Sunday, July 26, 2015

Visiting Friends....and an 80s Birthday Party - Alternate title: Day 3 & 4

Greetings from London again!

We have just gotten home from the Clark's home in the village of Molesworth. Wow! what a really cool place!

So after our quite late Friday night, we set the alarm to be ready to catch our 10:41am train to Potter's Bar to meet Melissa for the journey to their home. Ok it felt really early, but we got ready and made our way to Kings Cross. Back to our old stomping ground from when we were hear 5 years ago. Our old Hostel was literally across the street! It was yearly and I was hankering for a pain au chocolate (I could smell croissants in the station) so I go and get some Starbucks and a pain au chocolate. It wasn't as flaky as in Ottawa, but ok. It satisfied a need. lol

So we hop on an overland train and make our way to our first stop. Melissa rolls up just as we are exiting the station. so we get our first foray into driving on the left...takes a little getting used to in a car...a bus feels so much different. But we are excited to get to our destination. We chat for our hour long trip and we arrive at their almost period home. :) We get in and say hi to Rob, Maggie and Sam, it was so nice seeing them again, and Maggie the first time since they came over. Wow she has grown so much. Getting the tour of the house was neat, really crazy on how not level any of the floors were, but I guess buildings settle. It was so neat seeing the size of the double fireplace, even thought it was closed off. It was so much fun to catch up on some SCA fun too! Melissa told us how cool it was to watch the house next to them be thatched by hand, and I would of loved to have seen that.

The weather was sunny but cool, so we grab the kids and head out for a tour of the village (which is a horseshoe shape road). We stopped at the local church (St. Peters - which some of it is period). It is so amazing to see it how old and beautiful they are.

St. Peters - Molesworth, Cambridgeshire, UK
The more square portion at the back is the period church, the front being an addition at a post period time. There were 2 amazing frescos inside that square section. The building to me has a very Tudor feel to it. :) Melissa and Rob assured me that the house near us was in fact period 1550s ish.

Fresco in St. Peters
After our nice walk (and Jeff carrying Maggie on his shoulders), we needed to get ready for the birthday party on the hill. They had a full marquee and a DJ for this costumed 80s shindig. it was celebrating Simon and Rosie's birthday and the whole village (and some of the other villages) come out for the party. A whole hog has been roasting and catering ordered. I was so excited to have a chance at eating a roasted pig. :) We had to pick up some ciders and beer, and we were excited to have fun. It was great, we got to meet a whole bunch of people, and Jeff got to tease Peggy (from the US) all night, I have to admit it was easy to get her going. The music was excellent, and food amazing and the booze flowing. We made it back to the house around 2am. (Hence no post last night) :)

Molesworth Community Centre (it was also a very cool building)
My glowstick necklace (and floating head) lol
Being lazy and on vacation...we didn't get our of bed until 10am! oops...the kids were so quiet, we didn't even hear them! Some of us were worse off than others...lol, but we enjoyed Rob's french toast for breakfast, and boy does Maggie have and appetite. O.o  As per UK weather (I have been informed) that you get one nice day, then a rain day...so today was a rain day. Boy did it rain! I think Jeff commented that it was going sideways! So we convinced Melissa to take us and Maggie on a local church tour...hoping we could go inside them. Unfortunately they were all locked but we did see some amazing locations. Unfortunately for me, most of the tombstones were illegible. The mold rotting their surfaces off. I am sure they were really old too! :( Here are some pictures of cool churches of the area....

St. Mary's Chruch in Leighton Bromswold - and it was pouring rain....

Council Stone - circa 11c.
 

Walkway to the chruch

St. Mary's
St. Peter & St. Paul - Alconbury

St. Peter & St. Paul - front

St. Peter & St. Paul - back

Four Canadian Solder's Graves - WWII plane crash
Yarn Bombing in Oundle!

Yan Bombing in centre Oundle!

Even the bollards are socked!

Trees, benches, the roof on the transit shelter and the pillars across the street!

No red telephone box? No problem!
As we finished our wet tour of the area, we came home to Rob's home-made pizza (dough and all, YUM!) and I ate way too much, but it was so delicious!

We chatted as we finished dinner, then it was time for us to head back to Potter's Bar to make our way back to London! Tomorrow we head to Portsmouth and the Mary Rose museum! Woo Hoo!

Platform 9 3/4 @ Kings Cross
(we came in on platform 10 tonight)

So it is late and I need to plan for tomorrow...time to sign off.

Night, night.

~Erin

A gratuitous post of cutie Maggie wanting to take selfies! lol

selfie time...it's a little blurry. Oops... best smile though!

2 comments:

  1. It was great seeing you guys! Thanks for making the trek up.

    I tracked down some info on the Molesworth church: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/site/1108/

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