Westminster Abbey, Anglophile Friday

I'll have to admit, friends, that it gets confusing, trying to remember which photos of England I've already shown you vs. which have been shown on Instagram. So if you've already seen these (although I did go back through posts to try to avoid redundancy), please forgive me and just ignore these.

But now we're in London, ready to visit Westminster Abbey.  In case I haven't already told you, visiting Westminster Abbey in December was perfect. My ticket stub tells me that we were there at 11 AM on December 12. So keep that in mind. We've been there other times when the abbey was so packed with people that you couldn't fall over if you tried. This time, it was great. We felt like we almost had the place to ourselves (well, not quite) and could visit the chapels without having to rush through or be herded through like an IKEA store.

A couple pages from my journal.

I love it that I was able to get this photo of Sir Winston Churchill with a pigeon on his head. I'm not sure that he would like it, but I thought it was cute. If you stand in front of that statue and turn to your left, you'll see the north doors of Westminster Abbey.

 North doors of Westminster Abbey

Our main purpose in going to Westminster Abbey was to view the Queen's Galleries, newly opened attic of the abbey. Although you can't view just the Galleries without first paying the usual entry fee to the abbey, (the ticket shown was for the additional fee for the QG) that was fine with us because there is so much to see there, so much history, so many people buried in that abbey! Plus, I didn't want to miss the Queen's Galleries.

If you've heard the term 'Royal Peculiar,' did you know it's not referring to the next in line to the throne ;-), but of Westminster Abbey and other places like St. George's Chapel and other chapels in the Tower of London?

"A Royal Peculiar is a church that belongs directly to the monarch and not to any diocese, and does not come under the jurisdiction of a bishop. The concept originated in Anglo-Saxon times and developed as a result of the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English Church. Henry VIII retained Royal Peculiars following the Reformation; the Ecclesiastical Licences Act of 1533, as confirmed by the Act of Supremacy of 1559, transferred to the Sovereign the jurisdiction which had previously been exercised by the Pope." - from www.englishcathedrals.co.uk

Of course the Abbey has a souvenir shop.

To the left of the Westminster Abbey Shop are the west doors, through which Kate Middleton and Prince William entered on their wedding day. Do you remember that day? April 29, 2011. That's almost  eight years ago! Did you watch the wedding?

You're seeing lots of photos of the exterior of Westminster Abbey because, of course, no photography is allowed in the interior. I wish I could show you photos not only of the abbey (check online), but also the Queen's Galleries, that contains many items of cultural, architectural, and historical significance - including so many artifacts of the abbey and clothing worn by various members of royalty. It was absolutely fascinating! 

When I had asked a member of the staff, a Roger Allam look-alike (Endeavour, a British mystery we love) how to get to the Queen's Galleries, he responded, 'With a good bit of nerve.' It's many steps to the 'attic.' We took the lift up and walked down. We were both eager to get up there.

Door to the Pyx Chamber in Westminster Abbey.  

This chamber was used as a treasury for both the monastery and for the British crown. It's just around the corner from the oldest door in Britain. I can't believe that neither Mr. C. nor I got a photo of that door. How did we miss it?? We must have each thought the other was taking that photo. OR, it was so dark in there that we didn't attempt to get the photo. Not sure. But anyway, there's an interesting legend grown around the topic of that oldest door (including human hide), which you can find at the BBC News website.

Here in the cloisters, they were just starting to string lights on the many waiting Christmas trees. It seemed a bit late to me, but then remembering that Christmas Day is actually only the first day of Christmas, it made more sense. We tend to think Christmas is all over on December 26 and take down the tree and all the decorations (well, some do. Our front porch Christmas tree is still up and its lights shining brightly), when Christmas is actually just beginning! (Remember The Twelve Days of Christmas? They begin on Christmas Day.)

Yes, I took a lot of photos, but we had a nice, sunny day in which to attempt good exterior shots.

We had a great lunch in the Cellarium Cafe. I don't remember what Mr. C's was, but mine was a delicious salad of spinach, roasted sweet potato and cauliflower, and pumpkin seeds. I'm sure we washed down that healthful lunch with a Cadbury bar or some Malteasers, just to balance things out.

I apologize to the staffer whose face is shown in this photo. I usually try to clone out faces, but when I got done cloning, it looked like a bowling ball on top of a jacket.

I wasn't kidding about our Christmas tree.
Photo taken yesterday as it was snowing.

Hopefully, there will be many more Anglophile Friday posts, and hopefully you won't mind coming along on our reminiscences.

Thanks, everyone!

Happy Anglophile Friday. :-)

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Around Oxford - Anglophile Friday

I mentioned on Wednesday's Medley post that I hoped to get an Anglophile Friday post up this week.  This is not by any means a travelogue, and we did not start in Oxford, but I thought I'd post these few photos of shots here and there around Oxford for today's post. Later I'll have photos of Christ Church Cathedral (of which you probably think you've already seen far too many, if there is such a thing).

Just a little aside, but I realized that it's February 1, which means our winter is about a third over. That is very good news! We're a little sick of the -30 F air temps.

Some woman whose photo ended up on my blog
I hope she doesn't mind.

 Tuppence a bag
Did you know that in 'Mary Poppins', the woman feeding the birds was named 'Tuppence Sabag'? (Our daughter had a friend who thought that. Isn't that cute!)

We walked instead, but I think the buses are so cute.

 Christ Church Cathedral. No surprise that there's a glorious cloud hovering above it. :-))

 I think this gnarled old vine is a bit prettier in the summertime. If you look closely, you'll see that I was trying to get a picture of that pigeon.

 These last shots are of the Great Hall at Christ Church College, Oxford University. Evidently this was a main filming location for the Harry Potter movies.

Unfortunately, dinner was not being served.

That's all for now, but we'll get back to Oxford eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay warm, all of you in the Upper Midwest!

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Anglophile Friday - York, From the Wall

I had to scroll back through several posts to make sure that I hadn't already shown you all of these photos. I can't find them, so we'll proceed, and if you've already seen them, you can just quietly move on.

All of these photos were taken from the old Roman Wall in York. It is fun to walk the wall to see what's happening, and to see York Minster from several different vantage points.


From Wikipedia: "Roman walls. The original walls were built around 71 AD, when the Romans erected a fort (castra) occupying about 50 acres or 21.5 hectares near the banks of the River Ouse. The rectangle of walls was built as part of the fort's defences.

"York has, since Roman times, been defended by walls of one form or another. To this day, substantial portions of the walls remain, and York has more miles of intact wall than any other city in England. They are known variously as York City Walls, the Bar Walls and the Roman walls (though this last is a misnomer as very little of the extant stonework is of Roman origin, and the course of the wall has been substantially altered since Roman times)."

Look at all those flues!

 What a life!
I wonder if he appreciates living in the shadow of York Minster.

If you look closely, you can see the Husky in the bottom right photo too.
And if you don't think it's a Husky, you can let me know.

Mowing the wall - remote control
Brilliant idea!

I'm pretty sure that I'd never get tired of living in that city.

I have several other Cranberry Morning posts devoted to York and particularly to York Minster, so if you think you haven't already reached a saturation point with York Minster and would like to see and learn more, feel free to type 'York' in the search bar on my sidebar. :-)

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Little Venice - Anglophile Friday

A month ago today we left for 12 days in England. My brother and his wife, from Denver, met us in Iceland (flight layover) and we flew together from there to Heathrow. You'll be hearing probably more than you want to know about this trip, but I have to do something with the 1500 photos I took, so be forewarned.

On Saturday, September 30, we took the Tube to Warwick Avenue and walked a couple blocks past very expensive housing, across a little bridge to the Grand Union Canal. I've always dreamed of a vacation on a narrowboat, but seeing that area full of those charming, colorful boats was the next best thing. And walking along the canal was a delight.

Actors Timothy West and his wife Prunella Scales have spent vacations on the canals for years, beginning when their sons were young. Prunella Scales, I think, is best known for Upstairs Downstairs, I stand corrected. As Mike and Sal both commented (below), Prunella Scales 'achieved her greatest success on TV as the nosy, shrewish wife "Sybil Fawlty" on the classic John Cleese comedy Fawlty Towers,' (IMDB) and Timothy West is in a different role every time I turn around, it seems. One of my favorites was an Inspector Campion mystery, 'Police at the Funeral.' After the next series of photos, there's a clip of their 'Great Canal Journeys' from YouTube. They made an entire series, one of those things worth watching.

I wonder if there are any homeschoolers among the boaters.
Wouldn't that be fun!

There's that little bridge I mentioned.

It could be a regular traffic jam at times, couldn't it!

And yes, there are an estimated 15,000 people who LIVE on their narrowboats year 'round.

For some interesting information on narrowboat life, here's a fun website:

http://www.wanderingduck.co.uk/blog/uk-canals/living-on-a-narrowboat/

I think that gorgeous shrub is 'hardy fuchsia'
Definitely not hardy to the NW Wisconsin climate.

I have no idea what this variegated shrub is. The leaves are leathery like holly, but not pointy, and the berries are so pretty.

And I just remembered a book that I put on my Wish List probably six months ago, 'Maidens' Trip: A Wartime Adventure on the Grand Union Canal. (And I (I mean 'we') just happen to have an Amazon credit. Yea!!)

From Amazon:

"In 1943 Emma Smith joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters. She set out with two friends on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-olds, freed from a middle-class background, precipitated into the boating fraternity. They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats, how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham and coal from Coventry; how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water, keep the engine ticking over and steer through tunnels. They live off kedgeree and fried bread and jam, adopt a kitten, lose their bicycles, laugh and quarrel and get progressively dirtier and tougher as the weeks go by. Maidens' Trip is a classic memoir of the growth to maturity of three young women in the exceptional circumstances of Britain at war."

Let me know when you've moored your narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal and I'll come visit. :-)

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