York and Pock

We're enjoying a quiet New Year's Eve in our flat so I thought I would take the time to update our blog with pictures from our trip to York. It's been a busy week travelling and sightseeing with Sheila, who is likely somewhere over the Atlantic right now. We had a smooth train journey to York and it amazes me that we got almost to the top of England in just 2 hours on the train - - that wouldn't get you halfway between Ottawa and Toronto! It's a small country packed with history. We got into York on Monday evening and were lucky to catch the bus directly into Pocklington (a small town about 20 minutes outside York) where Keith has family that we were fortunate to stay with. The weather was not very cooperative, and the fog prevented us from seeing much of the infamous Yorkshire countryside, but Keith and I got to spend about a day and a half in York and really enjoyed it.

We managed to see a few of the famous sites in York: Clifford Tower and the York Castle Museum which houses a great display on the 18th century prison in the basement (where Dick Turpin, the famous highwayman, was imprisoned). We ambled through the Shambles, a very old and picturesque shopping street which has some buildings that date from the 14th century! We also spent several hours wandering through York Minster which is an enormous and beautiful Gothic cathedral, the largest in Europe. It is an incredible building, all the more so because I wasn't expecting it to be so huge! It also has a great museum in the basement that explains about the site which has been occupied for centuries -- the earliest known building was a Roman basilica, then a Norman church followed by the present medieval cathedral. All these layers of history are visible in the basement of the church which is at the street level that existed during Roman times.

The following day we had planned to go to the Jorvik Viking centre but alas it had been flooded by a burst water pipe. After wondering what we should do with ourselves for four or five hours before our train back to London, we happily discovered two small museums that otherwise we would not have even known about. The first was a tiny museum underneath a pub. A Roman bath was discovered beneath the building in the 1920's when the owners were trying to put in a basement. It is barely more than one room but you can see the remains of different hot and cold pools from the time York was known as Eboracum, and my favourite part were several tiles that had the imprint of Roman sandals that had been impressed into the wet clay nearly two thousand years ago (I also liked the dress-up centre, as you can see here). The second museum nearby was Barley Hall, a medieval townhouse refitted to look like it was in the 15th century when it was owned by a wealthy businessman and politician in the town. On the second floor was a great display on diseases and medicine from the 15th century called Plague, Poverty and Prayer - it's interesting to read about public health issues and the limited responses available so long ago. All I can say is woe unto those who got sick. They even had live leeches in a bottle! And you could make your own nosegay to ward off "bad air" (which they believed caused disease). It was great!

Another highlight of our visit was seeing Pocklington (or 'Pock' as it is known locally). We were lucky to find that All Saints' Church in the centre of town was open, and there was a very friendly local man inside who provided lots of information on the building. Parts of it date from the 1100's! Keith's grandparents were married there during the war.

We had a wonderful trip and hope to maybe go back again in a different season to see more of York and the surrounding countryside.

Holiday sightseeing...

Sheila (Keith's mum) made it on time to London on Christmas morning (despite our worries about delays due to the snow). After some waiting her luggage decided to join us on Boxing Day evening (it had decided to take a little vacation from us in Detroit). We had a nice day of opening presents on Christmas day and spent Boxing Day at the sales in Uxbridge, while Keith wisely opted out to relax at home with his new books. We are off to Yorkshire this afternoon for a few days to visit Keith and Sheila's family.

Before it gets too late I thought I should post a few pictures of our travels from last week when Keith and I were on holiday. We managed to get downtown three times, around last minute Christmas shopping and my homework. The first trip was to Camden Town which I already covered in an earlier post. Later that week we went to Westminster Abbey which we had not actually gone into yet! It is a fabulous place to visit. It seems like every famous person in Britain is buried and/or memorialized there. We found two pieces of Canadiana - one was General Wolfe's large memorial (although I think he is actually buried elsewhere) complete with a carving of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The second was a memorial to John Franklin, the Arctic explorer who died with his crew trying to map the Northwest Passage. We also enjoyed seeing all of the memorials to composers - Handel, Purcell, John Blow, Vaughan Williams, Elgar... also Poet's Corner, Mary Queen of Scots' crypt, the burials of so many other ancient Kings and Queens... What an amazing place. I have been reading a funny and pithy history of Britain and so I was very pleased to be able to actually place many of the famous people whose memorials I was seeing (and in some cases, standing on).

The second jaunt we took the day before Christmas Eve was to the Museum of London near Barbican station. From the station there is an above-street-level walkway that leads you directly to the museum without having to deal with any traffic. Along the way we discovered these remains of a tree, and as I always stop to read the placque (just in case) found that it was dedicated to Mendelssohn as he used to spend time in the area (when it was less cit-y and more park-y I suppose) to get inspiration for his music, including A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Museum of London is dedicated to London's history. Actually the Museum in Docklands which we visited earlier is the other half of the Museum of London. There are lots of interesting things to see, such as a reconstruction of Roman-era Londinium, Oliver Cromwell's death mask, a display on London's Great Fire of 1666 and a recreation of a Victorian shopping area (which didn't have the lifelike smell of the Sailortown in the Museum in Docklands, but we managed to make do). The museum was also quite empty as I imagine most people in the city who were on holiday already were still shopping. A great day out, as they like to say here.

Well, Sheila and Keith should be home soon and then we are going to open our new-found presents. I'll update the blog when we are back from Yorkshire later in the week!

Uxbridge Xmas

It's Christmas Eve! Although it doesn't really feel quite like Christmas here, even though we have a tree (inflatable), Christmas cards, and a pile of presents. It's strange being away from all of our family at this time of year. We are planning to spend lots of time on skype tomorrow saying hello to everyone.

Here's some pictures of our decorated flat and me this evening at my Betty-Crocker-best. One of Keith's colleagues got him a chocolate-decorating kit but he kindly let me play with it. (Although we have both participated in eating it since this picture was taken).

Camden Market

We made the trek out to Camden Market today, which is just a bit north of central London. Getting downtown is quite a journey for us, particularly when some of the tube lines aren't running. We caught a bus from the university campus up to West Ruislip which takes about 20 minutes, then the Central tube line all the way down to Tottenham Court Road which is about 40 minutes! Then another short subway ride north to Camden Town. Whew! It was a nice day, not particularly sunny but bright from the snow and not too cold (probably hovering around -1 or -2 ... just enough to keep the snow in place). Camden Market is a very eclectic shopping area, with lots of outdoor stalls. One interesting area was originally a horse stable in around 1850, now full of little shops selling antiques and vintage clothing. There are all kinds of statues of horses around, and most are lifesize except for this rather overwhelming example that I'm standing with in this picture!

Our holidays have now started - Keith has two weeks off and I have three. I have some homework to finsih, but we are looking forward to doing some more sightseeing this week. We are also looking forward to seeing Keith's mum on Saturday (Christmas)!

Winter wonderland!

As you might have heard on the news, there has been quite a heavy snow fall in Europe today. We certainly felt it in Uxbridge this time! It looks like about 5-7cm fell in this neighbourhood (just a guess based on the amount of snow sitting atop fences and windows). It was enough to slow traffic to a crawl and make it quite an effort to walk around (especially with no snow plows!) I finally broke down and bought some very cheap boots. With any luck I won't need to wear them much because I don't think they're going to last very long! And because of the snow, what would normally be likely one of the busiest shopping days of the year (the Saturday before Christmas) was pretty relaxing!

Music to get us into the festive spirit!

Last night we went downtown to hear a Christmas concert at St-Martin-in-the-Fields, sung by the English Baroque Choir with brass. We arrived at Trafalgar Square to the sight of a huge Christmas tree towering over the fountains, and a small outdoor stage with a silent choir doing sign language to pre-recorded Christmas songs. Since I bought the tickets to our concert so late the only seats that were left were those with no view of the performance area - a novel concept for us. It turns out all it means is that St-Martin-in-the-Fields has very high-backed pews in the upper level, meaning that unless you are abnormally tall there is no way to see over them to the pulpit below. But the concert was fun nonetheless with lots of familiar choral pieces - Victoria's O Magnum Mysterium, Bach's Jauchzet Frohlocket with the always slightly demented sounding (to me anyway) brass accompaniment, and Sweelinck's Hodie Christus Natus Est. There were also sing-along carols with the audience, which I sang along to with some gusto despite not having shelled out the 1.50 to buy a program with the words (this seems to be an English concert and show tradition - programs are always extra). At one point we were ready to jump into sing along to O Little Town of Bethlehem when we realized that the tune they were singing was absolutely nothing like the one we are familiar with. I thought about how remarkable it is that in some ways our traditions in Canada are so similar - the same verses to songs like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Hark the Herald Angels Sing, yet other (we thought) familiar pieces are totally different.

On a weather-related note, there is no snow here in London at the moment and the weather has warmed up quite a bit so it's not feeling much like Christmas time from that perspective. We are both looking forward to a bit of a holiday, and next week is our last week of work/school. Hard to believe - time has really flown by.