London in July

Howdy, so I'm taking over the blog for a bit to get us caught up. It's been a busy summer and Julie is still pretty busy doing some canning. So you're stuck with me ;-)

Back at the end of July Madison and Stuart went away to Young Mens Camp. While they were gone the rest of us traveled to London for the day.

We made it to Buck house (Buckingham Palace) just in time to see the backs of a million Japanese tourists heads. I can never figure out why they all come to England but you see them everywhere in the summer. I wonder if the English people go to Japan? Maybe it is some sort of cultural exchange program.

Anyway, we did manage to see the guard leaving as they went back to the barracks.

These are soldiers from the Grenedier Guards. Notice the white plume in the bear skin hat and the evenly spaced buttons. From what I understand ceremonial guard duty is horrible duty. So I assume these guys are looking forward to going back to Afghanistan in October.

These guys might look the same but, surprise surprise, they are not. These are Irish Guardsmen. They have blue plumes and their buttons are in groups of 4.















Look Tom, no bagpipes. Not a Scotsman in sight.




Here are the girls with Ben who is very big indeed.




This fellow is from the Life Guards and is at Horse Guards. Like all the ceremonial guards they are here 24 hours a day. I used to have a little fun with these guys on previous trips. They are in a passageway at night and it is not too difficult to sneak up on them. And since all the Japanese tourists have gone home for the night it is also the best time to get pictures of them. So you sneak up on them and take a picture before they know you are there. I startled a Blues and Royals trooper doing this one night. I thought he was going to tip over when the flash went off.
This is down on the strand next to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment. Across the Thames you can see the National Aquarium and the London Eye. Just to the left and behind the Aquarium is the Hospital that Florence Nightingale, The Lady of the Lamp, worked at.






This is Horse Guards Parade. The fellow above is on the other side of the passage way that goes through the building in the center. The Parade is where Henry VIII used to come for some jousting when he was bored of cutting off his wive's heads. Which really is not entirely a fair assesment of Henry since he only did that twice.



The train trip back home. Trains are really nice. When you totally wiped out you just hop on the train and in a hour your back home. Or at least close.

Trip down south

No not to Dixie, the south of England. Portsmouth and East Sussex to be exact. Lots of fun things to see down there. We visited Fishbourne Roman Palace the first day out. Sorry, I still have to find the pictures of that one. We also went to Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy.

While in Portsmouth we visited the HMS Victory which is the oldest commissioned warship in the world. Victory was launched in 1765 and served in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary War, and the Napoleonic Wars. Here we are going on the tour.

Portsmouth is the home of the Royal Navy. This is HMS Illustrious one of the three Invincible class aircraft carriers.

Here we are at Eastbourne. We are down on the beach where the fishing boats launch. It was very cold and windy.

Stuart on the cliffs above Eastbourne.

This is us on Beachy Head. You can see some of the cliffs behind us. They had to move the old lighthouse on top of the cliffs back so it didn't fall off.

This is the new Beachy Head light house at the bottom of the cliffs. It is so pretty here. To think of the history that happened here. Try to imagine yourself as a pilot flying home after a mission over Germany. When you saw these cliffs you knew you were safe again.

Two pretty girls at Beach Head.

This is Eastbourne from Beachy Head during the day.

I had to go see Pooh Corner. The rest of the family was not as excited as I was.

This is Hever Castle the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and where Anne of Cleves died. William Walforf Astor lived here and restored it.

We watched some jousting at Hever Castle. Henry was there directing the tournament. You know, Henry VIII. He had a wife with him but I'm not sure which one. Maybe Anne. She was looking pretty good for having her head replaced.

Mortal Combat

This guy got hammered. I don't know what he was getting paid but it wasn't enough. Good thing he has NHS.

Hever has some very beautiful gardens.

Jeffrey and Madison at the gate of Hever.

HMS Victory again. How did that get down here? Check out all that rigging.

Madingley American Cemetery

On the way to Cambridge we stopped by the American Cemetery at Madingley. Visiting here causes you to reflect on how dearly past generations paid for the freedom we enjoy.

The picture to the left is the reflecting pool. The wall in the left has the names of over 8000 American service men who lost their lives but their bodies have not been found. Many are of Airmen who flew from bases in the UK. Others had been injured in places like Normandy or North Africa and then died after being evacuated to the UK. One of the names on the wall is Glenn Miller who was a Captain in the Army Air Force and disappeared on a flight to Europe from England

This is a cross of an Unknown.

Madingley was setup as a temporary cemetery in 1943. The land was donated by University of Cambridge. Many other temporary cemeteries existed across the United Kingdom. In 1956 it was decided to move all remaining graves of American service members in the UK to Madingley. There are 3909 U.S. Service Members buried here.

On the ceiling in the chapel is the following inscription:

IN PROUD AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF THOSE MEN OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCE WHO FROM THESE FRIENDLY ISLSES FLEW THEIR FINAL FLIGHT AND MET THEIR GOD. THEY KNEW NOT THE HOUR THE DAY NOR THE MANNER OF THEIR PASSING. WHEN FAR FROM HOME THEY WERE CALLED TO JOIN THAT HEROIC BAND OF AIRMEN WHO HAD GONE BEFORE. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.

4th of July

Lots of fun on the 4th: Great music, great fireworks, lots of fun. It's a bit awkward celebrating here, but the base puts on a fine show and from the looks of it, lots of British people get to come and enjoy the show as well.

Jeffrey's pictures

These are some pictures that Jeffrey has taken on his walks around the village.

This is where we used to live when Jeffrey was born. This is a semi-detached house. Everything past the blue garage (rhymes with carriage) door belongs to another family. This is a bit out of order and is in Mildenhall village, not the village where we currently live.

Mushrooms anyone?

Stonehenge & surrounding areas

We took a day trip last week and traveled down to Stonehenge. It's hard to imagine how big this is unless you are there, but the people standing off to the left give you a bit of an idea. It's amazing to think that this was done about 5000 years ago. It towers above you and there's another 7 ft below ground.

This is Salisbury Cathedral. It has the tallest spire in England and took 38 years to complete.

These are the Fovant Badges. They are Cap Badges of regiments that trained in the area between 1914 and 1918 during World War I. Starting with the one on the left that is half out of the picture and moving to the right they are: Australian Commonwealth Military Forces, Royal Corp of Signals, The Wilshire Regiment, London Rifle Brigade, and the City of London Rifles. Soldiers would come out on their own time and start work at 3:00 or 4:00 AM before they started drill and removed the grass and carved the badges in the chalk. 9 still exist and are maintained by volunteers but another 19 have been lost. It is a sad thing to think about these young men out working on this hill creating these badges. In a few months many would have died on the fields of France. Indeed a whole generation was slaughtered on those fields. Unlike many war memorials this one was created by those going to war. A similar site exists in the Salisbury training area with American divisional badges from World War II but is not accessible since it is still a military training area.

This was as we were driving into Fovant to see the cap badges. I think it's interesting because you can see the various road signs and street markings.

British Museum

A couple of weekends ago we went to London to visit the British Museum. It is absolutely huge and you could spend all day there. They have items from all different civilizations, not just Britain. Madison really liked the mummies and the Egyption displays, but he was a bit disturbed by all the Greek and Roman statues with various body parts missing. These are some items that Stuart found interesting and took pictures of.

partridge family

Right after we moved in this family of partridges (or so I am told) showed up in our garden (British for yard). They had been living in the hedge along the lane that leads to our house. The mama brought out all the little birds for an outing. There were about 15 little guys following her around. They had no fear and would run right up to us. The mother was having fits and trying to gather them all up, but they were all having a great time. Can you imagine having 15 little ones to keep track of at once? Kind of like being the nursery leader .....