England, Part 2

Being kicked out of our house (see last installment) for 3 days, we headed down to Devon on the English Channel to see our friends Steve and Francis Lee. An idyllic setup - they live in the only thatched house in a small fishing and tourist town named Beer. Their estate is right at the main corner and it's huge. A brook runs along the curb right in front and the old town fountain is right in front also. You should see the layout inside - over the last umpteen hundred years it's been expanded over and over - now with at least 9 levels. It grows new stairs on its own.

At the other end of Beer (4 blocks), the English Channel at a smooth-rock beach.
Larger picture.

All the swimmers are gone for the winter but the fishing boats are out each morning.

Back home in Stow-on-the-Wold, we're continuously entranced by the views. The roads go largely along the top of the hills and you can often see for miles.

Ar stone circle right down the road from Stow-on-the-Wold is much smaller than Stonehenge or Avebury at less than 100 ft diameter and at most 5 ft high. It's also a lot more dubious. Although they say it was erected about 2000 BC the stones were re-erected in 1882. There's also evidence it was a completely enclosed circle which tends to conger an image of an animal pen.

Across the road is the "King Stone" that may or may not be connected to the circle.

Woodstock in nearby Oxfordshire has Blenheim Palace, the home of Winston Churchill, and a small city museum.

This wool and silk area rug was embroidered sometime before 1735.
It is a copy of a mosaic floor of a Roman villa uncovered in 1712 near Woodstock.

There are also a number of local inventions on display. Things like the equals sign (=) and multiplication sign (X) in 1531, base 10 logarithms (1612), and an 1851 double action turnip cutter.

And also the Automated Ash Closet which dropped ash when the cover was lowered. They sold 20,000 of these in the 1800s.

Blenheim Palace itself is right on the edge of Woodstock. Lets see if we have this right. In 1704, John Churchill led the victorious English, Austrian, and Netherlands forces in the defeat of the French in Germany during the War of Spanish Succession. When Europeans have a war, they get everybody involved. At any rate, John was made a duke, the first Duke of Marlborough, and the government built him a home worthy of the title.

Skip forward 8 dukes until the 9th Duke of Marlborough married Consuelo Vanderbilt, of the North Carolina Vanderbilts. Their first son inherited Blenheim of course and their youngest son ended up as the grandfather of Winston Churchill (who was born and raised at the palace).

Now the 14th Duke lives here and most of it is open for the public to wander through. Good guided tours also. Actually it's been open to the public since it was built in 1716. Such is the life in an hereditary dukedom's family - lots of visitors.

Lots of family portraits and tapestries inside. Exhibits about the two war commanders. In December plenty of Christmas decorations. Unfortunately no pictures allowed.

The bridge across a small stream was built with 32 rooms and designed for entertaining.
The lower half was flooded when the lake was added by Capability Brown.

The Cotswolds are the home of Morris Dancers. Mostly it's now a small-time hobby for groups that perform for 15 minutes at street fairs, store openings, school fetes, etc. We've heard of a more professional group that only is around in the summer tourist season. These locals were at the Christmas festival in Chipping Campden. Good accordion accompaniment though.

Terry's made a new quilt-friend, Fiona, who does and-quilting (and a lot of it). She has quilts throughout her home with examples in every room. She loves to learn new techniques and Terry has taught her Bethany Reynold's Stack-n-Whack technique. Of course with help from the dogs .

Details of the Christmas quilt.

A Teddy completely hand made by Fiona - including the bear, the clothes, and the bobbin lace. The pincushion is appliquéd hexagonals. 2nd place in the Women's Institute Millennium Competition.

Terry met Fiona at the local quilt guild which meets twice a month in the nearby village of Shipton. There are also 2 quilt stores in the area. She's signed up for some classes early next year at Goose Tracks where she can use a house sewing machine. One is the Lone Star quilt and the other is a strippy quilt using Seminole piecing. In the mean time she's keeping busy making a few quilt blocks by hand using some of Fiona's stash and patterns.

We've gone to 2 plays, both comic murder mysteries. The first was by a local troupe in a small village - quite a bit of fun. The second a professional show in Oxford which was dismal. 45 minutes of bad home-written Sherlock Holmes and 30 minutes of intermission for set changes. Neither funny nor an ingenious plot.

The Oxford History of Science Museum is pretty small but it contains a number of collections of old scientific instruments. There was a special exhibit of astrolabes and navigational instruments. Neat.

Foxhunts: They've been banned but still go on chasing, instead of a live fox, a stinky fox skin soaked in fox blood and dragged by a leader on a horse. Still, there are lots of signs everywhere saying Fight Prejudice - Fight the Ban. When asked if foxhunts aren't just recreation for the rich, people say lots of ordinary people spend their spare cash on rental horses and enjoy it very much.

Talked to a couple of retired guys in a pub the other day who flush out pheasants and grouse for shoots during this season. They didn't show any obvious signs of shotgun pellet scars. Their main complaint about the day's shoot was being told not to nip from their hip flasks in front of a couple of guests from Pakistan.

Chipping Norton was where the Rev. Edward Stone invented aspirin. He developed it from the old practice of chewing on willow twigs to relieve headaches. He figured out the acetylsalic acid compound and also found out it lowers fevers.