Some Garden Perks

I've had the pleasure of working several days next door at Crook Hall and Gardens since our arrival.  I mentioned my desire to do so to our landlord when we moved in, and he hooked it right up!  It turns out that most of the kids who work there went back to university, and the gardens don't close until tomorrow, so I stepped in to help out a little bit.  It's so nice to roll out of bed, put on my coat, and walk about 30 yards to work.

I've helped out at the gate mostly, selling tickets and welcoming guests.  Here's a picture of me doing my best White Lady (the ghost who haunts Crook Hall) impression.  Apparently the lighting was a bit weird in the garden shed where I was hiding from the rain.


On my first day, someone asked me how much it was to get in, and I said, "Six dollars."


"Dollars?!" she seemed appalled with her hand over her chest, shrinking back from my little table.


"I mean, pounds.  Sorry.  Oh, I've given myself away, haven't I?"


It turns out this woman was understanding.  She, an Englishwoman, married an American Air Force pilot and had her first child in San Bernadino, the same county that Bakersfield is in.  Small world.


The benefit of working there when it is slow is that I get to read and journal and whatnot while surrounded by the beauty of the gorgeous gardens.  There are worse things.

This wonderful little (humongous) beauty is called the Aga.  It is a stove that stays on all the time and heats the kitchen, not to mention bakes and warms scrumptious treats.

And - be still my heart - scones.  Lauren, one of the girls who works at the gardens, makes them and bakes them to perfection in the Aga every morning.  When I asked her for the recipe, she said, "It's in me mind."  I'll have to bribe her, I suppose.  These are fabulous all warmed up with cream butter and strawberry jam.  My mouth is watering already.

Our First Houseguests

When Adria (a friend from Taylor) first Facebook-introduced me to Vern and Aubrey, I was excited to be able to pull a Sam and Emily and pay it forward by asking them to stay with us until their accommodations here opened up.  When they pulled up in the taxi with all of their gear, worlds collided!  It turns out we had met them before in Israel at Tim and Kristi's apartment two years ago. Wild!  We've had a great time together the last five days, and we celebrated our renewed friendship with a Jerusalem staple - Magnum Bars.  Yum!

Just in Case You Missed Our Church's Talent Show

This was just a miserable performance on our part, partly due to the fact that we look miserable.  Cut us some slack!  It was late a night, the lighting was bad, I hadn't done my hair or makeup, Nathan just fried the hair clippers due to lack of a voltage converter, etc.


This video was 100% spontaneous.  My efforts at planning were literally snatched from my hands -twice.  You'll see...

Charity Shop Finds

While waiting to move in a couple weeks ago, Nathan and I spent a day with the car doing some charity shop (thrift store) shopping.  We spent the entire day scouring tiny little spaces in three different cities (Gateshead, Newcastle, and Durham).  These weren't like the mega-sized Salvation Army store on Rosedale Hwy.  They were small little storefronts supporting charities like cancer research, arthritis, cerebral palsy, etc.  

While window shopping in Gateshead, a rough looking crowd walked by and one of the guys pinched Nathan's bum to get a laugh from his friends.  Nathan gave him a "DUDE!" look and muttered, "Better me than you, Sweetie."  Later, he asked me, "Do you think he did that because of my glasses?  Do they look gay?!"  I'm chuckling as I type.  He's still not 100% comfortable with them on, although it helps that our new friend Sam has a pair almost identical to his.

First things first!  What else would you expect from the Parkers but more books?  Nathan found the complete set of Churchill's books on WWI (among other things), and I found some cookbooks (among other things).  I discovered that I also had to buy a kitchen scale to get the right measurements (in grams instead of cups, etc.).  Luckily, I also brought my measuring cups and spoons to go with my Fix It and Forget It slow cooker cook book from home.  You'll also note the Life on Earth book by the same author who narrated the BBC series Planet Earth, David Attenborough.

Nathan also bought some shoes ("These feel like they belong to me!"), three pairs of jeans, and a fleece which smelled like smoke - not the campfire kind, the cigarette kind.  It took two washings to get it out.

Now, each one of my finds gets its own picture. :)  This comfy sweater is from Marks&Spencer.  Hannah Simms told me it was a good store before we got here, but I hadn't been in one at that point.  I think it will be my new housecoat.

An oatmeal sweater (called a jumper here).  It's really high quality from what I can tell, and it had the original price tag still on it.

 This dress was so cute!  It was kind of a splurge, costing about $6. :)  I love the ric-rac at the bottom and the detailing on the bodice as well.  You can click on any one of these pictures to see them in a larger size, by the way.

 I was wearing this little number in my last post...

 under this sweater.  I love the gold buttons on the flowy pockets.

 Banana Republic... what what!

 For work, a sweater vest.  I liked the mother-of-pearl buttons on the side.

And now, for the greatest find of all - this darling coat!  It gets two pictures because it's so darn awesome.  It's a little big, but I anticipate wearing a lot of layers under this baby come winter.  The best part it, it cost less than $6!

We had a fun time shopping (minus the bum pinching incident).  One of the challenges was trying to figure out what sizes we are in this new country.  It turns out I am anywhere between an 8 (the cream dress) and a 14 (the green coat), but my shoe size is only a 4 (a 7 in the States).  It just goes to show that your size is truly just a number - any amount of different numbers in any given country.

Our New Home, the Inside

We had our friends Sam and Emily over for dinner last night.  In this picture they're opening a present we got them as a thank you for hosting us last week.  It's a darling tea pot and tea cosy from Susie Watson Designs.  Emily collects the pottery.  When she opened it, she said, "Oh!  Well done!"  I was excited that she loved it.

And, since we had guests over so soon, the house was presentable enough to take pictures.  Here it is!

Our bedroom

The double wardrobe

The window sill in front of the bed

Side wall of the bedroom (You can see the bed in the mirror.)

The main room

Kitchen

More kitchen

Bathroom

Living room looking at the front door

Nathan's study loft

View of downstairs from the loft

View of the loft from the main room

My sweet husband on his first day of school

Showing off some charity shop finds.  More on those later.

Rievaulx Abbey

Our next stop was Rievaulx Abbey, pronounced "Ree-vough." It was very cool.

We are keeping notes on which sites to take visitors to.  There's so much exploring to be done!  

York

We finally moved into our place on Thursday.  On our first night, I was in the zone with organizing things, so Nathan cooked our first meal, bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes) and a few leaves of lettuce.  Here he is signing "first" in sign language.  Even though we moved in on Thursday, we had the car until Saturday, so Friday we did major shopping (Ikea and Tesco), and Saturday we went on another road trip.

Mumers, I took this picture for you.  I know that "deaf and dumb" is not politically correct, but I'd never heard of this guy.  Have you?

In York, we saw Yorkminster, the huge cathedral.  Just outside is a statue of Constantine, who was crowned the ruler of the Roman Empire there.

The cathedral was so big!  We took lots of pictures from many angles, but you probably don't want to see more than one.

This is called the Five Sisters window.  It's the tallest stained glass window of its kind.

One of the rooms had more than 200 unique faces carved into stone.  Can you see them?

One of the stained glass windows was being repaired, but it had a big panel explaining what it was - a stained glass reproduction of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  Nathan looked at it and said, "Do you know what is wrong with this stained glass window?"  

"Um... God has a body?" I knew by the look on his face that I had read his mind.  He gave me a high five that echoed through the cathedral and whispered, "That's my girl... sniffing out heresy with the best of them."

There were many famous people buried there with elaborate tombs.  This one in particular creeped me out for some reason.  If Andrew, Nathan's brother, were with us, I'm sure he'd have some dodgy German accent to accompany the form of this dead bishop lounging on his own sepulcher with baby angels flying overhead.

Same scarf, different day.

For all you pub fans, this one is an old(e) one.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to eat there, as they didn't serve food until 1 p.m., and we had more stops to make on the way home!

Tynemouth Castle and Priory

Today we went to Tynemouth Castle and Priory, right on the beach near Newcastle.  Again, it was windy, but it wasn't raining and we had the place to ourselves for a good while.  Basically the place started out as a monastery and then changed to a castle, then a fort, and then a coast guard station.  It was a strategic place that was attacked a lot - by the Scots, the Norwegians, the Germans, etc.  

Nathan was excited that he could reach across the archway - "like Samson," he said.

Clearly, I fell short of such a feat, but my face communicates that I tried hard.

Naughty Nathan climbing the ruins

Posing in a sepulchre

A graveyard with a lot of "Aslan slabs," we called them

The sea and wind have weathered away the tombstones, so the backs of them look like coral.

A WWI military gun replica

We had to get a treat afterwards to warm up. :)