Sports Day - Part 1: Livia

Livia pulled a face for every other shot I took of her. That means I have over 100 pictures of her being monstrous on Thursday.


Her egg already fell once, broke open, and nearly fell again. She yelled at it to stay put. Seemed to work. Dig that tongue of concentration.

Kira always comments, so I thought I'd out her here, put a face with the name.

Samson, the musical

Wednesday night was Lena's school play. I knew nothing much about it except that Lena was playing one of Delilah's friends in a musical about Samson and Delilah.
When Delilah's Friends walked out, all dressed up, made up, and flirting copiously with the Philistines, Ariel leaned over to me and said in horror, "They're only 9 years old!"
They play was actually quite fun and funny. The racier bits of the original story were toned down, but Samson still was blinded and died in the end. And then the play stopped, the forth wall came down, and everyone decided that death was a terrible way to end the play, so Samson escaped death during the destruction that he caused, and his blindness was healed by a fellow Israelite that he had helped earlier in the play.
Lena's friend Annabel played the role of Delilah, and most of Lena's circle of friends made up Delilah's circle of friends.

And Oliver was a Philistine. Of course.

Cruising on a Summer Day

We don't get a lot of summer days, so when a handsome man calls and asks if you want to go cruising around the countryside in his convertible, you don't say no. Even if he isn't your husband.



My neighbor Ron called (at the suggestion of his wife Janet) and we went and picked up the girls from school, surprise-style. We had a lovely drive around Bucks and Northants in Ron's 1953 Morris.

When we were back in Crowfield, we stayed a bit at Ron and Janet's house to see Ginger. When Ginger went to live with R&J's assorted chickens, there was a worry that she wouldn't adjust very well. The moment we had put her in the chicken yard, the little Bantam rooster strutted over to check her out, feathers all puffed out and crowing the whole way. If you aren't familiar with chickens or with wrestling, Bantams are extremely lightweight. Jack the cockerel stands about 1/3 Ginger's height. He had no chance with our chook, but that didn't stop him from flirting with the new bird. The very next day, Ginger laid a big brown egg, needing no time whatsoever to adjust to her new home. She is truly the best chicken ever.

Also, since she was raised as a pet, unlike R&J's other chickens, she comes right over whenever a person comes into the garden, expecting strawberries or grapes. We're glad we gave her to R&J as they have found great delight in her personality and fine egg-laying.



Livia wanted to stay and join the flock herself.

Packing it all in

Well, we pack on Monday (in 4 days), and this computer -- Frank -- will be sailing home on the slow boat. So, I need to hurry and unload all the photos I have been dumping on here. Also, since our days in England are now numbered (33), we've been trying to cram in as many sight-seeing adventures as possible. Ariel took a day off, and we put our National Trust membership to good use.
The Whipsnade Tree Cathedral sounded like it would be really cool -- a cathedral formed out of trees -- but it was fairly boring. The drive there was exciting though.
Next we went to Ashridge Estate. The giant manor house isn't open to the public, so we were only able to visit the hunting grounds across the way. It was lovely and the sun even came out. And they served lemon Fanta at the tea house. Yummy!
(Below and Opening Shot) Finally, we went to Ascott Manor. Last time Dana was here, she and I went to Waddesdon Manor -- a gorgeous chateau built by the de Rothschild family (very posh). As that house was built to impress, this house was to live in. In fact, the family still lives there. It was terribly mundane compared to Waddesdon.

The cool thing there at Ascott is the topiary sundial (shown below). The numbers are carved from boxwoods as is the quote written around the outer edge: "Light and shade by turn, but love always."


And the flowers there were smashing.

Driving is never therapeutic

Sunday, Kira came up to me and said, "Where did you go Friday? Why haven't you blogged it yet?"

Friday (yes, the 13th), was Day Two of an excruciating cluster headache, and had left me wincing and restless. So, as you do when you can only really see out of one eye because the other is being stabbed by an invisible knife, I got in the car and drove. Before this, it took me a few minutes (read: 45) to formulate a game-plan, but I finally decided on a few places run by the National Trust (with which we are members. Read: free entry) and I had a map to my first destination provided by the handy people over at Google Maps.
If we weren't squarely into the month of June, I would have thought it was April Fool's Day. My directions gave each instruction completely backwards. Not in that backwards way that might make you think that you're simply reading the directions from End to Start. No, the roads listed were correct, but at each intersection, I was told to go left when I should have gone right, and right when I should have gone left. I'm certain that this was a bit of karmic retribution at work. I spend a lot of my time making fun of people who rely on their SatNavs to get around, especially those people who look at me in wonder when I tell them that I don't even own such an abomination. I have good directional sense, and a vaguely photographic memory, so though I ignored the directions, I kept having to stop and consult the map, second-guessing my inner compass.

At last, when I realized that not only were the directions a bit dyslexic, but that I was being taken on a weirdly circuitous route anyway, I tossed my printouts into the back, plotted my own course, and set out again from wherever I happened to be. At about 10 miles from my destination, 100 yards from my 2nd to last turn, a sign informed me that there was detour, so I shouldn't turn up ahead, but continue straight, following the "Diversion" signs. You would think by now that I would quit following the directions of other people. Nope. I continued along a vector 120 degrees off from the road I should have been on, and when I had driven about 10 minutes having not seen any of the promised Diversion signs, when I was just about to turn around, I saw another sign, correcting my course by only a few degrees. Another 5 minutes, and I entered a whole other county, still no more signs, and I turned off of this diversion (so aptly named), and made my way by gut back to the general area where I thought my destination might be. (On the return, I followed the "closed" route to find that I was diverted for nothing.)

This lead me pleasantly through the countryside in the middle of the Cotswolds where I saw so many groovy things. For about 15 minutes I thought that I was heading toward a village called Guilting Power. I even stopped and took a picture of their post office, and it wasn't until I came to the next village of Temple Guiting that I realized that there is no L. Did you see the absent L in the picture above too or is it just me? And is Guilting Power not the coolest name for a village ever?
This route was so backwoods that I came to a point where I actually had to open (and close) my own gate to proceed. There were many sheep just out of frame in this picture, and I wondered if spending the rest of the afternoon chasing down escaped sheep would be the thing that finally pushed me over the edge. The sheep bleated at me, but otherwise made no break. (At this point in the day, 2 hours into a 40 mile journey, I had mind-melded with the car, and I would have run over any sheep had they tried to escape.)
Finally, I arrived. Hailes Abbey was torn down during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. It was cool, but if this had been my only planned stop and I hadn't seen the turn-off for my next destination and I hadn't been able to visit the toilet, I would have gone on a killing spree after all of the madness driving I had experienced.
Next I went to Snowshill Manor, in the village of Snowshill. It was a really fun experience since the grounds themselves were marvelous and the house was a groovy collection of eclectic oddities. (Extra points to the first person who tells me what this pink flower is. Leave a comment here on this post.)

Homeward, I sat through 45 minutes of a traffic accident, and got behind every single tractor that was out that day (it's silage-harvesting season), but I had to get home as Ariel had been challenged to a game of cutthroat Scrabble by poor, naive Liz. And Liz and her hubby fed us delicious hamburgers -- so tasty, it was as if Liz is a trained chef. But she's not. (Okay, yes, she is.)
Liz lost soundly. (She posed for these pictures.)
And the headache? My stabbing pain headache had been replaced by the dull ache of road rage and then through dinner became the warm glow of good company and a full belly. It was ultimately a good day.

A love story

So maybe you noticed that in my last post, all the pictures were super-saturated green? Yes, I just got a new camera. And I have learned that all-important lesson: no matter how much you spend on a camera, it's not ready to take pictures straight out of the box.

This is a love story but also a story of obscene egotism. That's the way I like my stories. Sometimes I like them with a healthy dose of amnesia and evil twins, but not in this one. Anyhow, about a year ago, we had this little get together at church where we had to share something we had created with our own two hands. Many people brought scrapbooks, some brought quilts or needlework, but I brought my photobooks. I suppose that photobooks are about the same as scrapbooks except that there are no scraps in them. They are linen-wrapped, hardbound, (vanity-) published photo albums. They have captions and maybe a consistent background color/texture, but they aren't like scrapbooks (which frankly make my skin crawl). One lady, sweet Diana Riley (aged 73), was very taken by them and became convinced that I was an amazing photographer based on these photos. Let me tell you a secret: only about 1 of every 50 pictures I take ever make it to be printed.

A few months ago, I received a phone call from Diana that began, "Jenny, I was wondering if you would do me a favour since you are such a wonderful photographer..." At that moment, if she had followed up with "So could you rob a bank for me," I probably would have done it. Flattery is an efficient fuel. Fortunately, Diana would never in a million years take advantage of someone's character flaws, and she presented me with her odd favour. My friend Kira who also attends church with us had a baby a year ago. With Kira's amazing fashion sense coupled with the baby's abundant genetic blessings, Rosie the Riveter is about the most adorable little bundle of scrumptious you will ever lay your eyes on. And like her siblings before her, she was bald as an egg except for a bit of blond fuzz. So Kira, always on the cutting edge of fashion and being from the Mormon West where gluing hairbows on babies' heads is acceptable, kept bringing Rosie to church with a different type of headgear every Sunday. In the UK, babies wear hair accessories only when they actually have hair, so all of the Brits (including Diana) were intrigued with the assortment of head garters, floppy hats, tiny clips, and, yes, bows glued to Rosie's head. Diana wanted me to photographically document this amazing phenomenon so that she could A) present Kira with a photo album of her child all cute yet hairless, and B) prove to all of her friends in the retirement home in which she lived that those crazy Americans are both resourceful and peculiar. Finally, she wanted this to be a secret. I don't know about your sneaking skills, but I would have a difficult time surreptitiously taking photos of a baby not my own, even a perfectly pleasant baby like Rosie. We compromised on the sneaking part, and Kira, being a good friend, allowed me to come and take pix of the baby without me explaining why. (Kira is extremely good natured that way.) Ariel allowed me to borrow his (office) camera, a Nikon of Amazingness, and this is where the story becomes a love story.

The camera takes up to 8 shots per second. That may not mean anything to you, but when you're taking a picture of a baby, that means you are bound to get a good shot every once in a while. All in all, I took about 300 pictures of Rosie over two days, and got about 20 great shots of her, a new and improved ratio. Did I mention the Continuous Auto-Focus? It tracks a moving child, and calculates the correct range. What about the ISO going all the way up to 3200? with built in noise reduction?! I was in love. But my new love belonged to another. And one day, Ariel came home and announced that the camera was being packed up and sent to Warsaw. Then began the begging. Ariel at first relented to the pleas to buy a Digital SLR, but he wanted me to get a lesser model. But it was too late. I had experienced the sweet nectar of the top-of-the-line, and everything else tasted like ashes in my mouth. So I made a deal with the devil. (His handle isn't EvilGM for nothing.) He agreed that I could get my beloved camera if I gave up buying books. When he first voiced the deal, I nearly refused. Could I give up my beloved books for a camera? Could I ignore the siren-song of Amazon's "Recommended Especially for You, JennyB" list each time I went to the site to check on the order status or to buy a lens filter or spare battery? So far, the temptation has been great, but the rewards are already paying off. And I fixed the saturation problem.

Horse Country

In England, if you wake up on a Saturday to any amount of sunshine, you pile the kids in the car and go somewhere. Anywhere. We didn't take the helicoptor ride, so we only had this distorted shot (unlike below), but Saturday we went to White Horse Hill, near Uffington.
The drive was magnificent (even if we did get turned around a few times), and it was a lovely day out. We climbed right up to the top, and had some lunch at the ruins of Uffington Castle, an Iron Age fortification. The White Horse is significant for two reasons: it's the only English chalk figure that scientists accept as being prehistoric (about 3000 years old), and as you can see from my top shot, it's basically indiscernible except from the air. So why was prehistoric man creating huge images that could only be seen from above? Who knows, who cares. We enjoyed it.




And we're enjoying spring.