Shadow of a Dream

May 5, 2011

Our house feels a bit empty now that our most recent guest, Michelle, has departed for her dream destination, Italy. Michelle was the sixth visitor to our little home in Newcastle-under-Lyme. First to arrive were Casy and Ryan, followed a few weeks later by Ashely and Chris (friends and family from Uvalde), with Catherine fast at their heels, and Michelle not far behind her. In a small way, perhaps more like a foreshadowing, we feel as if our dream to run a B&B/retreat for those who need a bit of rest and respite has begun. Together we make a good team, offering our guests hospitality of the warmest sort--tasty local food, steaming hot beverages, good conversations, and entertaining activities/outings. Of course, Baby Justus adds a dash of joy and fun to our spread of amenities. In fact, some of our guests would be perfectly happy to do nothing more than play with him all day (that particular guest, I foresee will be my Mom).

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Pub established in 1538
 (Frequented by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Dr. Samuel Johnson
 author of the "Dictionary of the English Language")

My dear friend Casy and fun older brother Ryan met up with us in London. After many an adventure on their part and ours, we found each other around 10:00pm! The next few days flew by as we dodged in and out of the fast-moving London trafick, on our way to see the signature marks of this old city: Big Ben, the houses of parliament, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, the White Tower, and our two favorites, an old pub called "Ye Cheschire Cheese" and Hillsong Church London. A few lessons learned on this trip: check the local news and avoid London if a 2 million person protest is planned, bring printed directions to the place you will be staying (don't rely on your iPhone alone), have a rendezvous location and time to meet your party, bring a book about the city you are visiting, and be sure to visit Hillsong Church if there happens to be one.
 

Chris & Ashley - Sunrise walk in Prague

After a week and a half tour around Prague and most of Italy with our friends Ashley and Chris, we thought England might be a bit underwhelming for these two. However, Caleb and Chris, being the romantics that they are, planned a special outing to, you will never beleive it....a castle hotel. We received royal treatment and accomodations at this gorgeous locale.  My bet is that Ashley and Chris left England feeling far from dissapointed with their time here.

Catherine on Stanage Edge

Being that Catherine was a well traveled lass, we wanted to give her a trip worth remembering. So with the superb researching, deal-finding, and driving skills of Caleb, we managed to to take her to the ancient city of Chester (the old Roman city with the wall encircling the old town area), the rugged cliffs called "The Roaches" in what is known as the Peak District, followed by a tour through some quintessential English towns like Buxton with it's so-called healing mineral waters and English park and Ashford-in-the-Water, a visit to the breathtaking Chastworth Estate,one of the most impressive estates in Britain-a Baroque palace with over 100 acres of magnificent gardens also the locale for the film Pride and Prejudice's Pemberly Estate, we saved the best for last catching not only the sunset from Stanage Edge,Kiera Knightley's vantage point for the beautiful view of English countryside, but also the full moon rising.

Michelle all over the place at Shrewsberry Castle

Michelle, having never been out of the U.S.A, found the traveling aspect an adventure in and of itself--catching 3 flights, missing a flight in Amsterdam, riding 3 busses, taking the wrong bus, twice borrowing stranger's phones, and arriving in Newcastle 4.5 hours later than planned. So although Michelle would have been happy to stay at our cozy cottage for her two days in England, I took her wondering about the local area. We visited Trentham Gardens, where she got a good taste of English landscaping skills, Keele University, Caleb's Uni which boasts the largest green campus in the UK and several lakeside walks, Shrewsbury, a little village with a big history, and a local pub for Pear cider and a traditional English meat pie.

Although the house feels a bit empty at the moment, I am breathing in a bit of rest and respite for myself befour our next guest arrives. Joanna, my mentor, friend, and teacher is making a special trip to see us before she attends a Christian Listener's leadership retreat in the south of England. Following shortly after Joanna, my sweet Mother will be joining us for an entire week! During her stay, we plan to enjoy the the English countryside, long conversations, meandering walks, and just being together.

What a beautiful season of life in which we have found ourselves. We are experiencing an inkling of our dreams to spend time with friends, run a B&B/retreat, and travel.

Even the shadow of this dream is good.

Mom enjoying her time with Justus

P.S. Since the time that this post was orginally written, both Joanna and my Mom have visited us. Joanna's visit was a quick one, she arrived late one afternoon and left before noon the next day. But the sharing time we had together before she left was wonderful. Her short visit reminded us of that verse in Proverbs that says "Like cold water to a weary soul, is good news from a distant land.." Mom's visit is a post in and of itself, but suffice it to say that her visit was absolutely wonderful. Complete with good long conversations, lots of coffee, and adventures about England.

Dream...Accomplished - Keele University

Keele University

I have always wanted to do a study abroad. However, being 30 years old, married, running a start up business, and with a baby on the way, the thought of doing a study abroad for most people would be out of the question. For a while it was out of the question, but about a year ago, Charity asked me if I would like to do a study abroad. I was taken a-back by the question because even if I did, our situation was not the most ideal. We decided to look into it. If we were to go, we would need to go to an English speaking country, since we didn't have the time to learn a new language, and it would have to be economically feasible. We found out the UTSA has a direct exchange with Keele University in England, that means that I would only have to pay UTSA fees VS Keele fees (which would be 1.7 times more).  So I started the loooooong application process and we started applying for countless scholarships since we did not have the financial resources to go without scholarships.

The lawn is full of students when the it's sunny out

To make a long story short, I was accepted at Keele and God gave us a lot of favor and we were able to get  enough scholarships to pay for the whole trip.

Upon arrival at Keele, I scouted the Uni (as they call them here in the UK) and found it to be quite a wonderful little place. Well, actually Keele is the largest in the UK, as far as acreage goes. However, the campus part of it is the size of a community college in the USA. If fact, it feels more like a community college than a Uni since it's out in the country and has about 10k students.

One of the paths at Keele

Here are a few tidbits of information about Keele. It was the pioneer of the dual honours in the UK, it is the largest Uni in the UK, it is the greenest (most vegetation and grass), it was the 20th Uni founded in the UK, the land and Keele Hall were sold for £31,000 to the Uni by Ralph Sneyd. Mr. Sneyd had inherited the land from his ancestors who acquired it from the King of England, and it so happens that the king had stolen it from the Knights of the Templar after he had murdered most of them (very interesting these Nights Templar, I've read a book about them).

My time at Keele has been wonderful and tough at the same time. I took four computer science courses since they didn't have the exact match for my Information Systems (IS) degree. Needless to say, they were tougher than IS courses since they

The same walk as above just a few months later

involved a lot of programming. Also, I was a bit nervous that I would not be able to understand the thick English accents of my profs, however, I was releaved after going to my first class in each course that I could understand every single one.

Many options for walks

The way Keele tests is completely different than in the USA. They have one project worth 40% of

The computer lab - home away from home

your grade and one exam that is 60% of your grade. The exam is taken at the end and is essay format in which you have to answer 3 out of 5 questions (they don't give a hint as to what the questions might be) and each question is divided into 3 questions. The exams are taken in a room with 300 other students (all the different classes all take their exams at one time). I don't like that system at all, since all of your grade depends on one exam. But gratefully, I passed all my classes.

At times I would spend 10-12 hours in the computer lab working on my programing, but not without a break to take a walk around several of Keele's lush paths.

One of the many Keele fields

As far as the other Keele students go, my fellow students were awesome, they were all very helpful and kind, and their British humor rocked! They would stop and give me a ride if they saw me at the bus stop, offer food if they had some, and would sit with me for hours helping me with my projects.

My time at Keele is now over, I have enjoyed the experience thoroughly and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Keele Hall

Keele Hall - Jumping picture

Keele Chapel 

Keele Library

Path leading up to Keele Music Hall

Keele Village-Parish

Four Days in Prague--The City of a 1000 Spires

Prague

Nothing makes a vacation (or holiday as they say in England) so wonderful as one that is precluded by rushing around, half crazy, trying to finish mid-terms, turn-in scholarship essays, sleep a few hours a night, take care of a baby, and pack for three. The beauty of crazyness before a vacation is that once you actually arrive at your destination, no matter where it is, just the relief at having left the madness behind and arrived is invigorating in and of itself. For us, we happened to be arriving in one of the most romantic and lovely cities in the world, Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic.

Enjoying scrumptious honey cake and carmel lattes
at Cafe Ebel

Prague's story is an interesting one...gorgeous buildings some dating back more than a 1000 years, defenestrations were invented here (the throwing of someone out of a window, especially a political/religious leader), during WWII Prague hosted an underground resistance movement to the occupying Natzi regime, but after WWII it faded behind the "iron curtain" of communism, and it wasn't until 1989 that the curtain fell and the Czechs were liberated, and consequently westerners were welcomed with open arms. Now it is a hotspot for tourists from all over the world and stag parties (this is what the Brit's call a bachelor party).

Discussing who gets which
chocolates; they were
incredible!

But for us, Prague will forever be famous for it's hot chocolate (drinking it was like drinking a melted down dark chocolate bar), it's praleine chocolates (arguably the most scrumptious thing I have ever put in my mouth), goulash and dumplings (a hearty Czech dish), the best carmel lattes we ever tasted at Cafe Ebel, and of course the jaw-dropping architectual wonders of the 1000 spires (Prague is known as the city of a 1000 spires, and rightly so, no matter which direction you turn, a spire is always in sight).

Please enjoy our journal's log from our adventures in Prague:

Day One--Just the Pendletons
After a crazy week leading up to our arrival in Prague, we treated ourselves to a day at a Barcelo hotel near the old town square. Here we enjoyed the high class accommodations (of course, Caleb found a special coupon online that made this five-star affordable), especially the queen size bed that was one piece and not two singles put together (the latter is a common occurrance in the UK and Europe), the kingsize bathtub, and the royal breakfast spread (which in perfect Pendleton style, we almost missed due to a slight miscalculation of the local time). The first day was our relaxing alone day before we met up with the rest of our group and the two week, past-faced, Brady Bunch adventure began.  So, we took the chance to wonder about the old town square, marveling at the majestic architecture and the well-preserved ancient structures.

Day Two--The Brady Bunch Unites

The Old Town Square
The world famous astronomical clock in the background

With the best breakfast of our entire trips still warm in our bellies (mmmhhh nice and graphic), we headed out the doors of Barcelo to do some more exploring. And wouldn't you know, we ran into two Texans in the old town square. Surprisingly,  we happened to know them from back home, they were none other than Ashley and Christopher, our traveling companions for the next two weeks.

The Charles Bridge

We weren't expecting to run into them so early in the day, but as fate had it, we did. After an excited reunion, we took to exploring the streets (which were amazingly made out of small square bricks) and bridges. We wondered all over old town and then across the river and up to the communist memorial steps, a morbid memorial to

"ALL VICTIMS, NOT ONLY THOSE WHO WERE JAILED OR EXECUTED BUT ALSO 

THOSE WHOSE LIVES WERE RUINED BY TOTALITARIAN DESPOTISM"

Memorial to victims of Communism

accompanied by chilling statistics engraved in the ground:

"205,486 convicted, 248 executed, 4,500 died in prison, 327 annihilated at the border, 170,938 emigrated"

The memorial saddened us, but could not completely steal the wonder and excitement of our merry group. After stumbling upon an incredible chocolate shop complete with the most delectable chocolates and eating a few (we purchased them first, of course), we made our way to a restaurant serving traditional Czech Duck Goulash & Dumplings, and then on to our apartment (where we had already dropped our bags off earlier in the day) to meet up with the last two of our group. Upon arriving at our apartment on Ostrovoni St., we found a distraught Casy and a consoling Ryan, two incredibly good looking blondes, waiting for us. Poor Casy had lost her wallet containing all the important stuff like her passport, credit cards, license, etc.
Casy's news was a bit disheartening, but on the bright side, our group, which we affectionately dubbed the "Brady Bunch," had finally united. Now we had two couples, one baby, and two incredibly good looking blondes.

Note to self and all potential travelers: keep your important documents and cards in a money belt around your waist or pack them in a bag that you never let out of your sight. Also, keep copies of all important docs in your main pack, so that if you lose the originals, you still have some kind of identification.

Day Three--1/2 Marathon and Fireworks from the Palace

Caleb running the Prague
1/2 Marathon

The day's agenda and in this order:

1. see Caleb and Ryan off at the start line
2. find the American Consulate and figure out how to get Casy a new passport
3. nurse Baby Justus in a coffee shop
4. cheer Caleb and Ryan on from the sidelines at mile 6
5. cheer for Caleb and Ryan at the finish line while nursing baby Justus
6. explore more of the city, including the palace area
7. eat more chocolate
8. feed Justus 3 more times
9. drink Czech hot chocolate
10. shower and hit the sack

Fireworks show just for us

With all of the important items on our agenda complete, we snoozed away soundly. Oh yeah, one neat thing we did this day that was definitely not in our plans but was wildly amazing--as the sun was setting over Prague and darkness spreading over the city, we sat down in a green grassy area right outside the palace (which happens to be located on a hill overlooking the entire city) to nurse Justus. The nighttime view from our vantage point was gorgeous, but what really made our day was a spectacular fireworks display that went off over the river Vltava.  Couldn't have planned or asked for a better close to the evening. 

Day Four--Mission Explore Royal Palace and Gardens

The cathedral and palace
from the royal gardens
oh and the Pendletons

Prague boasts a royal palace, founded in the 9th century, that encircles an incredible gothic cathedral, St. Vitus. It was at this castle that we spent the major portion of our day, trekking up the cathedral's tower, touring the castle, and roaming the royal garden. After the officials kicked us out of the garden (oops we stayed past closing time) we wondered around the castle area and then made our way back to the Old Town Square where we, exhausted and starved, munched on tasty gyros. On the way down to the square, Caleb decided to do something incredibly sweet. He ran back to a shop near the top of the castle's hill and purchased a pair of beautiful tear shaped, green amber earrings for me; then, in Caleb style, he knelt down in the ancient square and presented them to me. Ahhh I felt like a queen!

Day Five--Goodbye Prague. Hello Rome

Although our time in Prague was absolutely wonderful, Rome was beckoning us, and we acquiesced. Before doing so, we had one last mission in Prague: arise early, climb the hill overlooking the city, and see the sunrise. This mission was a smashing success, and likely one of my favorite memories of the trip. We also walked across an almost empty Charles Bridge, which in the daytime is one of the most highly visited tourist locations in all of Prague. Then it was packing up, catching one last Carmelo latte at Cafe Ebel, hopping on the subway, arriving at the airport, and departing for Rome. 

Sunrise over Prague

Our little family on the empty Charles Bridge

Our friend Casy was able to acquire a new passport on this day as well, thankfully, we would have hated to leave her behind ;)

What's Important?

As a child, it seemed as if I had endless time to do the things I wanted. As adulthood crept upon me that time seemed to vanish as I filled my life with important activities. After going a million miles a minute, doing mostly good things, I stopped long enough to reflect on my progress and realized that in my haste and busyness, I had often let the important things in life slip--prayer, reflection, solitude, quality time with God and with key people.

Somehow I had forgotten how or what it meant to "be still and know that [He] is God." Dr. Richard Swenson, an author who has  spoken directly to me with his writings on restoring balance to overloaded lives, discusses a number of remedies to creating margin (a space between the load we carry and our limits) in our lives. Sometimes they are simple in theory, but incredibly hard and counter-cultural in practice. For example, he suggests:

1. learn to accept our limits (physical, spiritual, emotional) and therefore say "no" when we are asked to do something beyond our limits
2. learn to control and be disciplined with time sucking technology (email, internet, facebook, xbox, to name a few)
3. be content (we don't need lots and lots of stuff) 
4. get out of debt (it can control you life and force you to live in a place of stress)
5. learn to set boundaries--Swenson describes a boundary as a "perimeter erected around your private life that the world cannot come crashing through." As an example of a boundary for his family, he explained that they do not answer the phone during family mealtimes
6. take Jesus' advice--don't worry about what you will eat, drink, wear. God will provide (Swenson is not advocating laziness, but contentment. Be content with what we have, or at least a more simple life that does not demand we buy a whole new wardrobe with every season)
7. before doing anything of significance, seek peace and clarity. Because God is a God of peace and clarity, not confusion and chaos

Coming to England was the gift our family needed. Away from all of the busyness, the technology, the social commitments, and the culture that demands more of everything faster and faster, we have the gift of stepping outside our normal life and reflecting upon it. Asking ourselves important questions like: what is important to us as a family as individuals? What do we value and are we living a life that manifests those values? What does God desire for our lives?  On what should we focus our energies and our time?

Traveling is not only an adventure in discovering other cultures and how to survive in another country, but also a place of reflection--looking back on where we have been, enjoying where we are, and looking forward to where we will go.


Signing out...
Charity


Visit this link to read a bit more of Swenson's wise advice for a balanced life
http://www.richardswenson.org/mom_excerpt.html

Loco London

Public transportation in the UK is pretty decent, both in the quality of the transport and in price, and often trains, planes, and bus services offer special deals to select destinations. It was one of these specials that lured us to London. We paid a measly ten pounds a person to get to there and back (about eighteen U.S. Dollars). And in partaking in this special, learned a valuable lesson for future reference...always read the fine print AND the local news.

Westminster Abbey

Our story goes something like this. Saturday morning rolled around and we rolled out of bed at an outrageously early hour in order to catch the bus to the train station. We caught the bus in the nick of time and arrived at the train station with minutes to spare before our train departed, or so we thought. After running from the bus to the inside of the station, Caleb breathlessly asked an agent if we were in time for the train, and to his dismay found that we were an hour early and that our train would arrive an hour later than planned in London. What we didn't know was that our tickets were only good for one, slow, train that left later than we wanted and returned much earlier than we had hoped. Not to be disheartened, we cheerily waited out in the cold for the train. We were determined to have a good day, albeit short, in London.

The London Tower

Once we finally boarded and seated ourselves on the train, we thought all our troubles were behind us, needless to say, we were mistaken. With each consecutive stop of the train, it filled with more and more passengers till finally every available seat and all standing room was taken up. It seemed as though we had picked the busiest day of the week to travel to London. Still we were unconcerned as we lounged in our comfortable chairs, that is until Justus had a catastrophic explosion in the region of his bum. Suddenly, I was forced to wade through the sea of people with Justus and diaper bag in tote on my way to the bathroom. Even though space was tight, all of the passengers kindly parted for us to squeeze by, and after a long time in the loo (aka toilets, water closet, bathroom), I emerged again with a clean Baby Justus in an entirely different outfit (since his first one was rendered unfit by the aforementioned explosion).

Our happy little family in front of Tower Bridge
 (not to be confused with London Bridge)

Baby Justus eats only at the finest locales--Tower
of London

Upon exiting the train in London, we were relieved to be free of the crowded space, but the relief was short-lived. What we thought was crowded turned out to be the norm in London. As we made our way from the Euston train station down to the Euston tube (underground subway), a whole new definition of crowded and busy greeted us. There were people of every different color, nationality, and walk of life, flying by, and all of them seemed to be in a hurry. Justus and I did our best to get out of the way, while Caleb braved the long queue (lines) to purchase our tube passes. With that done, we headed down down down the never-ending escalators to catch our first subway as a family. Justus didn't seem to be bothered by all the people rushing by, the noisy trains, or the escalators, he either slept or looked around with great curiosity. We hopped on a train bound for the famous London Bridge. As it turns out, the bridge we were looking for is called Tower Bridge, not the London bridge. This pertinent piece of information eluded us until we had already emerged from the underground, and by that time Justus was letting us know it was high time for him to eat. So we made our way through the hundreds of pedestrians and snuck into a back room of a half empty cafe called “Brood” where Justus ate the first half of his lunch. Next was finding our way to the Tower Bridge.

Caleb--hanging onto the bridge for dear life

A good walk commenced, another nursing session in front of the Tower of London occurred, and   a fruitless search for a diaper changing facility ensued all before we finally reached the bridge. But it was worth the trouble. The world famous bridge was incredible to behold—it looked like a castle hanging over the middle of the Thames River. Before leaving this man-made wonder, we faithfully captured Caleb's signature pose, jumping, with the Tower of London and the Bridge in the background.

Nothing like kissing in front of Big Ben

Our time was rapidly dissipating, so we then rushed to see the highlights: the largest Starbucks ever (one of my favorites)Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye, before heading back to the train station. Once safely at the station, we took our sweet time and ordered dinner before heading to our train. Had we known what lay in store for us, we might have scurried to the train much earlier.

Justus enjoying a stretch after nursing on the train floor

The train was packed. In fact, just squeezing onto the it was a feet in and of itself. There were people everywhere, all seats where taken, even the standing room was occupied. Baby Justus got the best deal, he happily slept in his stroller seat, while we stood sandwiched in between a dozen or so passengers. We thought for sure the train would empty out after a few stops, but we were badly mistaken, with each stop not a soul exited but several more did manage to slip on board. With all hopes of acquiring a seat dashed, I sat down on the train floor and fed Baby Justus his

dinner. Gratefully, no one seemed to notice that a baby was nursed and then changed right below their feet (changing him in the bathroom was out of the question since dozens of people stood between us and the coveted toilet and diaper changing station). To our surprise, no one on the train seemed to mind the cramped conditions, in fact many people were rather cheery about the situation, especially a rowdy bunch of beer drinking soccer fans who were returning from a lost game. By the end of the train ride, those fans had caused all kinds of ruckus and had effectively dirtied the bathroom beyond use.

Three and a half hours later, we arrived at our stop and stepped off the train with much joy. With every morsel of food eaten, every extra piece of Justus's clothes in use, and every one of us exhausted, we caught a bus, and then trekked home. Our trip was fast, furious, and by all accounts, crazy, but fun nonetheless. We did learn a few valuable lessons from the experience: read the fine print on those “special” deals AND read the local news (e.g. big soccer game in London). Had we known these priceless tips before commencing upon our journey, we might have been a bit more prepared for loco London. But like the wise old saying goes, “live and learn.” Perhaps for us it should be “travel and learn.”

There and Back...a date to Rode Hall and Gardens

Entering the Rode Estate

The popular saying "getting there is half the fun," held true for us in our day trip to the lovely Rode Hall and Gardens...however, we think the saying is missing something. For us it would go something like: half the fun is getting there...and back!

Caleb, being the romantic stud that he is, planned a special date
to the seemingly nearby country house and gardens called Rode Hall and Gardens. Now a country house to American's would probably be called a mansion, of the extremely old variety. For the British, country houses were unfortified grand homes complete with gardens, stables, and the like. They became popular in the 16th century, which happens to be the era in which Rode was built.  Besides the stately house, the main attraction for Rode Hall and Garden's was the ten acres of beautiful gardens, sprinkled with a very special flower called the snowdrop. The snowdrops are lovely to look at and bloom only a few months out of the year. And so it was that we set out one fine Saturday morning to visit the intriguing country home and gardens

Rode Hall

Before leaving, Caleb laid out the plan for the day: we will catch a bus in  Newcastle, then we will get off at Kidsgrove where we will figure out how to get to the gardens, either catch another bus, go on foot, or something similar. We will spend the better part of the day at the gardens and then figure out how to get back home.

We managed to catch the first bus on time and with the help of a few friendly passengers got off at the right stop, the only problem was we were not sure where to go from there. As a bus pulled up to the stop next to us, Caleb hopped on board, thinking the bus driver would surely know how to get to the gardens. Unfortunately for us, and all the passengers on board, the driver was the helpful type but he seemed to be a foreigner who knew his own bus route and nothing more. I watched in amusement from outside as the driver got out his driver's cubicle, turned to face all the folks on the bus, and asked if anybody knew where in the world the Rode Hall and Gardens were located and how one might get there. A few folks pitched in a few possibilities they did not know either. Since we had already gotten the kind driver off of his schedule, we thanked him for his help and took off down the road as if we knew where we were going. But the driver was not finished with us yet, he honked his horn, pulled up next to us telling us we should go to another bus stop across the road and ask that driver. We chuckled as he drove away, he really wanted to help.

The famed snowdrops

As we wondered into the town centre of the little place called Kidsgrove, I was on high alert for a discreet place to nurse Baby Justus, since we were already running late, but Caleb was on a mission to find a way to the gardens. Thus, I reluctantly agreed to accompany him into the local library to ask directions. For obvious reasons, libraries are not the best place for nursing, but it was too late to find another spot. To my relief, Baby Justus was an angel, he nursed quietly and didn't disturb a single reader.

Daddy and Son--warm and cozy in the tea room

 Little did we know how fortunate it was that we ventured into this little library. It just so happened that a local council woman (a local politician of sorts) overheard all three librarians and Caleb discussing directions and modes of transportation to the gardens. Upon finding that our little family was planning to walk the 3.7 miles there and back, she intervened and offered to give us a ride, which we gladly accepted. The council woman was quite friendly and had more than one amusing thing to say during our short ride. The most comical was her comment about the English expecting the best out of the colonies (since it was the English who founded them ;) and expecting the worst out of Australia (since that's where the English used to send their criminals).

Once we finally arrived at our destination, a  warm meal was in order and Rode Hall and Gardens had just what we needed, a tea room that served hot soup. The tea room, formerly the estate's brick barn, was warm and cozy and offered some excellent tea and hearty soup (anybody up for carrot and coriander or mint and pea soup???). This was, by far the most popular place on the entire estate, everybody wanted to come in and warm up from the chilly weather outside.

Charity--covering Baby Justus' face so he doesn't see the
nude statue in the background

After filling our stomachs and changing Justus's full nappy (remember that's what the Brits call a diaper), we set off to explore the gardens.  They were indeed beautiful, but we realized why an old man had warned us when we first arrived that you may need an "four-wheel drive stroller." The rocky paths were difficult to navigate, but the dirt paths which had become mud paths from the previous day's rain, proved to be even more of a challenge. Despite the stroller troubles and the cold, windy weather, trekking through the gardens turned out to be one of the highlights of our day and definitely produced the best pictures.

Caleb at the end of the garden path

We were not quite as fortunate on our return trip to the bus station in Kidsgrove, no one offered us a ride, so we gladly strolled the 3.7 miles back to town, where we wondered around for a while trying to figure out where the bus stop was located. Gratefully, the townsfolk were kind enough to point us in the right direction; we caught the correct bus which brought us back to our cozy little English home.

Half the fun was indeed getting there...and back

ARRRRRGGG - A Man Post

          Close your eyes and wander with me (Caleb) back to the 13th century...wait, don't close your eyes, or else you will miss out on this phantasmagorical (a sequence of dreamlike real or imaginary images) adventure. Our latest journey takes us initially to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. After a 4 hour bus ride, we decided not to join the rest of the Keele Uni. student group we were with and see Cardiff, instead we hopped on a train for a 20 minute ride into the mysterious Welsh countryside. Our adventurous spirit paid great dividends. After we disembarked from our steal ride and a short walk through the small town of Caerphilly, our eyes widened with amazement as we soaked in the grandeur of Caerphilly Castle. Its walls so thick and rough looking. Its towers, splendid. And, its sheer size, would shrink the most valiant warrior down to an insignificant spec. Its immense size combined with its "manly" beauty stroke a cord in my inner being. My mind imagined all kind of scenarios where a grand army with an evil king had come to attack Caerphilly castle and take away the fair Lady Charity. Of course, he would first have to infiltrate the castle and defeat the renown-templar-warrior Lord Caleb of the Pendleton clan, at which he would fail miserably.

          My mind returns to present day and as we start to explore the castle we find out that Caerphilly Castle is one of the great medieval castles of western Europe. Several factors give it this pre-eminence - its immense size (1.2h), making it the largest in Britain after Windsor, its large-scale use of water for defense and the fact that it is the first truly concentric (walls with moat within walls with moat) castle in Britain. The scale of its water defenses - with no rivals anywhere in Europe - and concentric lines of defense the castle was virtually impregnable against contemporary siege methods. Of the time of its building in the late 13th century, it was a revolutionary masterpiece of military planning.

      


We ended up spending the whole day at the castle. Besides the castle's grandeur, another one of the beauties is that it is not infested with tourest since it is not very well known and it is off the beaten path. As such, they allow people to climb to all the towers and explore the rooms in the castle. Despite the castle being mostly untouched by the Civil War of 1642-1648, damage inflicted by Cromwell's Parliamentary Army (the same army I mentioned in my previous post) in 1648 is said to have led to one of the most notable features of the castle, its leaning south-east tower. The tower stands 60 feet high and leans 10 feet out of the perpendicular. It leans more than the Tower of Pisa.

       After a wonderful exploring of the castle, baby Justus, Lady Charity and Lord Caleb were very hungry and settled on the steps for an authentic and delicious Welch pastry sandwich for the adults, and for baby Justus, some sweet milk from sweet Charity.

This week's jumping picture :)   

We hope you've enjoyed, we look forward to sharing more of adventures. In fact Charity is already working on the next post, which is more on the delicate side. 

I would like to close with an ancient prayer:

Come, Holy Spirit

As the Green Flames of spring

Sweep through the woods

Promising plenty 

Come sweep through our lives
And bring fruit in us

Your goodness

Your joy 

And your loving kindness

Cheers!