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?!

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

He really liked Josh :-)

  

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.
 

 The Abbey is still actively used - can you imagine attending church in such a gorgeous building?!

 

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.

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

A beautiful building inside and out.

 

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!

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".

 

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

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?

 

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!

 

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!
This is Tango on the left and Lacey on the right.

 

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!

 

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

 

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.


A restful place to spend the day ...

 
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!

England part 2

One of the days we went to Corsham Court.  It was built in the 1500s and has been owned by the same family since the 1700s.  Part of the home is open to the public where you can view an amazing collection of paintings and 18th century furniture.  Unfortunately they didn't allow photography inside the home so I could only take photos outside.

Outside the entrance to the home is the church - I guess if your house is big enough you get your own church!

After we'd checked out the church we headed towards the house.

 
Once we walked through the massive archway we saw the gorgeous house. I love english architecture and thought it was absolutely stunning!
 

Can you imagine living in such a house? After we finished looked at all the rooms and paintings we went around the back to walk around the grounds.

 

So pretty.
 
 There was this random bath house on the grounds that looked like it hadn't been used in quite some time.


 
 Shaun considered mowing as a backup career.



Not sure what's going on here!



Our pastiness blended right in with the English!



My favorite photo of the entire trip hahaha!





There were peacocks all over the grounds.





Very cool place to visit!

Catch Up - England part 1

I've been an extremely lazy blogger but after 6 months its time for an update! We've made some changes around the house and in the back garden but I will start with our short trip to England in March. I hadn't seen my mom and 2 of my brothers since our wedding in September 2007 so it was mostly a trip to spend time with family but we did do a little sightseeing. One of the days we drove to Shepperton where my grandparents lived their whole married life until they passed away. I last visited Shepperton in 2002 a few months before my grandma died and haven't been back since so I wanted to visit the church grounds where my grandparent's ashes are scattered and also drive by their bungalow one last time. On the way there we stopped in Camberley and drove down the street my parents lived on when they were first married.

 
This is the first house I lived in - we lived there until we moved to South Africa when I was 3. I don't have many memories of living there but I do remember the wallpaper in my bedroom - strange that I remember that of all things!

 

My Grandparents' bungalow. We moved a lot when I was growing up but this house was always a constant and we would always stay here when we came back to England to visit my grandparents. The oldest memory I have at this house was watching Charles and Diana's wedding with my mom and grandmother. 

Shepperton Church. Apparently there has been a church on the same grounds since the 7th century but the current building was built in 1614. Its a small church but very beautiful.  

This is the wall in the grounds where are the plaques are displayed.

 

Granny Jean (who I was named after) and Grandpa Big Boy (I started calling him that after he told me that if I ate my vegetables I would grow up to be big just like him).

 

Where Granny's ashes are scattered. See that gravel in front of the headstone? There was some brown mushy stuff on the ground that I pointed out to my dad. He took a look at it and said "oh its probably melted toffee" and proceeded to poke it with a stick. Turns out it was dog diarrhea so we thought it best to cover it with gravel before taking the photo. Then we laughed for about 10 minutes about my dad assuming it was toffee - you know, because its totally normal for there to be melted toffee lying by a headstone next to a church!

 






























Where Grandpa's ashes are scattered.




This pink magnolia tree was in full bloom - so pretty!


Next up: Corsham Court ...