, but a manor house. Not it’s the international study centre for Queens College, Canada. Go figure. 

Our last stop of the day was the Michelham Priory, capping a very Middle Ages weekend. 

Photos of said weekend, including great amounts of silliness, can be viewed here. 

A Few Musings, Traveling and Otherwise

I had originally written this as a bit of a rant and e-mailed it to a friend, who pointed out it made a fairly funny post. 


1. Gluten-free meals on airplanes. Just because I am gluten-free does not mean I eat less food. Frankly, I could eat two of those dumb little airplane meals, so maybe you shouldn't give us half the food that you give the normal people. That's silly, not feeding us as much food.

2. I'm spoiled by airplanes with personalized TV's. I like those much better than the little monitors every four rows on the ceiling of the plane. Mostly because the things they choose to show up there, maybe not what I would choose to watch.

3. I'm apparently a "pro" at airplane travel now. Uh-oh.

4. Middle-aged women smile at me randomly on buses. Why? Sometimes it's a little creepy.

5. Dr. Francis Warner and Penelope Warner = Coolest People In England

6. It gets dark earlier here. I had almost forgotten that in my two weeks back. It's very not cool that the sun set was at 4:45 today. ------ Although, on a happier note, sunrise was noticeably earlier this morning than when I had written this.

7. English people think three inches is a lot of snow. It's not. They also think 30 degrees Fahrenheit is cold. It's not. Try 16 inches of snow and -20 degrees Fahrenheit wind chills. Not cool. 


8. I'm wasting away from a lack of sun. My family laughed at me while I was home because I would stand next to windows and just soak up the sunrays. I'm glad I did, maybe it will last me until the sun finally decides it doesn't hate England anymore. 


9. I'm way busier this term, even though I'm not traveling. And I thought I would be bored. Guess not. 


10. I already miss my sister. She's flying home to KC right now... sad days. 

Hilary Term

Well, it’s a new year, a new term, there’s a new housemate, and there’s... snow on the ground. Now wait a moment, that’s NOT new. I just came back here to escape the 16 inches of snow and the terminal winds of -20 F. And there’s snow in Oxford? What’s this world coming to? 

On a more serious note, life sped up at the end of the term and there was crazy amounts of traveling. The previous sentence is my explanation for the lack of updates. 

I had all these plans to start posting narratives and pictures of all the places I’ve been over the last four months. But I was going to start over the Christmas holidays. And I flew home to surprise a few folks over said holidays. Okay, quick narrative moment:

Term ended Friday, 4 December. That very afternoon I grabbed my suitcase and caught a train to Bracknell, where my lovely older sister works. She picked me up from the train station and we drove to Dover (which was amazing!) where we spent Saturday and Sunday, the 5th and 6th. After that we headed back to Reading, where Rebekah lives, so she could spend the week working, and I could spend the week recovering and building my lungs back up from all the stress they had been under. We spent that week fairly quietly, and then left early Saturday morning, the 12th, for Ireland. We drove through the southern portion of Wales, to Fishguard and took the ferry over. It was a fairly long ferry journey, but it was still pretty wonderful, and I can certainly understand why folks choose that over a plane. Much less claustrophobic. We drove straight on to Cork City, County Cork, right after that. We spent two nights in County Cork, then one night in County Kilkenny. Right after that we went to Dublin, where we were joined by my lovely friend Megan, who is also studying in Oxford this term. You can check out her amazing blog here. We spent three nights in Dublin, and then headed over to Wales, where we went to Caernarfon, Hey-on-Wye, and Cardiff. After Cardiff we headed back to Oxford to drop off Megan, and then to Reading. Our plan was to spend the next week just cooking fun food and hanging out watching movies while we waited for the holidays to end. 

And that’s where our plans went a little off-track. We had arrived back Tuesday, 22 December. We pretty much ate dinner vegged out and went straight to bed. When we woke up the next morning both my sister and I had voicemails from my mom saying a good family friend was in the hospital. This family friend is especially close to me, we’ve always considered ourselves to be best friends. When I finally got ahold of my family that day, things seemed very bleak, and I was scared I would never see my friend again. It was at that point, that I decided a brief trip to the US was necessary. I looked at flights that afternoon, and by 10:00, I was booked for a Saturday flight home. 

So after a few delays in Chicago, that resulted in my getting to see my brother, Matt, and his wife, Love, I finally made it home to Kansas City, Sunday, 27 December, around noon. The best part of the whole trip was being able to surprise everyone, from my friend who had been released from the hospital the morning I flew in, to both grandmothers. The trip home was in the end fantastic, and in a way, just what I needed mentally. I was able to see my friend, and find out that things weren’t as bad as everyone had thought at first, I was able to buy all my medications, vitamins, and toiletries at home and saved myself tons of money. Plus I was able to spend lots of time with my family, and see several friends who I had been missing. I never thought I was the type to be homesick, and it wasn’t until I got off the plane at KCI that morning that I realized just how homesick I had been, and how much I had missed the amazing support network that’s made of my incredible family and friends. 

I still miss everyone, but I’ve noticed it was much easier settling in this week than it was last term. I’m already enjoying myself more than last term because I feel more at home. The situation in my house is less tense, and frankly, I’m a lot more excited for this term.

Now if it would only stop snowing.