May 23

Today was a travel day.  The original plan was to meet up with Uncle Wes and Jackie in High Wycombe for the evening before their wedding.  Even though Uncle Wes still didn't have his marriage visa, we still had our hotel booked in High Wycombe so we decided to go and be with the lonely bride.  We left at a decent hour in the morning and figured we would make it to High Wycombe at a decent hour.  What we didn't plan on was terrible traffic.  It took us more than twice as long to get there as we planned.

We had planned on stopping by Kettering on the way to see where Mom's maternal grandfather came from.

 It wasn't exactly on the way, but not too far out of the way.  We had been there once before about 24 or 25 years ago but didn't know where to find his home.  This time, I was able to turn on my laptop and open up a document I had saved to the hard drive showing the 1901 Kettering census.

 From there we could see that the Gibbs family lived at 217 Havelock street.  The handwriting was hard to read, but we were able to figure out the first several letters and that was enough for the GPS to figure out the rest!  So we put in the address and started the drive to his home.

He lived on a humble street of row houses.

 We found it easily and even found a convenient place to park.  From there we walked down to number 217.

 It was like all the other houses: quite small.

After looking around at the area we got back on the road to High Wycombe.  Once we finally arrived, we found our hotel, "The Abbey."

 From there we were able to look up Jackie's phone number and give her a call.  Then we made our way to her house where a friend of hers from South Sudan and her sister were already there.  They hadn't had supper yet so we were able to eat with them.

 While we were there, Uncle Wes called and we were able to talk to him back in the U.S.

After a nice evening,

we went back to our hotel for the night.

22 May 2014

Today we started off with a horse ride for me.  I found a brochure advertising riding "heavy horses" which are horses like Clydesdales and others. They take people out on "hacking" rides which we call trail rides. After a lot of emailing back and forth, it was finally booked!

We drove to the stable

- taken by Mom

and I got started on my two-hour ride. The horse I was to ride is called "Dingle"

- taken by Mom

and has gotten first at shows in the past. He is very smart but a bit cheeky. He is supposedly just under 17 hands but looks much taller. The leader was Linda and there were no other riders on this ride.

Linda introduces me to Dingle - taken by Mom

Mounted on Dingle, ready to go - taken by Mom

The ride was beautiful and cool as there were spits and spots of rain. First was just going along at a walk which Dingle was not very impressed with. Then came a trot which went well. Then I tried a canter alone which didn’t work well. When he had to follow the other horse, he went into a canter just fine. The rest of the ride was a bit of each gate. Dingle did exceptionally well with his canter and even went into a brief gallop when I was allowed to hold (not use) the "stick," i.e. the crop or whip.

- taken by Linda

The ride went along the edges of fields and through streams. It was fantastic!

While I was riding, Mom drove down to the beech and had a look around. She enjoyed taking lots of pictures including of another horse ride from the same stable.

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

After the ride, we drove over to Ullswater where we intended to take a steamer boat ride that was offering a half price fair for riding the La’al Ratty several days ago. Our landlord heard we were going that way and recommended a hotel and restaurant on the lake that has severed prime ministers in the past such as Margaret Thatcher. When we arrived in the area, we were pretty hungry, so we went to the hotel, Sharrow Bay,

first and had a leisurely "tea and cake" which was actually cappuccino and scones or cake.

Mom's tea - taken by Mom

Liesel's tea

 

view from the lounge window - taken by Mom



the lounge - taken by Mom

sitting room - taken by Mom

another lounge - taken by Mom

By the time we finished, it was getting late and we missed the last sailing of the steamer. As we drove on, we came to Castlerigg Stone Circle which is an ancient site where people lived and met.

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

Then we drove on to Keswick where we could park near a garden and then walk down to Derwent Water. It was a little hard to find the way to the lake, but once we did, it was a lovely walk. We parked near some pretty Victorian houses.
We walked down to the lake first,

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

then we also went through the gardens which were lovely.

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

The last stop on the way home was to find Wordsworth’s grave. We were going to go by Grasmere on our way home, so we drove into the village, parked near the church,

and walked around the churchyard until we found the grave.

Then it was time to go home and eat supper as we were pretty tired and hungry by that point!

Left overs! - taken by Mom

21 May 2014

Today we planned a trip with a company called Mountain Goat Tours. They take people on vans to very remote parts of the area including over the fells (mountains) and around the meres (lakes).

We had a little trouble finding the meeting spot in Windermere and were a bit late. Fortunately, they waited a little bit; but the driver, Bob, was not happy about it.

We had some fantastic views of the area. Bob stopped for us several times so that we could take pictures.

Many of the roads were extremely narrow and had very sharp turns.

  Eventually we ended up back at the La’al Ratty where we took our second ride on the train for a portion of the line. Then we got back off the train and back on the van. From there, we were taken to a pub called Brook House Inn for lunch.

- taken by Mom

They did well coping with the huge influx of patrons as our van was not the only one to arrive. We ordered soup and a cheese sandwich.

- taken by Mom

  Then it was back on the van.  We came to a lake called Wast Water which is the deepest lake in England at 258 feet.  One man decided to drop the body of his wife who he killed in this lake think it would never be found being so deep.  About nine years later, it was found and he eventually confessed and went to prison.  The lake is very beautiful.

After that, we went to Muncaster Castle.

The first thing we saw there was a raptor presentation where we were shown a buzzard,

an eagle owl,

and a snowy barn owl.

After that, we took a walk around the gardens until time to leave.

- taken by Mom

- taken by Mom

Once we arrived back in Windermere, we got a few grocery items in the grocery store next to where we parked. Then back home for supper and a relaxing evening.

- taken by Mom