Welcome to 'The Spinney'!

It's the moment for which I KNOW you've all been waiting - pictures of our permanant housing. We moved into 'The Spinney' on July 22nd. It was built in 1920 and is a semi-detached house which in American-speak means 'duplex'. We have attached neighbors to our right, Michael and Barbara Jackson (no, not THE Michael Jackson, thank goodness, but easy to remember his name). It's about as big as our house back home space-wise and we are very content here. I wanted to take a video tour, but I can't find my flip camcorder at the mo' so photos will suffice. Here goes:

House front. Above the door on the concrete portion, it faintly says 'The Spinney'. There is a small garage to the left (black area) which has good storage but it's open in the back, so things are sort of exposed to the elements.

Backyard and garden - look, it really is sunny here! There's a garden shed in the very back and the gate to the park as well. I'll get that on the blog another time.

Fish pond with approximately 10 koi, one of which is a tiny newborn black one named 'Blackie' oddly enough by Owen. He will turn orange, yellow and/or white as he matures.

Front foyer with awesome tile pattern

Front reception room sans couch. Mom and Dad, we should have brought the sectional, que sera.

Back sitting room where the telly resides

Galley kitchen looking into the laundry room and a full bath in the very back (white door). Back exit is to the left.

Dining room. Thanks for the table switch, Mom and Dad, it fits perfectly!

1st of 4 levels of stairs - off foyer

Owen's pigsty, oh I meant 'bedroom'!

Our bedroom

Other half of our bedroom. The huge windows are old wavy glass.

Art deco bathroom which is truly a bathroom because...

there's a completely separate water closet (W.C.) next door.

Evan's bedroom. The green thing against the wall is actually a snooker table which fits over the garden table outside. Snooker, anyone?

Stairs leading from Evan's and our level

Craft room/office with the BEST view of the park

Stairs leading to Finn's sanctuary oh I meant bedroom

Finn's bedroom which has its own half bath as well

There is also a basement which I think is kinda creepy and smelly, so I won't and don't plan to go there often or ever for that matter. Craig can hide whatever he wants to down there and I will never attempt to sneak a peek.

Wells Cathedral

On our way down from Glastonbury Tor, we stopped into the Somerset Rural Life Museum. The kids loved the chickens roaming free and the museum was really informative and interesting even for the kids. This is a photo of the Tithe Barn where neighboring farms paid 10% of their crops to the Abbot or Bishop of the village.

We then travelled to Wells to view the magnificent cathedral there. It was a most impressive sight and sort of scary with the gray sky behind. I only have photos from the outside because I was too cheap to "buy" a photo license which would have allowed me to take photos inside. As an aside, I HATE when organizations charge an extra fee for things like this. Why not just give the option up front or including it in the price of admission/"donation", instead of herding you into the structure, then saying, "Oh, if you want to take pictures, there's an extra charge."? Like we all never considered using the cameras we brought... Such a gimick and it just figures that it happened at a church. Craig had already willingly gave our generous "donation" only to find we had to buy the license so we were both miffed.

Jesus and the twelve apostles

Front view

Courtyard view from outside the Cloisters

Anyway, there are over 300 statues and my most favorite area was The Lady's Chapel which had a painted relief of a mermaid/belly dancer on the ceiling where the arches met. In general the ceilings were fantastic and reminded me of Russian or Polish artwork with colorful flowery embrodiery-like decoration. Craig's was the scissors arch and the kids all liked the clock which had a mechanical display of knights jousting with one getting knocked over every 15 minutes. The stained glass was amazing. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Cathedral for any information you might want to read and for some good photos of the interior.

Glastonbury Tor

Craig took the week off and we've been doing some day trips. Our first stop was in the southwest, past Bristol to Glastonbury. Owen wanted to see the sword in the stone. Well, they don't have that here, so our closest match was Glastonbury Tor. This is supposedly the burial place of King Arthur and Guineviere and the resting place of the Holy Grail. It was a bit of a hike up this steep hill and Owen beat us all to the top. The views were spectacular and we had a nice picnic at the top. It was super windy at the top inside the tower which was neat. The tower is the only remaining part of the church that once stood on this very tall hill.

Sudeley Castle

I was going through old photos and realized I forgot to do a blog on Sudeley (sood lee) Castle. This was the first place I drove the car. I told the kids ahead of time that they needed to be SILENT while I drove and they held up to their part of the deal and they each got a chocolate bar for their efforts. (Well, for Evan and Finn, it wasn't an effort, but for Owen to remain quiet for a whopping 15-20 minutes was a truly heroic effort on his part!) Driving was a breeze except for the humongous hills.

The castle was very beautiful and probably is a knock-out in the spring when all the flowers are in bloom. There was a nice history section and displays of castle life in the past and clothing, but we zoomed through those to get outside again and also to give us something to look at when we bring people there since it is so close. There was an awesome bird sanctuary with a lot of pheasants and we stayed there a long time. I had marked this as a 3 plusses, but we are switching it to a four after seeing the photos.

I think this was St. Mary's Chapel, but now I can't remember. It is of great historical note because Catherine (aka Katherine) Parr, the last wife of King Henry VIII is buried there. I looked her up on Wikipedia and here's what I found:

"In 1782, a gentleman by the name of John Locust discovered the coffin of Queen Catherine at the ruins of the Sudeley Castle chapel. He opened the coffin and observed that the body, after 234 years, was in a surprisingly good condition. Reportedly the flesh on one of her arms was still white and moist. After taking a few locks of her hair, he closed the coffin and returned it to the grave. The coffin was opened a few more times in the next ten years and in 1792 some drunken men buried it upside down and in a rough way. When the coffin was officially reopened in 1817, nothing but a skeleton remained. Her remains were then moved to the tomb of Lord Chandos whose family owned Sudeley Castle at that time. In later years the chapel was rebuilt by Sir John Scott and a proper altar-tomb was erected for Queen Catherine." It definitely is a very impressive tomb.

Her father was Sir Thomas Green who was Sheriff of Northamptonshire, Master of the Wards and Comptroller to King Henry VIII. Her mother, Lady Maud Green, was an attendant of Catherine of Aragon. I guess it helps to have parents who work for the king.

Her final husband was Thomas Seymour who she was initially engaged to before marrying Henry VIII. They had a daughter, Mary, who is believed to have died in childhood, hence the Chapel of St. Mary (aha, we have come full circle).

I also discovered that she was the most-married of Henry VIII's wives (four times, Henry was her third hubbster) and she was widowed thrice in rapid succession (hmmm... very suspicious). I always thought all of Henry's previous wives were beheaded or died, but Catherine is not the only wife who outlived him. Anne of Cleves was Henry's fourth wife, for only six months. "She has become known as "The Flanders Mare" because the king is said to have disliked her appearance. Her pre-contract of marriage with Francis, Duke of Lorraine, was cited as grounds for an annulment. Anne agreed to this, claiming that the marriage had not been consummated, and she was given a generous settlement, including Hever Castle, former home of Henry's former in-laws, the Boleyns. She was given the name "The King's Sister", and became a friend to him and his children. She outlived both the king and his last two wives, including Catherine." (Wikipedia)

How's THAT for your English history lesson of the day????

The Queen's Garden

Evan in the banquet hall

Finn peeking through into the banquet hall with the hedge rows behind

There is a lot of modern sculpture interspersed throughout the gardens.

Our Balloon Ride

After Owen's birthday, we took a balloon ride in Boyce, VA which is very close to Harper's Ferry, WV and the Shenandoah's. Here is some more video of our adventure.

Owen's 8th Birthday

Owen turned eight on June 28th. It was by far the hottest day of the Maryland summer which we experienced. We went to Annapolis and wandered around the Naval Academy a bit until we were all too hot and then we headed to Ellicott City to visit family and have a birthday dinner. Here is some video from the day.

Jokes

I am really bad at remembering and retelling jokes. Luckily we have some good friends who actually type these things down for me to cut and paste them into this blog. Here are two that really made me laugh.

There I was on my way to work. Getting into a fight was the farthest thing from my mind ... wasn't even on the horizon . I was in a great mood and then, I rear-ended the car in front of me. So there we are along side the road and slowly the driver gets out of the car (and you know how you just get SOOO stressed that stuff seems to get funny?). Yeah, well, I could NOT believe it ... he was a DWARF! He storms over to my car, looks up at me and says, 'I AM NOT HAPPY!' So, I look down at him and say, 'Well, then which one are you?' And that's when the fight started.

After being married for 21 years, I took a careful look at my wife one day and said, "Honey, 21 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25-year-old gal. Now I have a $100,000.00 home, a $35,000.00 car, nice big bed and plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 46-year-old woman. It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25-year-old gal, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve a mid-life crisis.

At least my husband's mid-life crisis involved travelling to Afghanistan and mine involved moving here. Both are much easier to deal with if you ask me.