Sunday, May 20, 2012

A busy Sunday...


We packed a lot into Sunday beginning with a trip to nearby Stow On The Wold (that's a town, believe it or not!) to catch a British model railroad show. I was excited about seeing working model railroad displays of UK prototype railroads. Alas- there were none! Every single one was a US prototype with emphasis on the desert southwest! LOL! There was ONE European model but it was a French prototype as seen below...


We walked across the street to an appealing tea room for coffee but couldn't resist taking this photo of the plate of *TOAST* they brought out to the people next to us. Each slice is hand cut and 2+" thick and the size of a dinner plate. For size comparison note the full-size coffee cup next to it!


A drive to Cirencester brought us to a busy Roman crossroads 2000 years ago. This was once a large Roman amphitheater. Doesn't look like much now but it was pretty impressive probably seating 10,000 or so in it's day.


Beautiful village shops and crazy-narrow streets in Cirencester.


Sunday lunch included traditional fare: British roast beef and yorkshire pudding w/ roasted potatoes and parsnips.


At 2:00PM the local museum opened which is filled with Roman antiquities. I'll spare you all the photos, but they had numerous mosaic floors dug up from the sites of local Roman villas.


They were LARGE- as you can see.


Back out into the busy neighborhood shops after the museum...


Then to a nearby local park. Some of the trees here are hundreds of years old and magnificent. Note the human (not Jane) in the lower left of the photo below for size comparison. As you can see the hedgerow is 10' tall and the tree well over 100' with a trunk that's 10' in diameter!!


Along the river's edge in this park were these ruins from an ancient Roman wall. Caesar was a busy guy!


And how could we go through a town without popping into the local church. This one dates back to 1100 or so and is the 2nd largest parish church in England.


Here's the ornately carved pulpit...


And the pipe organ of course. There was a 2nd, newer, larger set of pipes as well- not seen here.


You KNOW Jane loves doors. Check out the hardware on this door in the church.


And the ornate carved ceiling... (Looking straight up)


Some doors back in those days weren't very tall. It's not often you have to DUCK when you're only 5'3"


Then Sunday evening we drove 45 minutes or so to Cheltenham to a church that Jane's sister in California recommended. This is an Anglican church that's been around a while- though not nearly as old as many we've seen. I randomly grabbed a photo of one of many memorials on the inside of the church- this one was put up in 1840. But...


The building was ROCKING as you might guess by the photo of the worship band below. A far cry from traditional Anglican liturgy.


And as if THAT wasn't unusual enough, much to our surprise the guest preacher last night was a friend who used to live 3 doors up the street from from 1991-93 who now pastors a church in Hollywood, CA. The last I knew he was pastoring in Winnipeg, but has been in LA now for 10 years and happened to be in Cheltenham, UK for a conference this past week. Small world.

1 comment:

Charity White said...

That IS a small world coincidence!!! The food has all looked amazing - that was "bigger than Texas toast"! LOL!