Trying to find a rhythm

While we have picked up a sort of routine with our day since coming to England, neither of us have really been very happy with how it looks. On a week day, we get up, eat breakfast, Hannah goes to work, Bryant looks for a job & gets important stuff done while out and about, Hannah comes home from work, we sit in the executive lounge at the hotel and eat hors d'ouvres until dinner time late evening and then we go to bed. It's not that we necessarily have things we have to get completed in our off-time, like homework or anything, but it's just sad that we don't really have time to sit and blog, exercise, relax, tour little villages or other fun exploring things after work.

We changed our clocks back an hour in Europe on Saturday night and now it gets dark around 5 PM. It is sad to say, but it looks like we are going to have to do most of our England exploring over the weekends and almost none of it after the work day. This past weekend we had to drive up north a couple hours to help a friend take care of some business with her rental car. While we were up there we thought it might be a good idea to skip on over to Cambridge for the day.

We had a really great time! We parked at a Park & Ride and took the bus into the city centre on Sunday afternoon. They had a little market going on in the center and we had fun roaming around looking at all the vendors and crafty things they were selling. We saw a street performer do some stunts on the street with flaming juggling batons and a unicycle:

And we got to tour King's College! It was so beautiful in there! Because it was Sunday they had a service inside the chapel at 3:30 so we were able to hear the world famous King's College Choir. Unfortunately our camera battery died while we were touring the college grounds and I didn't get many photos of other things we saw, but King's is gorgeous--King Henry VIII made sure of that!

We got a short video of the interior of the chapel without getting caught. Sorry there isn't any music playing from the organ... we promise it's absolutely beautiful.

The closer we get to Winter and with each visit to a new charming English town, we find ourselves picking out cute little gift ideas for Christmas...England is chock-full of cute stuff!!

We know that the more we buy before we find a house, the more we have to keep in limbo at our hotel. Needless to say, we are really getting antsy to find a place, but we have yet to find one. Please be praying for us while we search. We don't don't want to settle but we are getting a little weary of tours and phone calls to letting agents.

Hopefully we can pick up a good rhythm soon before the Holidays are upon us! We want a house to decorate!!

The grounds at King's College on a crisp Fall day. See the cows across the river? :)

Long Crendon Manor

At the end of last week we were able to break free from the boring old Premier Inn hotel and stay at a bed and breakfast. We had never been to a B&B before so we didn't have any expectations. After four nights at this place I know that if we had any, the Long Crendon Manor would have exceeded them considerably! Several TV shows and movies have been filmed at this place! We have since added Little Dorrit to our iTunes wish list but do not wish to see The Woman in Black any time soon. EEP!

A manor is more than just a house--we learned that this one has stables, barns, a main [large] house, a gatehouse, and acres of land. Sue told us the story of how her family acquired it in 1974 when she was 15 years old... she and her dad were house hunting while her mum was at work. The manor was the first one they looked at and decided they wanted it, so that's what they bought! It was in sad shape and only cost them £143,000 at the time, but Sue admitted that it is still a work in progress. I'd say they've done a very good job so far! :)

For more interesting reading on what a Manor did back in the day ("the day" = 12th Century) wikipedia is great. Learn about lords, serfs, cottars, etc. :)

Anyway, enough talk... you gotta see this place!

Breakfast was served in the Dining Room

These lovely animals made breakfast possible. :)

The St. Bernard named Coco "like Chanel, not The Clown".

The back gardens

The back patio was covered in grape vines full of plump and read-to-eat grapes. I didn't even think to try one. The were so beautiful!

I took so many photos with the SLR camera my sister sold us before we moved. This was the first excursion we were able to take with it in tow. You can see many more of them here with a bit of extra annotation. :)

Sue and Tim, the lovely people who run the whole place.  Also, the girls.

Sue and Tim got to meet Daniel Radcliffe while they shot The Woman in Black and apparently he is a really nice guy (although quite short--only 5'5"!). If you ever find yourself in Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire (which, according to Sue, is the center of the universe), you must stay at the Manor. Sue has one of the best senses of humor you'll ever encounter and she and her husband keep such a lovely and well-kept property that you would not regret one single pound spent to stay there.

9/11 ... 10 years later

I know there are thousands out there blogging about 9/11 today as it's the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. I am not sure why but I woke up this morning compelled to watch the coverage of the new memorial and to remember that day. It was moving to see and hear all of the names of those who died and to see the people affected by it all. I went through the rest of the day not thinking much about it until I got home from meeting with a friend.

I randomly turned on the TV to see if it had a setting in the menu to change over to PAL signal from NTSC and for some reason kept it on while I worked on the computer. I happened to notice not long after it began that CBS was playing a really amazing documentary on 9/11/01. I am almost positive I am the only one in the United States who has never seen it, too, because I guess it's pretty famous. I had never seen any of the footage that Jules and Gedeon Naudet accidentally caught that day. I may have seen video of the planes fly into the buildings before but actually seeing the few seconds of life of the firemen of Ladder 1 before the first airplane hit the WTC towers. It was a very powerful video.

If you have never seen it before, do yourself a favor and buy the video from iTunes here or watch clips at CBS' website here. It'll help you "Never Forget" and appreciate the heros of the United States. I am reminded that even though we are moving to England, I will always love my country and be proud to be an American.

PS - I promise to share our fun times at the MN State Fair and our trip to Washington over Labor Day Weekend soon! Only 2 more weeks before we move! (Also, if you are wondering, our TV doesn't do PAL. Boo.)