5 days and counting until Hadrian's Wall

Our 4 day hike along Hadrian's Wall begins on Monday. Hadrian's wall was/is a 73 mile-long (stretching across the width of Great Britain), 10 foot thick, ten foot tall stone wall built two millennia ago by the Roman legions, who were attempting to conquer the UK. They made it as far as Scotland, where they built the wall to protect the Roman Empire from the "barbarians" who had slowed their Northern expansion. Being a little limited with time (halfterm break), we will hike the visible portion of the ruins in the more scenic interior.

I've been reading "A Walk Along the Wall" by Hunter Davies, in an attempt to better understand the trek, the history, and the people. I picked it up at a second hand book store in London a few months ago. It was written in 1974, but since the wall had been built around 100AD, I figured that it was hardly outdated. It's been a fascinating and humorous read, hearing his take on all the research HE'd read, and hearing his insights into it as he examined the Wall Country himself. (Remember that there are Roman town ruins, bath houses, forts, tourets, barracks, and museums displaying the tools and treasure hords along the way as well). However, every time I read about some exciting side attraction -such as the shop that sells hand-knit unwearoutable socks, or the medieval feast at a local castle- I find that it has long since disappeared into the mists of time.

I'm getting excited. I have many loose ends yet to tie with only an action packed few days in which to do it. This IS the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend.

How to cover an entire county in one day

I can't believe how much we've done in the last 24 hours. right after school on Friday, my aunt and I met at the car hire agency, and headed for Devon, to explore the land of our 500 year-ago ancestors.

I was incredibly surprised at how comfortable I felt sliding behind the wheel. Especially considering I have not driven in 8 months, and the last time I did, I white-knuckled it down the "wrong" side of the road.
First adventure... I surprised my aunt with Stonehenge. It sits majestically right beside the carriage way. The grey, drizzly sky was the perfect backdrop.

This morning, we got up early and saw our working farm B&B in full daylight. Gorgeous. We could smell bacon wafting upstairs, which made me think of mornings visiting my grandparents on Saltspring Island.

After breakfast we headed for Dartmoor to follow in Sherlock Holmes' footsteps. We rounded a bend up on the moor, parked the car, and hiked up to what turned out NOT to be Hound Tor, the inspiration for Sir Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Oh. Back in the car, and on again.

We had lunch at a roadside "Hound of Basket Meals" food truck, conveniently parked in by The real Hound Tor, then continued on towards Merrivale prehistoric village.

After an hour of weaving down single lane (but beautifully flowered) "highways", finding pullouts to avoid on-coming vehicles, the sat nav led us to a dead end. We decided to head back for Sidmouth and a nice cream tea with the famous Devonshire clotted cream.

On our way to Sidmouth, we stopped off at The Donkey Sanctuary. Aunt Cindy is a donkeyholic, and made it a requirement ;) Coincidently, my school sponsors one of the donkeys there, Little Vijay. He works with children with disabilities. It was MUCH larger than I expected, and really well laid out, with many interactive areas. A donkey sanctuary somewhere in Ontario apparently visited a few years ago, to help them plan their own facilities.

Sidmouth is your typical seaside holiday town, with many shops, and a great ocean-side boardwalk. It is framed by red sandstone cliffs, full of hidden fossils.

On our way back to the farm, we swung through Ottery St. Mary, where we know for certain that two of our ancestors lived. There was a wedding at the church, so we decided to investigate the gravestones tomorrow. We did however stop at a cute little pottery shop, where we bought a few very decently priced pieces (including a rock that cracks open to show an ammonite fossil, just for my little kidlets).

Back on the farm, we arrived just as the wife was headed down to the barn with a gigantic bottle of warm milk for the excess lambs. Obviously I decided to tag along! Greedy little things, but so soft and wooly! Can't wait to get home and update my fb photo!

After the lambs, the husband let out his collies and took me around the farm on his quad. From the top of the hill, you could see the whole farm on one side, and Ottery St. Mary on the other. It was fascinating seeing his dogs work the sheep. He's lived on the farm his whole life, his dad before him, and his grandfather before him.

Aye, the Isle of Arran

I've had a brilliant visit with Jill so far... It couldn't get any more Scottish. I arrived Friday in the early afternoon. She lives in a 2 century old house on the edge of Merkland Forest, just on the other side of Brodick Castle.

After exploring a woodland path beside a trickling stream, we drove up to Corrie, then hiked up the hill to High Corrie, where they have some of the traditional cottages. I can't remember what she called them, but they're painted white and have tar roofs.

She was busy Saturday morning, so I elected to take myself off hiking. I walked the hour into town, through the castle grounds, and along the coastline edge of a golf course, and caught a bus to Whiting Bay.

From there, there's a circular path that takes you up the mountain to some iron age cairns, a beautiful waterfall, and an iron age hill fort. I joined up with a couple on the path, on holiday from Paisley. I am sooo living in the wrong country. The deep Scottish accent is enough to make my knees melt. Perhaps living in England is simply self preservation.

By the time I met Jill back in town (thank the Lord I didn't have to climb that hill back to her place), my flat-land, London legs felt like jelly. Still managed to dance through the pain at the ceilidh that evening, though it's probably a good thing that we only had the one guy between us. To my surprise, we danced most of the same dances as on the Shetlands last summer! Strip the Willow is still my favourite.

Today was perhaps the best of all. This morning we hiked out onto the moor to see more standing stones and sheep... Sheep galore! Then this afternoon we met up with a couple other people and attended a session in a local pub. It was amazing! I've decided it's not a proper session without a whistle player and bodrahn present. It was pretty funny all coming in at the same time with our instruments, and hearing all he commotion we caused with the visitors. Another bonus of being "with the musicians"... I didn't have to pay for my orange juice.

There were another couple visitors that joined us with their instruments. The fiddler joined in all the tunes I started that the locals didn't know. And he was GOOD! Turns out he runs some huge Irish trad music organisation in the UK, that has locations in all the big cities. Oh.

We finished off the evening at a really good restaurant on the north end of the island with Stuart, the whistle/pipe player, and his mum. Incredible food, really reasonable price.

You meet the most interesting people when you travel. Audrey wrote a diary in morse code when she was 14, during the war. How cool is that? I've also found a perfect guide for a trip to Morocco. Next March. 25 deg during the day, 0 deg at night. Who's in?

Canals and Lambs

I'm in Rugby at the moment, visiting family friends (my UK parents?)  LOL, I got such a kick out of the name the first time I came 6 years ago... I LOVED playing rugby in highschool... back when I was aggressive and competitive ;)

 It feels soooo incredibly good to get out of my dreary, grey, rubbish-strewn neighbourhood! Coming out on the train, across the green fields was like a breath of fresh air. There are lambs and calves everywhere.

Today was amazing... we went for a walk along the canals, looking at the brightly painted canal boats. It was drizzling, but if any pictures turn out, I'll post them on fb when I get home.They're so fascinating! The people I'm visiting are both retired teachers, so I was lucky enough to have everything explained to me... the grips up the slopes to keep the horses from slipping, the repair sheds and Chandler shops, the holes under the lock keepers houses... Apparently you can rent the boats, so now I have my heart set on seeing the country by canal. We could follow the industrial history of England as we float through the locks and tunnels. Anybody interested in joining?

I've also recently moved out of the house I was living in, and into bulk teacher housing. It may sound a little regressive, but it's actually a very positive thing. 1) no more parties until 5 am, 2) I only need to take 1 bus to school (saves 30 minutes and 50% money), 3) I have WAY more space, and 4) I already have friends in the building, who share my lifestyle.

 The move went incredibly well... Kimberly helped me take a couple loads on the bus, and then a lady from my church helped me move the rest. There was an evening of overlap between me leaving my house and being able to move into my room, and I had at least 5 offers of places to stay. Another lady has donated her old dishes to my "broke" cause. So far, I'm incredibly happy with my new place. I'm in the clean kitchen, there is actually water pressure in the showers, the morning sun streams through my window, and my room is so big that I don't know what to do with all the space. Yay!

Home sweet home

I officially moved into my new place today (ie. I gained possession of my room, and am no longer sleeping on Kimberly's floor). There's so much SPACE that I don't quite know what to do with it! It's probably about 5 or 6 times bigger than my room on Mill Lane.
First order of business... Washing the dingy curtains. One of the benefits in having connections in your new place is learning some of the closely hidden secrets. For example, there's a way around paying for one of the washing machines in the laundry room. Unfortunately there was someone else doing her laundry when we got there, so Kimberly gave me this long-winded tour of the ironing boards, the hanging racks, the settings on the machines... The other girl must have either thought we were both dense, or felt really sorry for me. Lol.

Eclectic Weekend

What a fascinating weekend! Yesterday was simply amazing... The sun came out and at 19 deg, it was perfect for a walk into Romford. There's something about sunshine that is both invigorating and relaxing at the same time.

I'm also almost done my moving... One more load on the bus next week, then I'll be ready to go on Thursday night. Final cleaning on Friday, and it will be complete. Just in time for Spring Break! Yay!

Finished off my Saturday with another inspiring lesson with Trent, then into London for Kimberly's Orchestra Concert. With Trent, I learned Walker Street, "the ultimate string-crossing workout". Can't wait to show Roxanna what I've learned while she's been off enjoying herself.

The ELLSO concert was fab as well. I got completely lost coming out of the tub station and walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction before figuring out my mistake. I eventually found St. Anne's church. There are a lot of bridges, water, and steeples in that area (the directions I was following were not super clear). Despite my repeated big group class disappointments, I could easily sign up for something like that. Luckily I realise that I'm already stretched in too many directions, and am not willing to give up all my Saturdays.

After the concert, we both realised we'd missed supper and were starving. We found a Chinese Restaurant that was open until midnight down a dark street, and headed in with a little trepidation. Turns out that it was quite a high-class joint with the best tasting Chinese food I've ever had. All for a very reasonable, average price. The kind of place that takes your coat, holds your chair for you, puts your [fabric] napkin on your knee, and brings you a warm wet cloth at the end of the meal. If I had a website, I'd start a page on hidden gem restaurants... that's 3 now.

This morning, I went with a coworker to his Afrikaans church. I hadn't realised that English is taught as a second language in South Africa. I had thought that it was thoroughly bilingual (tri/quad-lingual?). Anyway, it was a really neat experience. Afrikaans seems to have a lot of German influence with a few strange twists (ex: j=rolled r, g = guttural rolled r). They laughed at me every time I used the little I'd learned on the car-ride there, but not in a mean way. I've got most of my voice back now, so it was nice to be able to sing again. I'm consistently amazed that so many churches sing the same contemporary worship songs I learned at Bethany.

Now, off to marking I go.

Catch that Squirrel!

How do you keep a straight face when a 6 year old suggests halfway through your ecology lesson (on the effects of cutting down a tree to the local wildlife) that we write a letter to the animals in the park explaining the situation, then walk the letter down and personally deliver it to Rustle Squirrel or Ruth Robin? *serious, outraged nods all around the class*. Instant images of coworkers dressed up in animal suits hopping around the park flashed through my mind.


Luckily they decided that writing the city council would be more effective. I'm impressed! They even considered the need for cutting down trees to make paper, furniture and homes. They went FAR beyond the simple, cute little "Rosy the Oak Tree" lesson I had planned.