The cottage is buzzing with birthdays! Larry has just turned 70 years. Amazing that he’s lived that long…? no just kidding. Happy Birthday darling and many happy returns.
No, I didn’t stay up to see the New Year in, but I did hear the fireworks, which started here at about 10 p.m. They didn’t keep me awake either.
Happy New Year to all my followers. I hope 2015 is a good one for you. Any plans for the New Year?
Oma
My turkey is defrosting in the shed; my mince pies are ready and waiting to be eaten and some of the other jobs have been done. Others are still waiting (mops brow). So it just remains for me to wish all my followers a very Happy Christmas. I appreciate your visits day by day throughout the past year. It means a lot to me to see your comments and I hope you will continue to dip into my life, here in England, during 2015.
Tale care!
Oma x
Feels odd being here in England on Thanksgiving! I am English but with an American husband and time spent living in Tennessee, I have one foot in each country. I think it’s a lovely tradition and I wish we did more of it over here. Our roots here go back thousands of years and it’s hard to know, remember or even think of our origins. However we do have so much to be thankful for. My list is endless, it really is and today, such a special day, I am thankful for my family and friends and that includes all you bloggy followers.
I am making a pumpkin pie for Larry, although he doesn’t know it yet. It must feel so strange for him being here today, his second year living in England away from his family and all things familiar. We’re going to have a turkey dinner out somewhere nice later on.
So Happy Thanksgiving one and all from my pen to your computer.
Oma x
Last week we went to our local railway station for an important event. Dylan and his dad came too. We were going to watch a steam train come through and it did, on time and at speed! Here it is:
At the end you can see Larry ducking to get out of the picture.
Dylan had never seen a steam train live before. He wasn’t sure what he was going to see. He asked his dad if it was going to be like Thomas (the tank engine). Isn’t that so sweet? At the event, he was frightened, which is not surprising, after all he has only just turned four. He is used to seeing the electric trains go through but this was something different and it did go very fast.
It was a first for Larry too. He had never seen a real steam engine in action either and he found it very exhilarating.
The last steam engine to pull a passenger train in England was in 1968. It was the Oliver Cromwell and it went from Liverpool to Carlisle. Is it really that long ago?
Do you have any memories of travelling on a steam train?
Oma
A few days ago Larry, Jim and I went to visit the Tiggywinkles Wild Animal Hospital near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. That’s about 18 miles west of where we live. The hospital is set in the countryside and cares for wild animals who have been injured in some way. A lot are injured on the roads but there are also lots of natural casualties. The ultimate aim of the hospital is to release the animals back into the wild, but this is not always possible, sadly. If they cannot be released, then they will spend the rest of their natural lives in the beautiful grounds of the hospital. The first picture is of a Red Kite bird of prey (red tailed hawk if you are American!). Larry has helped me out with a lot of these sorts of words and descriptions being American himself. I also learnt a lot while I was living over there. It was quite sad to see how many of these beautiful birds were remaining in captivity but at least they are safe and they have a very large area to fly around in. They look wonderful as you can see from the picture.
Caring for wild animals is quite unlike caring for domestic creatures and requires a lot of skill. Tiggywinkles is a charity which relies on donations and benefactors and is always pleased to receive a gift.
Quite a few of the animals are nocturnal so we didn’t see all of them, e.g. the badgers and foxes but they are there just curled up in their burrows and forms etc. If we went back at night I’m sure we would be aware of a lot more, although I doubt if we would see much!
Interestingly there were lots of gulls that couldn’t fly and three legged deer and others.
In the beginning, Tiggywinkles was set up to care for injured hedgehogs. Hedgehogs used to be very common in England, but over the last thirty years their numbers have reduced so much that now it is a delight to see one let alone have them living happily in the garden. Here at the cottage we used to have lots of them but for the last few years we have had none. Here is a video showing baby hedgehogs. I’m sure you’ll agree that they are just delightful.
Tiggywinkles was named after a Beatrix Potter character called Mrs. Tiggywinkles. Here is a video of her if you are unfamiliar:
If you would like to know more about Tiggywinkles Wild Animal Hospital, you can click here and go to their website. Please do. I’m sure you will enjoy seeing all the good work they do.
Please let me know if the videos worked?
Oma
My little grandson Dylan is on holiday this week, in Wales. He’s having a great time judging by this picture.
Holidays are so necessary in our busy lives but it is hard for some of us to afford them these days. Larry and I have been having days out this summer rather than weeks away and I’ve enjoyed it very much. After buying the new car in May, it made sense to be careful for a little while and although holidays can be fun, they can also be a lot of work, what with the packing, planning, navigating etc.
I’m not sure if the wetsuits were really necessary! but I’ll leave you with some more pics of the happy family enjoying their summer break:
A week or so ago Larry and I went to St. Albans in Hertfordshire to visit the museum of Roman artefacts. St. Albans is a city about 15 miles north of London and 15 miles south of where we live so it made for a nice day out.
I wanted to show Larry the museum because it contains some extremely old and interesting articles. In the picture Larry is admiring one of the mosaic floors, which was unearthed when the old Roman town of Verulamium was excavated. It is almost intact, which is amazing considering its age.
Verulamium was one of the largest towns in Roman Britain and we can learn an awful lot from studying the artefacts which range from the large mosaics you see here to the small objects of everyday life.
Verulamium began in the late Iron Age when it was known as Verlamion. The later settlement of Verulamium expanded to become a very large town and it flourished for four hundred years from around AD50.
If you would like to read more, you can click here. If you want to test your knowledge on Roman Britain, go to the fun section on their website and see how much you really know. The more you delve, the more fascinating it all becomes.
I consider myself very lucky to live in a country with so much history going on all around me.
Oma
These delightful black piggies were part of my day last Sunday, when Larry and I went to the Fibre-East Festival at Redborne Upper School in Ampthill. There is a farm on the school where the pupils can learn animal husbandry. The animals were extremely well kept and happy and the pig-house even had piped music installed to keep the pigs entertained.
There was a farm shop, where I bought some fresh eggs and some honey and in the freezer there were all sorts of home produced meats.
Here are some pictures of the fibre festival itself. Larry and I had a wonderful time looking around and it has inspired him to take up weaving!
There was have-a-go spinning for beginners:
There were weaving looms galore.
Lots and lots of yarn. Here I am checking out some wonderful, purple art yarn.
Bales of roving in all natural colours and livid ones too.
Hand-made drum carders:
I was interested in those but they were very expensive.
Just look at these gorgeous colours:
and of course there were sheep!
and a sheep shearing demonstration:
and the fleece was for sale too. I didn’t buy one. I am still working on the one I’ve got!
Have a great weekend, whatever you do!
Oma
On our recent visit to Bristol, to visit with my eldest son and his partner, we took a day to go to the American Museum in Bath.’ The museum takes you on a journey through the history of America, from its early settlers to the 20th century and illustrates the complexity of American culture through its remarkable collections of folk and decorative arts. Its furniture, paintings, maps, quilts, silver and glass are presented in a series of period rooms within a historic manor house near Bath in the beautiful Avon Valley in the West of England.
The museum grounds encompass 125 acres of parkland, gardens, and an arboretum and throughout the year, children’s activities, living history, workshops, lectures and seasonal celebrations are all part of the life of the Museum.
The only museum of Americana outside the United States, The American Museum in Britain was founded to bring American history and cultures to the people of Britain and Europe.’
The museum was founded in 1961 by two men who had a great love for the decorative arts of America and who wanted to share this passion with the people of Britain. They were Dallas Pratt, an American psychiatrist who served in World War II and his partner John Judkyn, a British antiques dealer. In the 1950’s they were struck with the popularity of newly established historic site museums such as Winterthur, Williamsburg, Sturbridge Village and Historic Deerfield. So why not found a museum to demonstrate that America was more complex than in the Hollywood movies people were familiar with?
Acquiring a 19th century manor housse near Bath to display their collections, the founders planned a series of period rooms for their decorative arts collections and the interpretation of American life.’ from the ‘Aspects of America’ guidebook.
Here are some of the pictures Larry and I took when we visited:
The house itself is beautiful and the view from the front is spectacular.
This is the view from the front:
‘This room is the ‘keeping room’ .17th century ‘keeping’ was a term used by colonists to describe where they lived. The Keeping Room includes a pedestal table that may have belonged to Peregrine White, who was born aboard the Mayflower’:
What follows is the ‘Stencilled Bedroom’ ca. 1830. ‘Stencilling was done by itinerant painters who travelled across the country decorating walls with paint, as a substitute for more expensive wallpaper. The popularity for stenciling travelled back across the Atlantic to Britain, where it also was used in the 19th century.’
We had such a good time here and looked and looked until we were too tired to look anymore! We had lunch in the beautiful refectory where all American food was served, which was nice for Larry because although he wouldn’t admit it, he must feel homesick sometimes.
After the house we visited the exhibition hall in the grounds where a Kaffe Fassett exhibition was being held. I wrote about it here if you missed it the first time round.
I’ve just been enjoying a trip to Bath. On one of the days we visited the Kaffe Fassett exhibition, which was, to me, spectacular. This post is heavy on pics but I simply could not choose what to leave out so please enjoy the feast…
This is the entrance hall, which was very pink like everything else in the exhibition – a riot of colour.
With pictures like these, who needs words? If these pictures have wetted your appetite for more, click here and you can read some more about this interesting designer.
Oma
Oma 