Saturday, June 30, 2012

England part 3

My parents both turned 60 this spring so we had a nice dinner at my mom's house to celebrate. Don't they both look great for 60?! Photobucket

My mom has a cute little Jack Russell named Oscar (but pronounced Oscah since he's English!). Photobucket

He really liked Josh :-)

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My mom lives close to Bath so we went in a couple of times and did some sight seeing and eating (we had an amazing sausage sandwich the first day and one of the best meat pies I've ever tasted the second day). In all the times I've been to Bath I'd never gone inside Bath Abbey so I wanted to check it out. The Abbey has been around since the 1500s and is really beautiful - unfortunately my pictures don't really capture it very well.
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 The Abbey is still actively used - can you imagine attending church in such a gorgeous building?!

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The ceiling is very intricate - its amazing how detailed these old buildings are considering how long ago they were built and without any modern machinery.

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The walls are lined with burial plaques - some grander than others.
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I was kind of disgusted by how many people had carved their names into this one.
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A beautiful building inside and out.

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Bath was originally settled by the Romans who built a spa around the hot springs sometime in the 1st century AD so its a pretty old city! We didn't visit the Roman Baths because it was getting late and we wanted to eat but I did take a photos of the entrance (below). Yet another cool looking building! Photobucket

We walked over to Sally Lunn's house, which is supposed to be the oldest house in Bath. Its probably too small to see in the photo but that black circle to the right of the second story windows says "The oldest house in Bath 1482, Sally Lunn lived here 1680".

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Shaun talked me into climbing into that red box for a photo op. Photobucket

Then he returned the favour by posing with this ice cream cone. What is it about hanging out with siblings that makes you act childish? Or is just us Whitmore kids?

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I can't remember if it was the same day but we walked around some of the neighborhoods and looked at the homes. Many of them had these courtyards below street level and I loved the simplicity of this one. I definitely wouldn't mind owning one of these homes!

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On the day we left my mom's house we went down to the stables with her. She goes down morning and night to take care of her horses. Quite a lot of work for 1 person! Photobucket
This is Tango on the left and Lacey on the right.

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Merlin belongs to my mom's friend and is still a foal (under a year old). He's going to be a stunner when he grows up!

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I don't remember taking this photo but I'm so glad I did hahaha!

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I'd love to have my own chickens so I was a little obsessed with these free range chickens and their coop. Maybe if we ever move out into the country we can build a coop just like this.

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A restful place to spend the day ...

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This old house is privately owned but used to be the Bishop of Salisbury's summer home in the 1500s. The house next door is owned by my mom's friend (who was on vacation so we couldn't go in) and has the same low ceilings, crooked walls etc. Because they are so old there are only certain renovations that can be done in order to keep the home's original architecture intact. 

The last day of our England trip was spent walking around London with Shaun, Lizzy and Mark and I decided not to lug my big camera around with me so there are no photos :-( At the time it seemed like a good idea because we walked A LOT but now I kind of regret it. Oh well there's always next time.

And that concludes our quick trip to England!

1 comment:

Terry said...

I just happened upon your blog posts from the trip to England (haven't checked your blog in awhile) I loved all the pictures-some of the buildings are magnificent, love your mom's horses and so glad you were able to spend time with family.