Author: Sagacity

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Back on American Soil

We have arrived back in America after a very long day of traveling.  I am very glad it is over.  Our luggage was lost somewhere on the way.  It took another day to arrive.  They must have ran it through the oven.  All chocolate melted and everything else was jarred.  They even opened the luggage to inspect.

I just uploaded 169 photos for the album.  After going through and naming all 169 of them, the thing defaulted and then did not save them.  So you may want to wait before looking at the photos.  I will let you know when I get them named.  Additionally, I have ran out of room again for the second month in a row.  The photos only run to Northern Wales.  Everything for the past week I cannot upload until August arrives.  I suppose you will just have to wait!

Life is good.  I am glad to still be alive and feeling in one piece after the flights.

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Leaving London

Today is officially the last day of our trip to Europe. Can you believe we have passed a full six weeks in Europe?? 

We visited St. Paul’s, The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and the Globe Theatre today. They were all cool. However, at this point another cathedral and I will injure myself. Sir Christopher Wren did a great job on the inside, but the outside seems to be lacking some. Perhaps it is years of paint and wear. Perhaps it is war. The interior was amazing.

A couple of thoughts to wrap it up.

Amanda figured out that in the ‘To Let’ signs around Europe, meaning ‘For Rent’, if you put in an ‘i’ it becomes ‘ToiLet’. We wanted to get up and alter one or two of them, but we did not.

Secondly, on my second to last day, I was the target of a pigeon. On the front stairs of St. Martin in the Fields, I sat pondering life when a large drop fell on my right knee. I thought it was some water until I realized it was warm. Looking over, I saw the signs of whiteness indicating a deposit by some bird. It was a laugh, some disappointment, and disgust. Reminded me of the seagulls leaving a deposit in the Roman Baths in Bath.

Alas, I am humming along with John Denver about leaving on a jet plane.

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Westminster, Wicked, and Wandering

A brief update of our past two days. 

Yesterday was Westminister Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and more. We went to see Wicked at the Victoria Apollo and we both really enjoyed it.

Sunday we went to Hampton Court Palace. It was a very fast tour, but we made it through the entire house. The rest of the time was enjoyed with the Jeppesen Family.

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Milton Abbas, England

We have arrived in Weybridge, England. We are staying with a family we knew in Richmond, Virginia; the Jeppesen family. Weybridge is not far from London and this will be our home grounds while we are visiting the London area. We certainly appreciate their hospitality. 

Today we have been busy. We spent the morning with the Wise family and saying our farewell. They really spoiled us while we were there. A full English dinner last night. I will tell you what! What a treat!

Yesterday we visited Longleat, which is a living manor house. Quite the treat. It has been there since Elizabethan times. They even have the shirt Charles II was executed in. That was interesting. The Lord of Bath lives there at present.

We made a trip to Poole and Bournemouth, both of which were interesting. We would have spent more time but Amanda left her purse at a McDonald’s which required backtracking some. It was luckily turned in and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Later in the evening Jennie took Amanda down to Weymouth and Portland while Cynthia and I went through family history. We are definitely cousins through Edward Harris and his wife. We are very likely related through my Willetts line, but we were not able to show the connection. She doesn’t have her line far enough back to connect to where I have individuals. But by all accounts, the families definitely link, making us double cousins!

Today was much more of a Jane Austen day. We visited Winchester Cathedral where she is buried. But it has a fascinating history all its own. It was falling down and it required divers to correct the foundations. How is that for interesting? We also visited the Jane Austen home in Chawton where she lived for many years.

We now find ourselves in Weybridge for the next few days. The London Temple is of course closed while we are here. But we are looking at visiting London while we are here.

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Bath, Birmingham, and Milton Abbas

Tonight we write from the deep countryside of Dorset.  We are staying in the little village of Milton Abbas with a cousin’s cousin.  We are both related to the Coley and Harris lines in Halesowen, England.  Peter and Cynthia Wise have taken us in a day earlier due to the fact we are not going to Merthyr-Tydfil, Wales now.  We will be with them two days.

Yesterday went terribly wrong.  We left a little late from Walkden, got stuck in a traffic queue for 1.5 hours in Stockport meaning we had to drop our visit to Chatsworth House.  Then we decided we better drop Mattersey and Misson on my Sharp family line to at least make Sudsbury Hall.  We then found out the M1 was closed with miles of traffic queue so we had to take side roads to Nottingham.  There we saw the Robin Hood sites and made our way to Sudsbury for their manor house.  Well, all the side roads were occupied with motorway traffic so we were delayed, we got lost, and in the end missed the last time to get into the home.  We got pictures with the house but Amanda was devastated we didn’t get in.

In defeat, we made our way to Hagley, near Halesowen, near Birmingham last night.  We checked into our little hotel and ran into Halesowen where we found the church of St. John the Baptism.  Interestingly, as we wandered the cemetery, we found loads of Coley, Willetts, and Harris tombstones.  Many were modern, but there were a few in which I am sure they are cousins I have in my family history file.  That made it worth it.  The other deceased I will have to do some research on to trace them back to the family and connect them in.  Hopefully I can find another person who has done research on some of the same lines and can help me with my research.  We shall see.

Today we toured Romsley, Hayley Green, and Bromsgrove near Halesowen, more sites of Coley ancestry.  We wandered and took more pictures in St. Kenelm’s church.  There were more Coleys and Willetts found there.  I was pretty excited.  None as old as in the Halesowen church, but you never know.  We hopped on the Motorway and went through Worcester, Gloucester, and finally to Bath.  There we saw the Royal Crescent, some of the Victoria Gardens, and the Roman Baths.  It is a beautiful city.  We enjoyed ourselves.  From there we wanded to Milton Abbas way out in the countryside.  We drove several miles through one car-width lanes to this village.

We are still figuring out what we will do tomorrow.  At any rate, it should be fun.

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Manchester, England

Today Amanda and I ran away for a quick visit to Manchester.  There was not much on the agenda.  We visited the Arndale Shopping Center, Manchester Cathedral, Manchester Town Hall, Old Trafford (Manchester United football grounds), Market Street, and the Trafford Centre (glorified shopping mall).  Amanda was able to pick up her British copy of the first Harry Potter book.

This evening, the Gore’s organized a bit of a get together for some of the members of the Eccles (now Swinton) Ward.  It was very, very kind of them to do this for us.  There were several families who came and it was wonderful to catch up with them.  Leslie Walsh, Bob and Joan Wood, Alan and Margaret Griffin, Vincenzo and Dawn Santi, Alex and Gloria Brown with their son Nathan, and the Gores.  They all had such wonderful things to say to us, about me, and it was great to catch up with them.

Kevin and Jean Gore treated us to a pub dinner this evening.  It was really good food.  They also treated us to a roast duck dinner last night.  Each family has treated us very well, and provided great meals.  We certainly appreciate their generosity.

Tomorrow we head to Birmingham, the day after to Milton Abbas.  Don’t know when I will be able to get back on.

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Walkden, England

Just a quick and short update.  I uploaded photos from Scotland this morning.  I hope you find them interesting.  We will see how many more photos it will let me upload for the month.

We are now staying with the Gore family in Walkden.  We arrived later than anticipated after a day of visiting in Runcorn.  We attended church in the Runcorn Ward at the local community center since their building burned down a while back.  It was good to see so many people and that we received such a hearty welcome.  We did go visit a number of families while there.  A couple of which include the Campbell (and Young), Fleming, McWilliam, Johnson, Byrom and more.  A couple of families were not home so we did not visit with them.  It was sure good to be back in Runcorn, despite the fact that you have to drive around in circles to get anywhere you want to go.  Busways might be spectacular, but at the sacrifice of the drivers!

Saturday we made another trip into Liverpool.  The only thing really to mention is that we got lost and had lunch with Gheorghe and Claire Simion family.  Gheorghe was one of my mission companions.  We spent nearly four hours with him and his good wife.  It was convenient he lives in Liverpool now as he was originally from Romania.  It was a great meeting.

We are off to Hyde and Disley today.

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Northern Welsh Castles

First, Happy Birthday Dad.  As always, I am sure you will have all the neighbors celebrating with fireworks.  Happy Birthday Jan, I know it was a week ago, but I am still thinking of you.  Happy Birthday America.  May all of you live long!

Yesterday and today we were off visiting several castles of Northern Wales.  They are all built under the direction of Edward I in the late 1200’s.  If Amanda wasn’t sick of castles yet, hopefully we have advanced her towards such a state.

Yesterday we visited Conwy and Beaumaris castles.  There isn’t really any way for us to describe it rather than show you the photos.  Which we will have to upload.

Today we drove straight out to Caernarfon Castle and it took about 4 hours to work our way through it.  We ran into a lady named Gaby, and found out she was going to take a bus to Harlech after Caernarfon.  We invited her to go with us.  We all drove to Harlech when we finished.  It was another beautiful castle situated high above an estuary.  We spent a couple of hours there and then cut through Northern Wales.  She was going to take the train back to Chester so we volunteered to drop her off.  She effectively became our gate opener and closer as we drove through pasture after pasture in Wales.  It was beautiful!

We finally made it back to a main path near Pentre Gwynfryn and cut back down to a main road.  We took a turn at Penrhyndeudraeth and headed inland.  We went right through the Welsh Mountains and it was beautiful.  We had lunch at Blaenau Ffestiniog.  We haven’t a clue how to say it but I did get a fairly descent donner kebab.  We also drove through Mold.  We definitely have to mention that one!  We dropped off our new friend, Gaby, in Chester and came home.

Last night we went to visit some more friends who I knew as a missionary.  As a credit, they all remembered my name even though we almost 10 years on.  One of which was a man we baptized, Adam Dawson.

Anyhow, we are traveling maniacs!