europe: new castles, walls, and lakes

[saturday, february 7th]
saturday rolled around and we were up and out earlier than we've been the whole trip -possibly. we got a train from york and then on to newcastle where we met jayne who had arrived in the UK only a few hours earlier. jayne's brother, gary, who had cancer all last year, had just died that previous week, so jayne had flown back from korea for the funeral and to be with her family. that evening we went to jayne's house and got to meet her parents, elizabeth and fred, who met every expectation of british hosts by serving us tea and cookies and calling us "pets." we spent the night at jayne's friend's house. eugene and sanet are a couple from south africa who have a lovely house and are some of the nicest, most hospitable people i've ever met. eugene is a fabulous cook who showed off his skilled by making us dinner each night we stayed at their home. that first night was jayne's pick -rack of lamb served with potatoes, broccoli, and mixed vegetables. amazing! we went to bed tired and happy.


[sunday, february 8th]
on sunday, after sanet made us a lovely breakfast of crumpets with butter and cheese, jayne took lizzie and i on a tour of the area. first we went to durham and walked around and saw the university and cathedral.


to our great surprise, we found ourselves at the venerable st. bede's burial site there in durham cathedral. lizzie about busted her britches with excitement and went so far as to take an illegal picture. we walked along the river in the sunshine and grew even more jealous of jayne as she told us about how, as an elementary student, she used to go on fieldtrips there to sketch the durham landscape.


after leaving durham jayne drove us by a school (that i can't remember the name of) which was the/one of the models for the hogwarts of harry potter. we drove up the coast and stopped at the small town of seahouses where we sat on benches down by the beach and made the seagulls jealous with the most amazing fish and chips (and batter bits).


our next stop was bamburgh castle, an incredible castle set right out on the rocks at the coast.


we couldn't go inside, as it's still in use as a residence, but we got up close and took lots of jumping photos.


we walked and ran and fell through the dunes near the beach and made our way down to the shore where lizzie collected limpet shells, jayne took pictures, and i frolicked about giving jayne reasons to take pictures.


by then it was late afternoon and we started the drive back to south shields. but we had to take a bit of a detour, since ever since lizzie had found out that jayne lived near hadrian's wall, we'd known we'd have to see it if we ever came to see jayne -and there we were! we finally found his wall surrounded by other "walls" trying to fool us, and took lots of pictures standing on the wall, doing jumping jacks on the wall, sleeping on the wall, modeling on the wall, etc. etc.


when we'd run out of ideas, we got back in the car and were on our way home. that night eugene made roast chicken and mini potatoes and brussels sprouts (only like my second time having them ever -yum!!). of course, it was amazing.

[monday, february 9th]
on monday (also the day of gary's (jayne's brother) funeral) morning lizzie and i took the train to the grand old town of york, where we saw ten thousand men, and marched up to the top of the wall and then marched down again. in between, we went to trinity church and found a wall lined with plaques remembering "elizabeths" and even an "elizabeth jane," this was our first clue that we belonged in york.


our second clue was a shop across the street -"amanda's."


after finding that all the interesting ethnic food restaurants were closed on mondays, we had lunch (actually breakfast for lizzie -her first full english breakfast of the trip) at a cute little cafe and went through a large pot of tea all by ourselves (ok, we did spill a bit of it). throughout the day we walked through roman ruins, the york minster, the shambles (oldest street in york), clifford's tower, the castle (which we're still not sure we actually found, but we did go in the gift shop), and a chocolate shop (we knew not to go back to the house after a funeral without chocolate).


we got a bit lost finding our way back to the train station, but nothing too exciting, and got back to sanet and eugene's around 7:30pm. eugene outdid himself again with a wonderful meal of ginger salmon and brocolli and potatoes. it was a bit of a down night, being the day of the funeral and all, and there were lots of tears and hugs and "magic chocolate" before the night was over.

[tuesday, february 10th]
the next morning, tuesday, we were up and at 'em early to meet jayne's mom, elizabeth (but for the sake of this post, i'll call her "jayne's mom." for those of you who don't know, jayne's first/real name is elizabeth, so i was the odd manda out with three elizabeths! i didn't have any problems, it was just lizzie, jayne, and elizabeth to me. but there were more than a few times "elizabeth" was put out there and everybody looked. poor them.). with jayne's mom's trusty england road map in hand, we set off for the lake district. it was a gorgeous day -all sun and blue sky.


elizabeth and i had the best seats in the house as we drove through the countryside with our fabulous tour guide -jayne's mom -pointing out bits of hadrian's wall, a clearing where robinhood was filmed, and teaching us all kinds of english/scottish history. (for example, kilts didn't come into use until the victorian era when the scots wanted to wear something special to greet queen victoria at her birthday, thus, they created the kilt! so mel gibson in a kilt in braveheart -false.) we ran into a few detours along the way, and of course had to stop for a bite to eat at a roadside pub, but eventually made it to windermere.


it's no surprise this beautiful area gave birth (in a sense) to the talents of william wordsworth and beatrix potter. i'm sure i saw peter rabbit and mrs. tiggy winkle peering from behind some bushes and it's no wonder my heart with pleasure filled as i danced with the daffodils. we walked beside the lake at windermere and i made friends (or tried to) with a swan on the beach, then walked up through the narrow streets of the lakeside town.


we had a lovely time and got back in the car boasting only one mishap involving a very muddy hillside and a very white coat (i'm not giving anything away if i say it was elizabeth).


everyone was pretty tired as we drove home and lizzie and i again had the best seats as we were able to lay back and black out for awhile. thanks for driving jayne! we got back late, had pizza for dinner with sanet and eugene, and mourned our last (this trip at least) wonderful night in newcastle.