"Life is a Dual Carriageway" -- Ladies' Trip to York

In mid-November, I got the chance to take a girls' weekend to York with 3 friends! Paul was awesome enough to watch Charlotte for the weekend, and he and his friend Jerome took the kids to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford to check out the airplanes. (Perfect, as I don't have much need to see hangars full of planes.) 

Charlotte at IWM Duxford

We met on base and Jess was kind enough to drive us to and from York in her car. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, and was a pretty easy drive on a Saturday. We checked into our hotel, then headed out to explore the city! We passed Betty's Cafe and Tearooms early on our walk, which is a famous spot in York -- the line was really long, but we ended up waiting in line the next day for about 45 minutes to get lunch there. It was really tasty!

That afternoon, we found a cute little cafe and enjoyed a full meal there. Although the food and drink was good, the most entertaining part was when a early 20-something man wearing only a French maid's outfit (it was COLD and rainy out!) stumbled in. He was clearly part of a larger "stag do" (British for bachelor party), which had been going on for quite some time, given the state of his drunkeness. He sat down in a chair at a random table with strangers, while the young ladies running the shop attempted to reason with him to leave. He started to get belligerent, but luckily one of his friends came in to shepherd him out at the same time as a man from another table had stood up to try to be a more intimidating force. We were glad to have not had an empty spot at our table to accomodate him ;)

After the late lunch, we walked to The Shambles. The Shambles is *the* famous street in York to visit. It is now lined with tourist shops, but it was originally a meat market of sorts. The street was designed with a slight slope toward the river so all the blood and offal from the meat markets could just be tossed in the middle street and it would slowly make its way down to the river for disposal. (Shudder.) It is a pretty street to walk down, especially at dusk, as the houses lean toward each other. It feels a little Diagon Alley-esque, for you Harry Potter fans.

The Shambles

One of the shops on The Shambles... reminded me of my mom, who loves Earl Grey tea :)

We then made our way to York Minster, which is an absolutely enormous cathedral. We were lucky enough to get there a few minutes before Evensong, which meant we entered the cathedral for free. It was a wonderful experience to hear the beautiful singing, which was chiefly done by a lot of fairly young singers (late elementary through high school). The echoing acoustics gave me goosebumps at times. I hope to get to more Evensongs while living in England; it is such a neat experience.

Beautiful interior of York Cathedral as we waited to enter the back chapel for Evensong.

We went back to the hotel for a bit, and ordered some delivery pizza to the hotel as we found out that room service didn't run on the weekends (huh??). After some pizza and wine, we called a taxi to take us to the starting point of the York Ghost Bus tour. It was an enjoyable experience, but got pretty silly at times and I wished it had been more clear what was actual York history vs. folklore vs. whatever the tour guide made up to "spook" us. I loved my seat near the front of the bus, as it gave me a great view of the bus driver who was dressed up in a very ghoulish outfit and mask. (I'm actually not convinced wearing a mask is the safest way to drive a bus, but it was entertaining and he waved at me.)

Our bus driver (the bluish-grey part is his face mask with dreadlocks flowing).

On Sunday, we slept in a bit and then enjoyed a full English breakfast buffet at the hotel, complete with baked beans on toast! I actually enjoy it :) We then went out to wander around town, see the ruins of an old abbey, and walk the city's walls. It was a rainy day, but we made the most of it. After walking around town and popping into a few shops, we went to York Castle Keep (Clifford's Tower) and Museum. Clifford's Tower is the site of a disturbing historical event in the 13th century where hundreds of Jews were under siege in the tower and massacred.

Erin & Jess in front of York Minster

Ruins of a church (or abbey?) in York

View of York Minster from the city walls

York Minster

The oldest building in York... now home to a Chinese restaurant

Kayla inside Clifford's Tower

View inside Clifford's Tower

The York Castle Museum was really neat; I had two favorite parts. First, I really enjoyed the exhibit where there are several rooms set up to peer into through a removed wall. Each room was a household room from a certain period of English history; for example, a parlor from the 17th century, or a Victorian dining room. It was very easy to imagine living in that time by looking in those rooms. My other favorite part was the quite large recreated Victorian street, complete with shopfronts full of Victorian items, recreations of Victorian plumbing, contemporary transportation methods, etc. Very cool!

The four girls on the Victorian street within York Castle Museum

After finishing up at York Castle Museum, we went back to the car and headed back home. It was a very fun weekend with friends!

Lyveden New Bield

In mid-November, we drove to a National Trust site about 40 minutes away from our current house. The place is called Lyveden New Bield, and it is an unfinished house from the Elizabethan period. It was begun to be built in 1604 or 1605, but the original owner died, the 2nd owner was executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot (see previous blog post!), and the third owner lost all his money. It was therefore never completed and remains the shell of a house that was never used.

We got to use audioguides for the house, but didn't get through too much of it due to Charlotte-chasing :) It was clear from what I listened to that there was an extensive Catholic persecution element to the house's owners, and there are a lot of structural and decorative elements (religious friezes, etc) to the house that mark it as a Catholic-owned home. 

Charlotte had a great time running up and down the hill leading to the basement entrance to the house, falling happily multiple times and getting quite muddy! After looking through the house, we walked the gardens and orchards on the property as well. There is a huge labyrinth that they keep mown well during the summer months, but it was a little hard to pick out during the fall due to lapsed maintenance. It was a cool and windy day, but we enjoyed seeing the site.

Running in and out of the low entrance to the ground floor of the house.

Interior of the house

Garden ground for ladies to promenade in their wide skirts.

Fallen apples on the ground

Baking days

When we visited my best friend Ashley and her family last spring, she gave Charlotte a matching chef's hat and apron. Charlotte has gotten great use out of it, especially when we went on a muffin-baking kick back in the fall. One day, we were all ready to bake and I realized we were missing an essential ingredient. Since we lived only a block from the local grocery store, I turned off the oven and got Charlotte ready to head over in the stroller. We hit a brief roadblock when I tried to take the chef's hat off her head against her will; I quickly realized this was not a battle I needed to fight and let her wear the hat to the store. We got quite a few smiles and "Oh, bless!" [British for "how cute!"] comments.

This hat is NOT coming off my head.

Another morning, Paul got out his camera to take some pictures of us making banana muffins. Charlotte just loves dumping the ingredients into the bowl, trying to stir, filling the muffin tin with paper liners, and using (with help) the old-fashioned ice cream scoop to portion out batter into the cups. And of course... eating them!

Bonfire Night 2015

"Remember, remember the 5th of November..." is a phrase that British schoolchildren learn in conjunction with the history of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Briefly, a fellow named Guy Fawkes and several Catholic co-conspirators plotted to blow up Parliament that year. The plot was discovered, and ended in execution for all the conspirators. (For more information, check out what Wikipedia has to say.) Ever since that year, the British people "remember" this event by holding bonfires and shooting fireworks off across the country. Typically, an effigy of Guy Fawkes is placed on the bonfire as well.

To see what all the hubbub was about, we went to a Bonfire Night in nearby Grafham. It was a relatively small event, which we paid a couple of pounds each to enter. They had a large bonfire going when we arrived, and had a couple of carnival rides outside and a food area within the municipal building on site. It was (again) quite muddy, but we enjoyed people-watching and sipping some hot mulled wine before the fireworks started. One benefit to the early sunset at this time of year in England (at the winter solstice, the sun sets at 3:47 pm!) is that fireworks can take place quite early in the evening. If I remember correctly, they started at 7 pm at this particular town's event. 

We had prepped Charlotte quite a bit for her first fireworks show, mostly by showing her a few YouTube videos and talking about how loud they can be. Luckily, although the show was quite impressive for a small town, the fireworks weren't particularly booming and she seemed to really enjoy watching them without fear. We were proud of her!

Enjoying the bonfire with a few hundred locals

"Whoa, those are bright!"

Autumn in Cambridgeshire

On the same day we visited the pumpkin patch in October, we drove and took the Park&Ride into Cambridge. We grabbed lunch at Nanna Mexico, which does some pretty darn good burritos. Mexican food in England is just not like Mexican food in America; we have frequently been disappointed by various iterations on tacos, nachos, and even margaritas. But Nanna is pretty good! We found out that British people pronounce the "j" in jalapeño as well.

We enjoyed a brief walk around the city center, and enjoyed seeing the colorful ivy on buildings as the leaves changed color. Because it doesn't freeze very often here, and it's not a "deep" freeze when it does, the fields remain surprisingly green throughout the autumn and winter. However, the leaves do change color and fall from most of the trees and hedgerows, which makes driving in the late fall/winter quite enjoyable -- you can see much further out toward the horizons along rolling hills. We also noticed that a lot more trees and shrubs have brightly colored berries on them here -- shades of bright orange, red, pink, and deep purple dominate as the leaves change color as well. 

Our walk led us to the playground on Jesus Green, where we met our friends Dan and Elisa and their son for some energy-burning for the kiddos. Afterward, we went to a cute little Italian coffeeshop with delicious (and THICK!) hot chocolate and enjoyed some good conversation while Charlotte and her friend played with toys in the children's area. A nice Saturday out!

Walking of burritos in Cambridge

Playtime!

This was way more work for Mama than for Charlotte

Pretty leaves & berries on the trees of our neighbor's front garden