January 20, 2004

• Our cat Oreo has become the great black and white hunter. Just last week he caught a wild rat (No, not one of our pets! It was from outside.) Gene found it barely alive, and luckily after the kids were off at school. Last spring Oreo found a hummingbird and killed it, an appropriate funeral and burial was held. Yesterday Gene found Oreo with a white pigeon. Ack! Luckily Gene got the bird away from Oreo and we are trying to rehabilitate the poor bird in a spare rat cage. Not the best home, but something that will protect the poor thing from the cats. There was some blood, but the pigeon made it through the night and seemed to be doing better today. It has a band on one leg, we think the bird might belong to a guy that lives about a mile away and raises homing pigeons. I will get some bird food at the pet store today for our newest critter.

  
  

  I am glad people are enjoying the photos of our trip to England. Once I get through the rest of the trip, I will go back and post photos of the other places I wrote about, but did not have pictures at the time.

  
  

  The day after Warwick was Sunday, and our friends attend a Catholic church in the village of Broadway, in the Cotswolds. I am totally in love with the Cotswolds, all the best things we saw were in this area. It is just so relaxed and pretty, filled with pastures and farms, beautiful little villages like Broadway and Chipping Campton. While our friends attended church, we wandered the village, looking in shops and exploring. One of the more famous points in Broadway is the Lygon Arms, built in 1532.

  
  

  

  
  

  The Lygon Arms

  
  

  The big highlight for the kids, while we were window shopping, was snow! Yes, for about 10 minutes, big fat, fluffy flakes fell down and the girls and I danced around in it. They were the type that melt as they hit the ground, but it was very fun! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures of Broadway, since my camera battery decided to die while there. I took some pics on a disposable, but I have not developed them yet. I found a needlework store in Broadway and had a lovely time picking out several cross stitch kits to take home and work. Now to just find some free time! I also bought Scottish wool sweaters for the girls and I at the Woolen Mill store. (Gene didn't want one, I offered!) Mine is so cute, it is the thick Irish cable knit with three fat sheep sitting in clover on the front.

  
  

  

  
  

  Looking down the main road in Broadway from the Village Green

  
  

  At 11 am we met our friends at a tea shop in Broadway and had tea with them, as well as an American couple who live in the UK and go to their church. No one does tea as well as the English! Yum! Of course to really do a proper English tea, you have to add milk, but I just could not adapt to that taste.

  
  

  Following tea, Ann and Joe took us to a home in Broadway, which some friends of theirs own. It is the oldest home in Orchestra county, with the oldest room dating back to the 1300's. I was really kicking myself for not having a camera then, it was just lovely and not a public place to view, so we were very lucky to see it. The front door was short, and you had to duck to step inside and there were a couple of tiny windows with very old stained glass in them. The dinning room had a beautiful fireplace, with something in latin carved over it, in the old English style of writing. The whole place was just fantastic.

  
  

  After this we went to see the St. Eadburgha's Church, about a mile outside the village, which had once been the main church in the village. It had another graveyard outside which got Becca into her morbid "are there dead people out there" mode! Yes Becca, people die and they get buried. The inside of the church was rather plain, it is not used a lot and over time it has been robbed a good number of times, but it did have decorations still from Christmas. I was impressed to see that each kneeling cushion had been hand needlepointed with beautiful designs by ladies of the village.

  
  

  

  
  

  The church, as it looked in the 1700s

  
  

  

  
  

  The church today, complete with cemetery

  
  

  Hmm, this blog is already pretty long, so I will save our afternoon travels for tomorrow!

  
  

  (Images for today's blog were pulled off the web from various travel and historical websites, due to my own lack of photos!)

  
  

   

  • 11:20 am
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