Bull or No Bull?

Last Sunday we explored our first “footpath”.  There are thousands (total guess) of miles of paths – foot, cycle, or bridleways – that run along rivers, connect towns, and/or just ramble through farmland.  Katherine gave us a map of all the paths in Cambridgeshire, and we saw that one runs right through our neighborhood.  The trailhead was between two houses and immediately put us on a narrow path through a rapeseed field.  (Cold-pressed rapeseed oil is an alternative to olive oil – it has high omega 3’s and low saturated fat.)  At the end of the field the trail turned and continued right through a cow pasture (see photo).  Okay, I need someone like Bret Wise to laugh at me right now, but I’ve never really hung out with cows… and realized I’m scared to death of them!  Chris wasn’t any better – he made me walk about 20 paces into the field before he even crossed the fence.  Anyway, about a quarter mile in we confronted a juvenile male right in the middle of the path.  He stared us down, flared his ears, and trotted a couple paces towards us.  I almost peed my pants.  He may have been young but he had to have weighed a thousand pounds!  Luckily a 65+ year-old couple was also walking on the footpath from the other direction and the monster started towards THEM.  In the most anticlimactic of scenarios, the old Scottish dude kinda moo’d at the calf and it ran away.  Lesson learned.  He did warn us, and I quote “there have been a few fatalities lately”, so either he was messing with us or my fears weren’t entirely unfounded.  Anyone up for a walk when you visit?  Hehe.  I was hooked after the first adventure and have explored a few of the other trails around here.

 

BULL IN FIELD



He looks cute and small in this picture but believe me, not so in real life.



Poppies in a field



Monday's walk



3 miles into Tuesday's walk - Old Gloucester

Old Rocks, Old Churches

The reason we left wonderful Little Rock (wow do we miss our friends, our house, our lab Bailey, the River Trail, hot weather) was to travel and see as much of the UK and Europe as we could in these three years.  Just like in the States it’s really expensive to make last-minute train or flight reservations, so when we decided on Thursday to get away for the weekend we were limited to places to which we could drive.  We packed an overnight bag, splurged by booking a sweet B&B, and took off on Friday morning.  First stop was regal Oxford.  Chris risked his life to let me drive most of the couple hours there (still in the stupid rental car – we HAVE to buy a car today!) 

Interesting story about Oxford – I was there more than a decade ago for my cousin’s ordination into the Black Friar monkhood.  What?!  For those who don’t know this, my dad was South African and as our family moved to the States one of my dad’s brothers moved to England.  On Friday I spotted a familiar wrought-iron fence with the Black Friar logo from the window of the Park and Ride bus. Was that where we had been for the ceremony so long ago?  Sure enough, when I asked the attendant if she knew a Peter Hunter she smiled and said I had missed him by a few days – he had been in town for a conference but was now back home a few hours north of Oxford.   She gave me his address and number.  I literally haven’t spoken to Padre Pete (or any of the ‘England Hunters’ ) in more than five years but may have to do some forgiving and give him a call at some point.   It really was a really weird mix of emotions walking in there.  Otherwise, walking around the town and its famous university was fantastic – lots of great shopping and smart people all together in a place steeped in history.  Lovely.  (oh, and the bottom picture is of Christ Church College where Harry Potter was filmed)

After eating some lunch we drove another couple hours to Stonehenge to get our super-tourist on.  Stonehenge is really impressive.  Parts of it are 5000 years old.  Five thousand.  And its rocks are not local, either.  How the heck did they drag those monsters there?  How did they bury a third of each stone? We laughed out loud a few times at the audio guide’s speculation on the purpose of Stonehenge – apparently saying “some experts believe” makes any crazy idea legitimate enough to include

From Stonehenge we drove a few minutes into the cute little town of Salisbury, best known for its impressive cathedral.  Apparently the most intact copy of the Magna Carta is still housed there.  It was built in the 1200’s.  Geez the US is so relatively young!  We checked into the Sedgehill House B&B and walked around town for a bit before eating some amazing pub food (no sarcasm), drinking some pints of the local beers (eh), and trying our first Pimms and lemonade.  Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Pimms is a British liquor that traditionally gets mixed with lemonade (sprite?) and cucumber, fruit, etc.  Chris insists it smells like a box of fruit loops.  Whatever it is, it makes for a great summer drink. 

Our first full English breakfast was served at Sedgehill House Saturday morning.  English breakfast is pretty good, but there’s something about bacon and eggs that beats beans and ham for us.  The other family at breakfast was a Norwegian mother, father, and daughter.  Like us, the family had recently moved to England for a few years with their armed forces.  There was plenty to talk about because this was the morning after the Oslo bombing and shootings – the first violence of that scale in Norway since WWII. The family was obviously upset by the event but were relieved having just heard news that that their niece (who worked a block away from the bomb) was okay.  It was definitely interesting to hear their perspective on the events.

We left Salisbury after buying our weeks’ worth of produce for practically nothing at their market.  That evening, one of the other dentists (Russ) and his family hosted a “Med Clinic  Barbeque” so we could meet everyone Chris will be working with.  There must’ve been 20 kids and almost as many adults there.  It was crazy, the food was delicious, and we only had to walk three houses down to get home. 

We are missing home but making it.  Hugs, Claire and Chris

Rain and Regulations

July 20, 2011

First off, yes, it rains here just about every day.  The sky is never an unblemished Carolina blue (sigh – spoiled by the South) but rather is about half clear and half cloudy.  The weather seems to move really quickly:  A pretty day will suddenly darken, the rain falls for a bit, and then it too moves by and leaves room for another round of sun.  It seems like the trick is to always carry an umbrella or slicker just for those sudden showers.  All that rain makes for some really lush gardens, so I’m okay with that.  What I’m realizing is going to be hard is the lack of bake-in-your-skin heat.  It’s July, people.  Sweaters (jumpers) should still be packed away, socks shouldn’t be mandatory attire in the house, and I should definitely not need that extra blanket on the bed yet.  I see our chances of melanoma plummeting (and our chances of depression sky rocketing – pass me the Vitamin D!) 

Okay, enough about the weather. Funny story – they drive on the opposite side of the road here and don’t seem to believe in street signs.  That’s terrifying in a tiny, manual, steering-wheel-on-the-right car with a cracked mirror, going around the ton of round-a-bouts especially the first couple times when with every turn you wonder - Am I going to get in a head-on collision?   I’m excited to get visitors so we can let them experience the ‘something is wrong here’  feeling you get riding shotgun on the left side.  I remember my parents driving us throughout the UK when I was in high school, before the age of Garmin, and I honestly don’t know how they made it anywhere.  The tiny cars and narrow roads make for great driving, though.  It absolutely makes you pay more attention to the road and your surroundings and almost counts as an adventure sport. 

We have a house! We’re living in a cul-de-sac of officer housing (off base) in a little village called Brampton in Cambridgeshire.  It’s a good size, with a great backyard (with an apple tree!), has both English and American electrical outlets, and we only have to pay cable and internet bills.  It’s convenient to Chris’ work (and hopefully me in the future – still trying to see about that) and Cambridge (25 minutes away).  We’re ready for our household goods to arrive, for sure, but better able to wait it out here than in a tiny hotel room.  The neighbors are wonderful – we’ve met two other dentists and an attorney and their families.  Other than not having a handful of kids I think we’ll fit in just fine.   Chris’ sponsor is another dentist Lanny.  He has driven us around everywhere and his wife Brooke has literally fed us for this entire week.  Their little girls even made us some art to put on the fridge.  Ah-mazing. 

My cousin Katherine has spent the past year studying in Bristol, England.  We spent last Sunday in Cambridge with her, and ended up eating a delicious lunch at The Eagle, a pub founded in the 14^th century where James Watson and Francis Crick announced to the world their discovery of the double helix nature of DNA in the 1950’s.  Cool, huh?  We also watched the punters and toured Clare College of Cambridge. 

A couple funny laws:

1.       English electrical code states you can’t have an outlet in a bathroom.  (Easy to off your spouse by throwing the hairdryer in the tub while they’re taking a bath)

2.        If you kill a quail while driving you can’t stop and get it off the road, but if someone in front of you hits one you CAN stop and collect it.  

 love, claire and chris

Getting there...

We're in Maggie Valley, NC right now, enjoying our last night with mom and Benson.  We had quite a few days of quality time with the Schmidt family before this - hanging out with little nephew Wyatt (who just learned to say "hi Chris!") and celebrating the wedding of Amy and Peter Schmidt in Chicago.  Tomorrow we journey on to Charleston, SC to say g'bye to Calvin and ship the Altima to England.  Our adventure is definitely starting!