The third week in England, the best yet!

We went to York this weekend. It fulfilled our dreams of we hoped to see while staying here. We stopped to look at antiques; we walked through the most out of the ordinary streets, and toured a magnificent Cathedral.
I hope the photos do justice to the experience.

The York Minster Cathedral,, which was originally Catholic, is now Anglican. The locals here call it the Minster. The first church on this site was built in 627 AD. There were several other churches built over the centuries, however, the one seen in this picture started in 1220 AD. by Walter Gray. It is the largest Gothic Cathedral in northern Europe.

The next few photos are from the roof of the Cathedral. Yes, Steve and I climbed 275 steps up a spiral staircase for midgets. Thought I would die. They made us read a warning sign before starting but who reads that stuff anyway. We have great pictures!

The next set of photos are of the inside of the Cathedral. The Minster stands on a site where history has been made over the centuries. The Emperor Constantine began his progress to greatness here, and the foundations of the Roman buildings in which he lived can be seen under the central tower.

Kings of the Quire screen. There are 15 of them. They separate the quire from the main church.

This is the Quire

I have a few more photos of what we came across when leaving the Cathedral. The purple guy on the bike looked like a statue to me so I got closer to check him out--Not a good plan. The rest are people watching photos as well as shots of the irregular streets. The homes were taxed on how large the first floor was sooo, they built the first floor small and all those on top huge. Therefore it looks like the buildings could kiss each other.

Cannot wait for the weekend, we are off to London!

This weekend was great. Steve and I are getting the walking and bus riding down to an exact science. I think we will both be in great shape when we get home.

 

On Saturday we went to explore the ancient ruins of Kirkstall Abbey. It actually is the most complete examples of a medieval Cistercian abbey in Britain. While there, we could imagine how the 12^th century monk lived. As you look at the ruins it was the late great King Henry VIII who tore it down. More about him later.

  

The other part of this exploration we enjoyed was the grounds. We took pictures of the flower gardens and the natural wild flowers growing alongside the river. There were the tiniest daisies popping up everywhere under foot. We saw obviously ancient cherry, holly, and willow trees. I can only imagine what sort of tails they could tell. Hope you enjoy those pictures.

The next place visited was the Abbey House Museum where you can experience the sights and sounds of life in Victorian Leeds in the year 1880! We visited a street called Stephen Harding Gate, the 19th century equivalent of the Plaza in downtown KC. Where one would go for some old fashioned retail therapy. You can even take a break in the Hark to Rover Inn, a recreated model of a Victorian drinking house! In their exhibit they also include the poorer residential district which examines life and death in Victorian times. Here you will view the warm comfortable home of the successful pawnbroker with the chilly premises of the undertakers.  In addition, on another floor of the museum they have fantastic displays showing rare and interesting 19th Century toys, games and dolls. Humpty Dumpty and the old woman’s shoe were there too and that excited me to see.

Wooden Sculpture at the end of the staircase from 900AD

Yes they are toilets

English gardens

We were worn out when we got home and looking for a good night’s sleep, however, this is not possible in England on Saturday. Our hotel sits right beside a Pub. On Saturday the boys are out for a couple of drinks, you see, and a couple of fights. Sooo, speaking for myself, I was up twenty times due to the noise. I now know all the profanities used in the Queens English. They use the “F” word the same as we do. Another lesson learned.

Sunday was a venture to Leeds Royal Armoury. The Royal Armouries is Britain’s national museum of arms and armour. At the Leeds Museum there are over 8,500 objects on display in five galleries: War; Tournament; Oriental; Self Defense and Hunting.   Forgive me for having a little tone while describing this tour. This is truly a guy thing. To me it was five stories of instruments mankind had used over 5000 years to kill each other. In addition, it was 5000 years worth of different kinds of armour they used to protect themselves from being killed. There was one thing that got my interest though, and that was Henry VIII’s armour. Now, I do not have a good opinion of this guy anyway but looking at this armour took the cake. We have a picture of this but the most intriguing part of it Steve would not photograph, which is; His steel plated, extremely large, outrageously protruding, nicely decorated, nut guard. I laughed till I was in tears. Now take in consideration while imagining this vulgar display of ego, none of the other displays of armour had one. Enjoy the pictures.

Henry VIII's Armour

5 stories of armour

The new kids have arrived!

Hello there,

This is Cece, Steve’s scribe for the blog. I have not done this before so here you go.

We arrived in England on June 9^th, last Thursday. We have been learning by the seat of our pants ever since.  The flight was long and not easy to get comfortable, so I give Steve and me an A for effort in trying to get some sleep.

We landed in Manchester and our first barrier of performance was catching the train. Here is the picture; two old geezers walking through the airport in a foreign country dragging 3 months worth of luggage behind us. Doing quite well I might add. We stopped at Starbuck’s to get refueled then off again asking people as we go, where is the train?  We find it, no problem, load up the luggage, sit down, and I fall asleep. Steve, however, is wide awake loving the landscape and architecture. I cracked an eye from time to time, otherwise, crashed.

The next learning curve we stumbled into was getting a cab. Again loaded with luggage, bed head, dark circles under eyes, we are asking as we go through the train station where are the taxies?  Finally we see them and it looks like there is a line of at least ten of them along the street. We hail down the first taxi we see, and low and behold, he waves us to go on. Not believing that, we go to the next one. He waves us on too. The third guy sees us coming and shouts out the window- Go to the front of the line! Fine, I assume it’s because he has a van and can actually handle 3 months of luggage. Who knew!

We arrive at Roomzzz and crash. We get up around dinner time and unpack then off to the next door pub. They serve great sandwiches. They do not serve ice tea. They serve ice coffee though. Sooo, I ask the waitress for a cup of tea and a glass of ice.  Problem solved.

The next day Steve is off to his new audit. I planned to take it easy today and tidy up the room, getting it organized. This is when I had my first lesson in communication. The maid came into the room to pick up towels and trash. I have absolutely no idea what she said. She was speaking English, I think, but no clue what about. I just nodded.

My next experience while Steve was at work was in blowing up the appliances I had brought from home. I thought I was a great smarty pants and had all the right adaptors, but No, they only slowed down the burn. I was freaking out by the time Steve got home but all I got was, “I told ya not to bring all that stuff.” No problem—there is an Amazon.com in the UK. Problem solved. A girl needs her things.

Room views

Over the weekend we went to the Leeds City Center and plaza. It was an amazing collection of diversity. I loved it. We stopped and had our first fish and chips, quite good, but very unhealthy. They put gravy, peas, or curry on the chips. By the way, chips are French fries. Steve had the gravy and I had the peas. We decided we liked them but not enough to eat them at home.  Victoria’s station was lovely in the city center. They have true artisans there. Their wares cost a king’s ransom so we left them there. We took a few pictures of the trip, hope you enjoy.

Our next trip was to the Thackray Medical Museum. As a retired nurse this was a real treat. In the exhibition one gets to step back in time to 1842 and experience the sights and sounds of Victorian Leeds. After experiencing that squalor, you walk on through the museum and in an ingeniously organized manner find out how scientific discoveries helped us to understand disease and revolutionize medicine in today’s time. It is well done and I recommend it.

On another note, we went to the grocery store yesterday. I met Steve at a beautiful rose garden near his work and we walked to Morrison’s together. We enjoyed the walk to Morrison’s but the walk back was a challenge. What happened to getting in the car and going to the store? What about having the groceries brought to the car? We carried them home. We caught buses. Not what this pampered housewife is used to. These Brits are tough.

This is where we ate our first English Sunday dinner; roast, chips, peas, cabbage, and Yorkshire pudding. Steve and I were excited about getting the pudding-NOT-it is just a roll with a hole in it and gravy in that. Very disappointed, but, we learned something.