Enough is Enough... For now anyway

 There's a moment when you realize that you've seen enough museums for a little bit. Often it is when you walk into another museum, as opposed to a nice, convenient time prior to choosing to go to a museum.

This happened to us at the Hunterian Museum, located at the University of Glasgow. It's mentioned by Lonely Planet and by Atlas Obscura (see we are using these things) so it seemed like a place for us to go.

The museum was established based upon the collections of William Hunter, a physician from the 17th century who, like many learned, affluent people of the time, and this time I suppose, collected stuff. And by stuff I don't mean whatever the next door neigbours may have put out on the front of their lawns with a sign saying "free" afixed to it (though who knows maybe some of it did come from there), I mean stuff sometimes of the most awesome and weird kind (again, depends on who your neighbours are I guess).

But that moment happened for us here, which was okay, because we all still got something out of it I think, even if only to learn that we needed a break from museums.

That said, it is a marvelous building:

With more than it's fair share of curiousities.

This display case actually has a number of single headed two bodied beasties, so it's not like I'm zeroing in on just the one little specimen to freak you out.

It also has an amazing map of the world. It's a copy (of the original I mean, we've already established it is a map and not the actual world) of a 1674 map that the Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest did for the Chinese emperor at the time. They do get around those jesuits.

The museum also contains many, many, specimen jars. Apparently this is something Hunter was quite good at. Seriously, there's a little write up on it at the museum. Preparing his own specimens, his own fluids, jars, humming a little tune as he worked away, contented simply to wield his sharp little knives and provide educational materials for us all years later.

Okay, maybe not the humming part, but you never know. The education part absolutely. When private collections became all the rage the next step was to show them off to your friends. Eventually they started to be shared more openly and with the purpose of educating people on a wide range of topics that they would not easily encounter. These often ended up being established in universities (Hunter's brother set one up in London) to give the students something new to look at now and again. Or something like that anyway.

See? Specimens.

And the collection does range across a wide spectrum of topics. Below for example is from a currently running exhibit on the Antonine Wall. Which is what you might ask? The Antonine wall was a 60 odd km long fortification running through the midlands of Scotland that was built by the Romans around 145 AD. And you thought they stopped at Hadrian's, didn't you? Nope, they got to the midlands. And lots of them did by the looks of it, as stones included markings indicating which legion lay that particular length of wall, and how the length they did was. Guess it helped alot on pay day.

And then of course there is Kelvin's Harmonic Analyser. If you want to know what this does, ask Marc.

Actually, it is a machine for, and I quote "calculating the integral of the product of two given functions". And what does that mean? Ask Marc.

But like I said, we'd had enough of museums.

We'd also had enough of walking around and exploring and taking pictures of things, so we did what we do when we feel like that. We stopped in a park and read our books.

Over the next couple of days though we did get some walking around in, which included a few random pictures to prove that we actually came to Glasgow. Actually, I suspect my credit card statement would be better proof, as I could have got these shots from anywhere.

This is the River Clyde.

This is the bridge over the River Clyde. Cue whistling.

I will admit to being a bit stumped by Glasgow. It really does seem hacked up in an odd sort of way from a pedestrian's perspective, and didn't follow the "rules" I've been coming to expect. For example, the River Clyde, or at least the part we were walking along, didn't really have lots of interesting stuff to do immediately near by. It seemed somewhat removed from the city centre. Being from Toronto this makes perfect sense, with the Humber and Don shoved off to the sides the way they are. But at least we've encased them in parks. Not so the River Clyde.

Also, there seems to be a big motorway carved right through the middle of the city in a somewhat awkward spot. I learned the next evening from Neil and Suzanne that that is because there is actually a big motorway carved through the middle of the city in an awkward spot. They decided they needed it, so built it they did. Glasgow, not Neil and Suzanne. Whatever you do, don't blame them.

That said, we did find a park near the river, and, like London in the rain, when the rain came in Glasgow, we found an obliging tree and enjoyed a good read.

Oh, and we saw Guardians of the Galaxy. In Gaelic, with English subtitles.

Just kidding. About the Gaelic that is. It was in English and it was loads of fun. And I think Jake is on to something about where the next couple of movies are going and what this wonderful thing that Joss Whedon is doing over at Marvel/Disney is leading up to. I'll let him explain it to you though.

I think the best thing about Glasgow though was meeting Neil and Suzanne. That's them with the guys at the Bon Accord, their regular, though not local, pub where we met them for dinner Friday night.

My friend Steve Ross and I have worked together for about thirteen years. Steve has been a fan of Marillion for much longer than that. And when I say fan, I mean FAN. Marillion is "prog rock" which Neil has defined for me, and now you, as "rock + something". Something for example being jazz, or perhaps blues, or something. Anyway, rock + something.

If this hasty definition starts a prog rock war I am very sorry. But have at it folks, and remember, I'm just the messenger on this one. Neil's words. Poor delivery on my part maybe, but still his words.

Anyway, Steve and his wife Leigh get to Marillion concerts, no matter where they are in the world. Actually, I'm pretty sure that Marillion is the excuse they've used a few times now to send the kids to the grandparents and skip the country for a little bit. You see, there are Marillion conferences every year I think, and they happen in Europe, somewhere else, and in Canada. Yes, Canada. Sorry I don't remember the somewhere else. Anyway, Steve and Leigh attend these when they are able to. Well, so do Neil and Suzanne. And what do you think happened. Well, they met, they became friends, and when I asked my various friends for potential contacts around the world to help keep Noah, Jake and I out of prison during our travels, Steve kindly obliged by introducing me to Neil.

And boy am I really happy that he did. Such great people are Suzanne and Neil. It was a great dinner that was followed up by a fantastic Saturday out with Neil exploring around Loch Lomond, into the highlands, and back to Glasgow. But I get ahead of myself. We're still at the pub.

See, there's me, at the pub, surrounded by more types of scotch then I've ever seen in one place. Yes, I like the Bon Accord. Except for one thing, and this is actually something I'm pretty cheesed with Scotland about.

People under 18 cannot be in a pub in the evening past 8pm. Noah and Jake are people under 18. This is cramping our style. Further, there appear to be two different licenses that end up saying that if you're under 18 you can't be in a pub unless there is food on the table, but if you've got an entertainment license, so that you can have live music for example, then the food and the live entertainment cannot co-exist. So live music starts around 9pm, leaving a healthy buffer. Which means that Noah, Jake and I have not been able to hang out and listen to any live music while in Scotland. Which honestly sucks.

But who knows, maybe (as a bar tender in Inverness where we now are who explained this all to me last night said) that will all change in September.

Anyway, on this particular evening it wasn't too bad as the guys were happy to head out early and leave me at the Bon Accord with Neil and Suzanne. And despite what may have gotten posted on Facebook, we were all well behaved and had a good time. Two states that are not mutually exclusive I might add.

And then it was time to head home, so as to be nice and rested for what would turn out to be an epic day trip out of Glasgow with Neil and his Mini.

By means of an explanation

So try to keep up. I'm likely posting a few today. So far I've posted Train Spotting, Edinburgh and now this one. Prior to that was the one about York Minster.

I'm falling behind so now I'm trying to catch up. We'll see how it goes.

The last post "Edinburgh" was just too much fun for me to post as is. I seem to be getting in the habit now of loading the pictures in in the order I want them in and then writing around them. Sometimes I'll make little notes to myself in a draft that I'll come back to. This morning (still Sunday in Glasgow) I put out four quick drafts (not including this one), and when I came to work on the Edinburgh one I thought the minimalism would be highly entertaining (at least for me anyway) given how I do tend to go on a bit now and again.

Apparently I am now ruining the joke.

Anyway, a few things.

1. Noah took lots of shots at the Edinburgh zoo so I will be posting those soon. And if you've read the trains post, then you've got an idea of the depth of knowledge I'll be applying to those furry little creatures.

2. The shot of us eating lunch is at The Conan Doyle. This is the same pub my Dad and I had lunch our one day in Edinburgh a few years ago.

Apparently one day in Edinburgh is becoming a thing with me.

Actually this time it was meant to be more, but we were having a hard time finding a place to stay at a reasonable rate. This is due to a combination of not booking far enough in advance and the Edinburgh Fringe Fest going on. The place is busy, like it is every August because of this festival. More research on places we're visiting and times to visit may be in order. Also, the "holding out for a couchsurfing acceptance" isn't necessarily the best plan either. Not having much luck there.

So we changed plans a bit and decided to stay in Glasgow. We had already been planning to come in to Glasgow for a day or so as it's only an hour and a bit from Edinburgh. But instead we turned it around, found a nice little house via airbnb, and are enjoying ourselves here instead.

So yes, plans are changing as we go. Which is as we expected. All I think, good experiences. But I'm also realizing that more planning is required. I've been playing it a little too loose.

And we're also looking at changing how we spend October in Europe. This time in the UK has been fun, but it's not a pace we want to increase for a month by trying to see lots of cities. We're realizing (Noah and Jake faster than I am) that the down time is important, and that, since we're supposedly travellers and not tourists, if you'll allow the distinction, we should not always be out, running around, trying to cram something new in to every day. We should be living our lives at a pace similar to the ones we live in Toronto, just in a different place. But ARGH! There is SO much to see! So, for me at least, it is a struggle.

And truthfully it is likely somewhere in the middle of all that. Getting it right first time out though, highly unlikely, and certainly not the case with us. I'd been telling myself, and perhaps naively, that the point was to get here and do it, and that, as long as we keep at it, we'll find the mix that is right for us, and that the entire process and everything along the way, counts as, if not good, at least important experience.

So learning continues, as we try to figure out how best to do this. October will likely focus on three or four cities, yet to be determined, and little day trips from them to nearby places if we so fancy.

It's interesting. I'm not sure where this is all headed, but it is changing, which we knew was going to happen. And it's important to let it do so, even if it does make me, the control freak, nervous.

And for the first time (I am slow you will recall) I am actually, which you feel, (as opposed to theoretically which you may think you actually feel but you don't, in my opinion anyway, feel in a 'true' way) beginning to realize that this, this trip thing, is going to be hard. Not all the time, but definitely some of the time. And that is okay. It may in fact be good. And it may suck, which may also be good. But then you get into short term versus long term and hindsight, and projecting, and all sorts of messy things I have yet to adequately wrap my head around.

I'll stop babbling now.

Edinburgh

We went to the zoo.

And then we went for lunch.

And then we went to Glasgow.

Train Spotting

I have been informed that today is a "chill" day for us here in Glasgow. Nope, not a national holiday or anything like that. It's just a Sunday in Glasgow and the guys are wanting to relax at home for the day before heading out later tonight to go to dinner at Jamie's Italian, a Jamie Oliver restaurant in George Square. One of the things on Noah's to do list while in the UK was to eat at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. When we spotted the Jamie one the other day the question was asked whether it would suffice, and the answering was yes, so that's tonight.

Before that though will be a bit of a late afternoon walk about, depending on how Bertha treats us. Yes, Glasgow is getting to see a bit of Bertha, and that means that Noah, Jake and I get to have encountered the first two hurricanes of the 2014 season. You may recall our playing frisbee with Arthur a month or so back.

I'm way ahead of myself right now, so should probably backup a fair bit and catch you all up.

When last we chatted it was nearly a week ago, we were in York, sleeping off a yummy Monday night roast dinner.

The next morning we went to the National Railway Museum. Now, so far I've been fairly clever in remembering to take pictures of signs or plaques to be able to keep track of the things we're seeing and taking pictures of. Not so at the NRM. So instead, you just get to see a series of shiny trains without me interrupting too much.

It's a red train.

It's another red train, but bigger.

It's a green train that was beside the big red train but smaller than the first red train.

It's a duck.

It is a very, very big train engine. These are the kind that scare me a bit, hulking brutes that they are.

See? Shiny trains.

My apologies to train enthusiasts everywhere for reducing it all down to "shiny" and the colours of the rainbow. Yes, given how much I tend to go on about every other topic under the sun that I know equally nothing about, you'd figure I'd make a reasonable attempt with the trains. Nope. Perhaps something to be thankful for?

And then the inside of the above one. I can't even manage a steering wheel.

We enjoyed the museum, full of trains, train bits, railway memorabilia, and so, so, so much stuff that I did not take pictures of.

We then headed back to the hostel, and the guys decided to relax there for the afternoon as I wandered back out to explore York some more.

This is the interior of Holy Trinity Goodramgate, York. It dates back primarily to the 15th century although apparently there are pieces that go back to the 12th, and then right on up into the 19th. All I know is that it looked old, was nice and cool, had these great box pews to sit quietly and reflect from (yes, I am capable of such activity), and most fun of all in my opinion, has this tremendous bow right in the middle of it's floor. The building sags, and it really does add to it's charm.

I then continued my little walk through the Shambles, an area in York with buildings dating back to the 14th century, and all of them proving that Holy Trinity wasn't the only place in town that could get it's sag on.

Eventually I headed my way back to the hostel by means of one of my favourite (read most used) snickelways. Yes. Snickelways. What is a snickelway? That dear reader, I will leave you to discover.

The next morning we were leaving bright and early to catch a train to Edinburgh before making our way on to Glasgow.

This last shot from York is for Sebastien. His IQ is apparently 132, which is astounding for a bear who wears chainmail. That said, he is fairly well travelled, so who knows. And if you're confused by this current tangent, well, you're not alone.

Off to Scotland.

One Catherdral, Two Cathedral, Three Catherdral, Four

I could tell you about the train and bus ride to York, on which I met Eliza, a nice young lady who was heading to Doncaster (I keep thinking "medical") to visit her parents. In school, unhappily studying forensic sciences and deciding to take the leap into IT, and with a Canada connection with ancestors who had moved to Sudbury Ontario and subsequently got lost (not that I'm saying anything bad about Sudbury, Eila might slap me), we had lots to chit chat about together as Noah and Jake sat across from us reading their books. I am indebted to Eliza for a pen, which she said I could keep, and which was required to jot down the name Overtoun Bridge, a bridge near Glasgow that has the nickname Dog Suicide Bridge. Apparently dogs that go up on this bridge deliberatly throw themselves over the side to their deaths. And if they manage to survive the fall, they'll drag themselves back up and do it all again.

Apparently it has something to do with mink urine.

I could also tell you about the Fort Boutique Hostel that we are staying at in York, right in the middle of the Shambles, minutes from York Minster, on Little Stonegate, which if I read things correctly is a Snickelway.

I could tell you about Yohhy, from Japan, who now lives in Paris, but is travelling the UK right now. Or I could tell you about Kate, an Australian woman who is in the UK on a two year work visa and is working with an agency that provides short-term live-in homecare. She left yesterday to go care for someone who is suffering from dementia. Or there is a nice young lady who has come here from Camden, Maine, to attend university. You may recall Camden, that's where Noah, Jake, Sherri, Marc and I had dinner at The Atlantica. She worked at a coffee shop near by.

Then there is Isabel, another lady from Australia in her third year at Melbourn U who is taking a gap year. She's the one who came up with the brilliant idea of having a roast for dinner Monday night. So that's what we did. And it was yummy.

Or there's Alex, the med student from Toronto now studying here, or Meriam, the insect taxonomist originally from Spain, now living in London, but here attending a conference on insects. Or there are a handful of other Australians, a couple from Switzerland, and who knows who will walk in the door next.

But I'm not going to talk about all the neat people we have met by staying at this hostel, and the suggestions we've been given on things to do here, and elsewhere on our travels, or the sharing of stories about our various leadership. Those of you who are familiar with Toronto's mayor know what the guys and I would be saying. For a bit of relief in knowing that we're not alone in this I recommend watching the following video about Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Instead I'm going to show you lots of pictures of York Minster.

We've now seen four of the biggies in England: St. Paul's, West Minster, Canterbury, and York Minster.

Noah's order of preference is: St Paul's, West Minster, Canterbury, York Minster.

Jake's order of preference is West Minster, York Minster, St. Paul's, Canterbury.

Mine? I'm not sure yet.

The 'plan' for Monday was to go to York Minster, have some lunch, and then head off to the National Railway Museum. Before finishing up at York Minster though the guys had already concluded that one museum type place was enough for the day. You'll see why in a moment. There was a lot. And we saw it. All. And we read. Most of it anyway.

And the best part? You could take pictures, outside and in. So I did. Lots of them. Noah also got a fair amount, but I don't have those yet. Apparently he is going to start giving me some of them from time to time to include in the blog, and when he does, I will dutifully credit him for them. Until then though, assume they're mine.

The order here is a bit misleading at first, as York Minster has a tower you can climb, and therefore that was the first thing we did. It might have worked out different, but it is a very narrow stairwell up so people cannot be ascending and descending at the same time. You therefore require a ticket (additional cost I will add) for a specific time to avoid traffic jams, and the next time was 10 minutes away. No time like the present.

Anyway, to help orient.

This is the front of York Minster.

As my mother commented on Facebook the other day (yes, she commented on a post - I am very proud of you mummy) she is always amazed by how they can make stone look like lace. This is once again, thanks to good old Gothic. And it turns out that Gothic actually breaks into three distinct periods: Early English Gothic, that starts around 1220, Decorated Gothic that takes over about 1280, and, my favourite of the lot, just because of the name, Perpendicular Gothic, that takes over in 1361 and has a good run of if until 1472, twenty years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Had I been cleverer I would have photographed the entire map that explains which part of York Minster is which, however I did not, I only got the names and dates. Sorry, you'll have to figure it out for yourselves.

Now, if I've got my bearings correct, which is not the easiest thing to do in the streets of York, we're looking at the south side of the cathedral, and at it's central tower, that actually weighed too much for the foundations so that after a few hundred years or so, I believe starting in the 1960's, very clever engineers and archaeologists had to come in and do something about it. That said, by that point York Minster had stood longer than any modern day building has the hope of standing without regular intervention, so ya, I still think they did a good job the first time.

York is a very old place. People have been living in this neck of the woods for a long, long, long, time. York was a very important place for the Romans for example, as it was essentially their base in Britain for all of their campaigns to the north. It's also where the Roman Emporor Constantine officially adopted Christianity as the religion of the empire. So ya, kinda an important spot to put a decent cathedral.

York Minster sits partially on the site where the Roman basillica once stood, part of the large fort and whatnot the Romans had built there. This and oh so much more was discovered while fixing the tower. The Romans had built a lovely little bit right in line with the river and following a nice, orderly, grid pattern. But eventually they left to go focus more on areas of the empire closer to home that were crumbling, and when the Normans finally came along and started on this piece of awesomeness they laid it out, as Cathedrals tend to be lain, east-west, and basically made a point of showing who was in charge now.

All of that to say, with the rivers  Ouse and Floss meandering about town, and all these little streets running higgledy piggledy in all directions, and this Cathedral plunked down right in the middle of it all, it may be the north side. Pretty sure it's south, but I could be wrong. I can guarantee you though that it is neither the east nor the west side.

This is the chapter house. It has it's own street.

End of orientation, now back to the timeline.

These are some of the many lovely flying buttresses. Yes, we're looking basically straight out at them. Why? Because. To climb the centre tower you first have to climb an initial set of narrow winding steps in the south trancept (okay, that shot was definitely of the south side) and then walk across this particular part of the roof to get to the even narrower winding set of steps to get you to the top. Did I mention my thing about heights?

But if Noah and Jake can do it, and they most certainly can, then what the heck. The guys love to climb. You may have noticed them in interesting places in the Iceland photos. You may recall me writing about us climbing the dome at St. Paul's in London. You may not know that Noah laments the fact that we did not climb the dome at St. Peter's in Rome last summer when we were there. I suspect that will be rectified this fall. Do you sense a theme? 

My children are goats. Pleasant goats who, while they may lick an elbow or two, will not eat your favourite shirt, but goats nonetheless.

And they often have the best of ideas. Without the climb, we wouldn't have been able to see this view of the front two towers.

Or this view down onto the Shambles, those higgledy piggledy streets just mentioned.

Or this fine fellow, sticking his tongue out at me for being such a wuss about heights.

Eventually we came down, and once we arrived at ground level we immediately descended into the undercroft, as it's entrance was right there. The undercroft primarily came about as part of the excavation/restoration work that was done to keep the whole thing from filling in for London Bridge in that cute little song.

Now it's a museum, and one that does an excellent job of itself. Like I've said a few times, I really do like these single purpose museums.

The fine print will tell you that Ulf, a viking nobleman, in about 1030, gave this horn to the Minster as a symbol of him committing his land to God and the minster.

Remember Marc building an arch in Montreal. Well, this time Noah and Jake got to do it.

This is the York Gospels, done up in about 1020 and brought to the Minster, and the only Norman book still about at the Minster. As many of you know, I like old books. And no, I did not use a flash you'll be happy to know.

Eventually we got ourselves upstairs to take a look at the Minster insides proper like.

This is the west wall and great door, proving my mothers comment yet again.

This is one of the many, many windows at York Minster. No other Cathedral that we have been in on this trip thus far can compete with York Minster on it's windows. And this is just a little one.

This is Chapter House, and some of it's magnificent windows. By the way, I am no good at taking panoramic shots with my camera. I should probably work at it though, as so many things we are seeing just don't fit in frame, and I can't photoshop it all together for you. I say that now as I'm feeling a bit guilty for not having been able to provide you all with a shot of the interior of Chapter House and all of it's windows.

I can provide you with a better shot of the ceiling though, and that'll give you an idea.

This is the quire. It is still pronounced choir.

You may notice that the symmetry is off, and that the organ (that thing in the middle), while aligning perfectly with the arch above it, does not align with the one you see further back. This is not the fault of the photographer, it is in fact, the fault of the architect. Whether by design or a botched job, the quire does not line up straight with the nave.

People seemed to get over it.

Now, neat thing about the organ. We'll get a bit closer first.

A very useful fact to know about this organ is that were you to lay all of its piping out end to end it would extend about 7km (or maybe it's miles), I think though km. Jake very astutely pointed out later that day as we were walking around the walls of York that, the pipes would loop around the old city about twice, as the wall length was approximately 3.2 km or miles. Clever goat.

This is the screen separating the nave from the quire, it is called the King's screen as each individual represented is one of the Kings under which the cathedral was built, including the Norman ones. It is another very fine example of why I need to learn to take panoramic shots.

We soon departed the Cathdral and proceeded to Dean's Park to eat some lunch and relax for a bit with our books. I instead left the guys and went for a walk around to get the exterior shots that you saw earlier on.

Jake had also informed Noah and I that it costs about 20,000 pounds per day to keep York Minster rolling along. Why so much you may ask? Well, because, it is under constant restoration.

Right across the road from the Cathedral is the Cathedral's stoneyard. Yes, it has it's own yard, right on site, and it's been there a long time it would appear.

Here they do the initial cut of the stone blocks, each to the exact dimensions required to replace it's predecessor. Right now there is work being done to restore the east wall, and it's window. (Okay, can someone please tell me if I apostrophe the "s" of "it's" or not. I'm pretty sure yes but sometimes I doubt, but then it just looks silly without it. So I'll stick with yes and hope for the best. And yes, I can look it up, but I don't want to.)

Anyway, they're doing a bang up job restoring the Cathedral, and it's wonderful to walk around as you can hear the sound of hammers on chisels somewhere in that web of scaffolding as stone masons shape the blocks in place.

And there are Noah and Jake, right where I left them. And not eating the grass. Perhaps they are not goats. More data required.

We then walked about a quarter length of York Minster organ pipes, a new unit of measure I am hoping to introduce. Hopefully one day it will rival the smoot. We'll call it a Yorkilometer and one unit will be equivalent to 7 or so km. Not being a precise unit of measure the "or so" will always remain an important element. I am most certain it will meet with EU approval around the same time they bring back the Mother Cow index. (Won't my cousin John be pleased with that.)

Right, to the wall.

It's not all this narrow, but it happened to be where we started, and looked cool, so there you go. Part of the York wall.

We started our walk near the Minster at Bootham Bar, which is not a bar, but is a gate, with steps, leading to the top of the wall. Hence us being able to walk up there.

Oh, and here's a map.

We didn't walk the whole wall (green lines on map), but we did walk the top pointy bit and then the bottom right squiggly line bit.

And look, it provided excellent views of the Cathedral.

This is Walmgate Bar (middle of bottom right squiggly bit). It has the distinction of being the most intact of the bars (they're all gates) along the wall.

Below are the foundations of a Roman tower right along the walls. Apparently placement of these things is pretty standard no matter who you are.

This is the River Ouse (that's how they write it, I'm not adding capitals just for me).

And this I believe is Monk Bar. Though I didn't take a picture of the accompanying sign, so could be totally wrong. It might be the Fishergate Bar.

And I will repeat one last time for the hard of hearing. If you're looking to do a pub crawl of York, these are not actually bars. They're gates.

This is the River Floss.

And this is the Merchant Adventurer's Hall, a guildhall dating back to the medieval times in York, and I suppose elsewhere, as I don't think the medieval period was too localized (as evidenced by the crusades).

It was then time to head back to the hostel to meet up with Isabel and Kate and go grocery shopping and prepare our roast dinner. So that's what we did. And, as I mentioned at the beginning, it was yummy.

From Left to Right:

If, by the title, you were expecting to see a photo of people all nicely arranged in rows with a caption that reads "Back Row, Left to Right: David, John, Helen, Noah, Harry... Front Row: Jake, Rachel, Flora, Marcus..." then prepare to be disappointed.

I suck at names.

I also suck at remembering to get everyone together for a picture of all who were there on Saturday for the Jake's birthday/"Canadians are here, let's use this as an excuse to all get together as we haven't done it since, well, the Canadians were last here" get together. And even if I did remember to get such a picture, I'd still suck at labelling it properly.

So I owe everyone a very heartfelt apology. I truly am sorry that I haven't got all of you sorted out properly yet. Yes, I remember many names, but I don't want to get any wrong, and I don't to miss any out. And we're not at Lime End anymore, so I do not have John and Helen to help me when I stumble.

So what we'll do instead is open this up for audience participation. Father, you've sent me emails with many names without even seeing the pictures, and cousins, you all know who you are, so how about people use the comments at the bottom to get the following shots all sorted out. Yes, that's right. I can't even bother to remember your names, even after you asked for the blog address so you can keep up, and I am now giving you homework. As I mentioned, I suck.

I expect I may be forgiven this. Afterall, they are a warm and welcoming bunch, eager to share in celebrating Jake's birthday, to hear about our travels, and to share their stories with us.

So here we go:

 
From Left to Right:

From Left to Right:

From Left to Right:

From Left to Right:

Left and Beside:

Left and Right:

(That is, by the way, what happens when I ask for a "nice picture". You may now understand why you keep seeing shots of their backs, in the distance. It's got nothing to do with going for "artsy". It's got nothing to do with trying to capture interesting landscape. It's just the only way to get a shot of them without an odd face, strange look, or diabetic coma inducing sweetness pose occurring.)

Left to Right:

And yes, those are all the pictures I took. Could I have taken more? No, because I complete forgot to. I was too busy talking with everyone, getting to know them all a little bit better, listening in on family stories, and learning about this whole family in England that we have that I really only met for the first time three years ago when my Dad and I came for a visit.

I am so happy that we did it then, and I am so happy that Noah, Jake and I did it this time too. I am blessed with family, and very thankful to them all for their kindness.

Saying that it was an excellent way to spend a Saturday afternoon would be a gross understatement. But I'll say it anyway.

It was an excellent way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Sunday morning was a fairly quiet one, with breakfast and packing, and then it was off to the train station in Polegate to catch our train to London and then continue on to York. That though is another story.

I'd like to dwell here more. Here being Lime End. Here being with this "new" family. They've/you've (figured I should speak to you directly now that you're following along) been around for a long time, so you're not new. Now I'm not saying you're old. There was a bit of that being flung around on Saturday and none of it from me. But you're fairly new to me, and you're very new to Noah and Jake. So yes, new. I'm thrilled that as part of this trip the guys have had the opportunity to discover all of these (yes I'm talking to everyone else now) people here who are related to them. It makes me realize that I should value the family I have in Canada more, and should make more efforts to connect with them, invest in those relationships, as we've all let them slip over the years.

But I'm not going to dwell here. Instead I'm going to go wake up Jake and Noah and discover York. Last thing though, just before I go.

John and Helen, I am ever so grateful to you both for opening your home to us these past few days. It has been a wonderous time, and I appreciate everything you have given the three of us. And to the rest of my family here, yes, we'll be back in a few more years to give you all an excuse to get together again. Afterall, what's family for.