Three Scientists and the Wartburg

Today is Reformation Day, 31st October, and we are in the heart of Reformation territory, slightly to the East of Erfurt, South of Wittenburg, and also East of Wartburg Castle where Luther translated most of the Bible. This is also the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), although it was never democratic! It's so exciting to be in this once forbidden place, where we could once only imagine what life was like here. Nearby is the city of Weimar which gave it's name to another German empire, the Weimar Republic, which was formed here after the First World War. We visited a medium sized church today that our friend Ute attends. Folks there were very friendly and the elder and his wife kindly invited us to lunch. We ate Flamkuchen again; it must be popular! He is a laser engineer. His company design lasers to inspect lenses and it seems to be an extremely high-tech business.

In the last three days we have been staying with Ute in the town of Stadtroda (this means town of tree cutters). It is a beautifully preserved town with quite different architecture from anything we've seen before. There is a local black slate in this Thuringen state of Germany and it can be seen at its best covering some of the church steeples. The houses in the old town are terraced and of about 5 stories each, including the basement. Often they have ornate decoration and fancy roof-lines. We saw the large, stand-alone home where Ute had lived as a girl, growing up in the GDR. She said life during that time was fine as long as you were content with a simple life and not many luxuries. Her dad was in the secret police and needless to say, not well liked. She showed us the garden plot that her mum maintains which is quite a distance from where she lives. Other housing in the town is of the Cold War type; huge unimaginative blocks, rows and rows of them. Ute rents in one that has been renovated recently and it is now a rather pleasant one bedroom apartment. To enter the apartment you use a shared entrance, eight other flats use the same front door; your key opens that one and your flat door too. The flat itself is on the third floor and is quite spacious with a good view but has no lift. When you take a flat like this it has no fitted kitchen whatsoever. Peter has been working on our car, fixing the dent that came with it when we bought it, quite a dusty job and no really suitable place to work.

Now we are staying with Stefan (Schtefan) who has a flat on the second floor of a large house near the centre of Jena, a city 14km from Stadtroda. This city is where Ute works and fellowships. It's really beautiful here, especially as it's autumn and there are huge trees full of yellow/golden leaves everywhere. The buildings nearby are huge seven or so storied houses; often terraced but each one individually designed. They are quite ornate and come in a range of colours. This is a university city so I think many of them are divided into flats. The town streets are cobbled.

Our time at their church was encouraging. There were 60 or 70 people and it was a really friendly environment. And when the elder invited us to his home for lunch I was glad that I had a few bars of NZ chocolate on hand in the car. Both Dirk and Stefan are in high tech industries; Stefan designs ultra small cameras and Dirk is also in optics and designs machines to scan lenses searching for imperfections; well I think that was it. I managed to persuade Peter to buy a pair of good German shoes, which was no easy task, and so will 'not be afraid of the snow' for him. Of course I was much more easily persuaded!

On our way to the town of Huttenburg three hours west of Jena we stopped in at Eisenach, an extremely picturesque town overshadowed by the Wartburg, a huge castle on the hill above the town. This particular castle attracts large numbers of visitors because this is where Martin Luther translated most of the Bible into German when he was a captive there for over a year. It really is quite a special place but we didn't have much time to spend there.

There is a small Reformed Baptist church in Huttenburg. The pastor, Andre Bay, is originally from South Africa but has worked in St. Petersburg and met his wife there. They held a camp there last weekend for German youth and had 60 young people, which is quite amazing for a church with just a handful of families. He was also in NZ a few years ago for the Don Carson meetings.

Further west we visited the old capital of former West Germany, Bonn and also Koln, (Cologne). Here we ,et someone who works at the Max Plank Institute; a Scientific organisation that specialises in Radio-astronomy and I had a brief visit there.

This next leg of our journey has brought us to The Netherlands. It is really special to finally see it after hoping to for so long. I have to say that it is VERY flat. But it's flat in a very picturesque way and well laid out in regular rectangles, with trees in neat rows or groups. There are large farm houses and out buildings with huge dark roofs; often with large areas of photo-voltaic cells. And then there were the canals, amazing to see them at last and different architecture from what we had seen in Germany. We are here now in Bodegraven in central Netherlands near Utrecht. We are with the widow and 4 children of pastor Chong. They have been in Europe 20 months and are living in a nice 3 storied home near a canal. This morning we met in a big church, which was full, and the preaching was faithful. We had some gingerbread at breakfast as is common here. And now after coming home from church, coffee and cake of course.

A Swiss Adventure and Bavarian Hospitality

Visiting our friend Sabine was a highlight. She and Daniel live north of Zurich; still in the same apartment but are just about to move into their own home in a village near Winterthur. They will also have just had their third child, so they'll be busy. Our trip there was by country roads; this is necessary as the motorway fee is an annual one there and quite pricey. Also you get the lovely tour of the various villages.

Switzerland came alive for us during our two days with Catherine Schmid. She gave us thoroughly Swiss meals and insisted on taking us past Lucern to the middle mountains. There in Engleheim we took the gondola up to 1800m. You have to do this often in Autumn in Switzerland because the constant fog is really depressing and doesn't often clear, so getting away to the mountains and above the fog is a recurring theme. Then we realised how special it was that we were able on our first arrival in Switzerland to get great views of the Alps.

After this we crossed back into Germany, actually rather unexpectedly; this is one of the more undesirable features of our sat-nav. But there we were, suddenly on a bridge over the Aare River with the customs officers looming in front of us and no possibility of doing a U-turn. So we missed our opportunity to take a ferry across the Bodensee, Lake Constance, which we had been looking forward to. Nevertheless we made it to our friends, the Kerns, in good time and were even able to take an exhilarating walk with Karen up the hill above the lake before Matthias arrived back from school. They took us to a local restaurant where I was served Spatzle noodles; these are home-made extruded noodles. I hope you enjoy them too because I am likely to serve them when you visit me! This family have finished home-schooling now and are currently helping others, after a stint in the UK to avoid fines here in Germany, so we had plenty to discuss.

Moving on from there we caught up with our friends again in Neuffen, where Nathan had been living; this time meeting the father who had been away in the US on our previous visit. It was their little one's 6th birthday and what a cake! They have a style all their own which is a family tradition with them; iced with coloured custard. German families generally eat their main and hot meal in the middle of the day and then in the evening they have bread, sliced sausage, cheeses and other trimmings. We have to keep reminding ourselves of this when we are making arrangements.

Our old friends, the Zollners, whom we knew years ago when they lived in New Zealand are still in Schwabach and this was our next stop. This town with a main church building larger than our Cathedral, is just half an hour South of Nurnberg, the home of Albrect Durer, the famous reformation artist, of some 500 years ago. Nurnberg is also where the Nazi war crimes were tried after WWII. It is a large modern city but still retains its Medieval wall. Tina and Jurgen kindly gave us true Bavarian meals including her lushiously moist roast pork that I remember so well. She served it with sauerkraut and potato dumplings - superb. It was also my birthday and so a double treat.

Nearby we are now staying with home-schooling friends with nine children. They have an extensive property with an abundance of space in their several farm buildings, some of which they have renovated. Here they have their own botanic garden with many varieties of trees because the dad is a tree doctor. We have been very spoilt here and have needed to stay longer since we have had to make some changes to our itinerary. Peter has busied himself with doors again. One in particular was a curly one - the hinge had been set into the plaster wall but the plaster having crumbled left the door extremely loose. So Peter had to drive a large bolt, which he had attached to the hinge, deep into the masonry and then cement it all in place - exactly the right place - so that the door would swing properly and match up with the separate door jamb. For those who take an interest, doors are different here on the continent; they sit against the door jamb and don't fit within it as they do at home.

Meanwhile I have been teaching English here and there and in particular the writing course to some of their children - now that's a bit different in another language. For instance they don't have the present continuous tense, so you can't start a sentence like "Singing loudly I ........" so we left that bit out. I've also been swapping recipes here and in other places and that usually means preparing the dish - made Bread and Butter Pudding today.

It's the autumn festival at the moment so you find old wooden trailers heaped up with large orange pumpkins and sometimes gourds too, on the sides of the road in various places. If you drive through a village you'll be likely to see one on the outskirts. And in just a few kilometres you hit another village - the place is littered with them and they are all quaint - except for the ubiquitous modern, colourful, supermarkets nestled into some corner and stealing most of the trade from the old style shops. Although bakeries still seem to be an important feature of village life. The other thing you notice about the autumn festival are the autumn trimmings attached to front doors and indoor decor to match, something similar to our Christmas decorations. It's quite special really and of course it's all there to buy in the shops.

Well the weather has changed and I think we have seen the last of the balmy autumn days, it's very cold at times and there was a heavy frost this morning.

Taking a Break in Switzerland

When we left France, we first made a detour so that we could pass through the village that Thierry comes from, Sercoeur. We got some photos so eventually you'll get to see it too. We drove across mid-eastern France and into the most south-western part of Germany, near the Black Forest (Schwartzwald), to get to Switzerland and the town of Aarau. On the way we passed yet another field of blumen (flowers), so this time we stopped and picked some Chrysies. It's really expensive here in Switzerland; prices are double or almost double that of Germany. Unfortunately we were stopped on the border and the car was thoroughly searched by the Swiss boarder control to see if we had too much (> 7kg) of meat or too much alcahol. It was a bit scary as we had a lot of groceries because we were about to go house-sitting, and we thought they might be confiscated or that we might be fined as we had heard of such things, and we really didn't know what they might be looking for. Eventually though, they let us go but it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. However the weather was excellent.

So we arrived in Switzerland and are staying at the Huesler's home; Emily and her family stayed here 7 years ago. This is the same town that Catherine Schmid lives in; do you remember her, she stayed with the Pollards earlier this year?

And so with the sky beautifully clear we looked out over the town to the hills and the distant Alps. In fact it is a view very much like a what you would see from the hills in Christchurch. Today the weather is still balmy. Up here on the hill it was misty until about 11am this morning and then when it had burnt off a sparkling day appeared. And for once I have time to write.

We have just walked up the hill through the forest. If you look closely you can find hazel nuts every ten metres or so when you are out walking. There is a farm up there above part of the forest with a restaurant and 3 goats with tinkling bells on their necks. One was king of the castle on a pile of stones; goats do that. Louder, deeper bells could be heard higher up and were the cow bells, we could see only four - Jersey cows. There are lots of bells around here; the church bells from various churches are ringing right around the clock. So we are having a much needed rest after quite a busy time.

Neuffen, Germany to Nancy in France

Leaving Neuffen (read Noi-fin) and friends behind us we drove toward the black Forest (Schwartzwald), at first it seemed like any other European Forest with its firs and beech. Its beech is very reminicent of our Notofagus or NZ Beech forests for those who are more botanically inclined. Only these seem to be deciduous and are currently tinged with patches of brilliant yellow; very eye catching. However the deeper we travelled into the forest and the higher we ascended the more we realised the extent of this beautiful place. And then at the summit we caught our breath as we surveyed distant tiers of forest clad mountains receding into purple mists; here indeed you feel that you are truly in the Black Forest. Now as we dropped down into the Rhine valley we began to catch glimpses of that great river shining in the late afternoon light between gaps in the trees.

Ben Vosseler's home is in an industrial area on the edge of town not far at all from fields of apples and grapes as we quickly discovered when he took us for a drive to see castle Schaunburg not far from his home. Ben's dad, Rafael, has been renovating a commercial building and has developed it for their home, he's done so much and they live on a grand scale now. Both his parents work as musicians and play something like a French horn only it's in its historic German form. His mum, Christiane also tutors this instrument. They took us for supper to a castle, yes another one, where the view was magnificent and we ate flammkuchen, which is a kind of pizza that I plan to make for you one day! It was served on individual boards, and we ate in the open air right by the battlements. Intriguingly they told us that this beautiful day was the last of the good weather and sure enough that evening down came the rain. They know their weather in a way that we do not. The pool where Ben works is literally over the fence and through a stand of tall trees from his home which is handy.

When you cross a boarder you never quite know what to expect and now we needed to cross the Rhine and thus to go to France. Well there was no boarder control but we certainly noticed the prices, much higher. That's why lots of the folks in Strasbourg do their grocery shopping in Germany.

Our French hosts turned out to be Romanian. I must admit I had wondered when I saw the name Dimitri. So this is how he became a naturalised Frenchman; he served in the French Foreign Legion for five years. And that qualifies you to become French. In Strasbourg we were in an appartment over the boulangerie in the city with a young family; some of their friends came over to meet us too. One lot are about to drive around the world in a campervan, including NZ! I went to the International church there and got to stay for lunch; great company and excellent food. Transport in the city is by extemely modern trams which bend in several places; the floor moves too, they are very comfortable and sleek. Nicoleta and Ana-Maria and I had a lovely day out looking around Strasbourg, travelling by tram and also visiting Petit France, a delightful old part of the city.

Then we were in Chanteheux just near Luneville where there is a palace just like Versailles built in the same grand style, 350 years ago or so. It is currently being restored after a fire in 2004. The whole town around it is about the same age, lots of 4-5 storey buildings all with wooden shutters and wrought iron grills to hold the flower boxes which are filled with an over abundance of mainly red geraniums. We had a trip to the nearby city of Nancy with its magnificent Stanislaus Square surrounded by huge guilded gates. Stanislaus had been a polish king who was aslo Duke of Lorraine. Another trip was to the town of Baccarat, our host, David Zimmermann's home town, where lots of top quality crystal is produced, so many shops with all sorts of crystal. One shop seemed to have an endless array of chandeliers. All the little villages are extremely picturesque so I took plenty of photos. I only wish my camera were better. The family here are planning to emigrate to New Zealand so we spent some time discussing home-schooling and even more time on what it's like living in New Zealand and how they could do it.

Dash from Inverness to Frankfurt

Sometime on Tuesday morning we discovered that Nathan was not going to be able to renew his German visa and that he would have to fly out to NZ by the 12th of September; understandably this was quite a shock and there was a huge number of changes to be made to our itinerary plus a much abreviated trip to Europe and an early arrival there.

Travelling back south through Scotland, Yorkshire (Darlington and Haworth), Wiltshire and Kent we boarded the ferry at Dover and landed at Dunkerque in time to make it for dinner with our friends near Noyon (where Calvin was born). After this we had a long leg of the journey to make across to Germany so we used the motorways. The tolls on these roads is high and the trees either side obscure most of the views but you do make good progress. Our kind friends near Mainz who are away travelling themselves had made their home available to us so there we stopped and after delivering Nathan to Frankfurt airport on the 12th we flopped for several days only making short excursions. The Guttenburg Musuem was one visit that we did make. Other interesting adventures were had by shopping in the various supermarkets and viewing and sampling the European delights - so much more possible when you are house sitting and have to buy all the food yourselves. This was also an opportunity to hunt for BMW car parts! While passing near Manchester we had purchased and installed a new rear passenger door on our Hyundai. The Breaker (read wrecker) was a couple of Muslims operating out of a shipping container is an exceedingly shady neighbourhood down by the railway-line.

Over the weekend and into this week we have visited with Christian Home-schoolers and with a Reformed Baptist Church which meets in a home. These folk have had Martin Holdt staying with them, so yet again it proves to be a very small world. We've also called in at the school that Nathan had been attending and received a most cordial welcome from the Rektor there who had taken a real shine to Nathan. And then we called in to his home stay to collect his bag etc. There is a huge castle, Hoheneuffen, on top of the hill there.which has stood senteniel over the city of Neuffen (5000 people, but a city of course because it has a castle) for 1000 years. If I ever get the hang of putting pictures on my blog I'll post one of the mountain castle.

Peter has had a rather stiff bout of Menieres but we hope to travel on to visit Ben and his family today near the Rhine River just west of the Black Forrest.

Relentlessly North from South Larnarkshire to Montrose and on to Inverness

It's comforting to return to a place, Blackwood in South Larnarckshire is the home of our old friends, Marie and Ernie Bonner, so good to see them again. Their church too is familiar, we were there on Sunday morning and then set out after lunch for Montrose to catch up again with our friends the Tulleys and to stay with Will's mum there. We ate tea-cakes with them and then taking a walk along the beach we saw a huge old white Lighthouse at the end of the Spit. This family are shortly going to emigrate to New Zealand with their 4 children so there is lots to discuss.

Next day we drove up the coast to Aberdeen visiting along the way an old but still functioning oat mill driven by a water wheel. Further on we took the walking track down to Dunnottar Castle, perched on an Island, high up on a grassy knoll and only just attached to the mainland by a tiny isthmus. Here were extremely steep cliffs covered with fern and moss, but with a well built much used track. The farm house at Inverarnie is high above the road and very welcoming. Dinner even included a starter course with Haggis! So we are well and truly in Scotland. The high hills are really just bare rock, granite, and smothered with loads of purple heather. Everything is so picturesque and in many ways similar to South Otago; especially the weather. The following day we visited the McQueens on a nearby farm where my friend Christine grew up. The served us Pheasant and took us to see the Covenanters' Hollow where secret services were held for the Faithful with lookouts on nearby mountains watching for Redcoats in the 18th Century.

Ayrshire on the South West Coast of Scotland

The famed Gretna Green is the first town over the Scottish border and since we'd driven directly from North Wales it was time for a stop. So we drove over to the blacksmith's shop where so many elopers had been married in days gone by by the licensed blacksmith there. Now days couples are frequently married there just for the fun of the venue.

Arriving in Prestwick on the coast just north of Ayr we were taken by our friend Peter Smith to a huge old house overlooking the sea and the Isle of Aran. His kind friends Arlene and Jimmy McInnes put on an excellent dinner including seafood that Peter Smith had caught.......crab claws and mackerel pate on traditional Scottish oat cakes. They even served New Zealand white wine.

History is everywhere in Britain and Scotland is no exception so we were taken to some places relating to King Robert the Bruce who lived about 700 years ago. And then to a young Covenanter's grave behind an old church, he had been put to death in 1688, it makes you realise just at what cost our freedoms have been gained. There was a huge old Abbey, now in ruins but still recognisable just on the side of a country road surrounded by fields. Nathan was keen to explore a castle of the Kennedy clan perched on the cliff a bit to the south of Ayr; a lot of it is still intact and you could go through much of it and Nathan climbed up on to it at several levels. It looked fabulous against the sunset.

Many of the place names in this area are also ones we know from Christchurch as this is where the Deans family came from who first settled in Christchurch. Strathavon = Straven, Kilmarnock and of course the Avon River.

Well, we've finally purchased a Sat Nav but that doesn't mean an end to getting lost.... by no means! We ended up in a dead end street and then down on the waterfront; hopefully we'll get the hang of it soon.

I saw an excellent exhibition at the Kelvin Grove Art Gallery of the Glasgow Boys' work done 1880 - 1900. It was 'en plein air' with a natural everyday life look about it, quite a pleasant and memorable way to spend an afternoon.

In and Out of Wales

Strangely we had to drive south back past Wrexham where we had only just come on Wednesday. We headed through Cheshire and into Northern Wales but only for a short time and then we found ourselves welcomed back into England again. We're staying just outside a village called Chirk. The home-schoolers that we know here are a family we couldn't connect with five years ago, it just didnt seem to work. However they reminded us they did transport a suitcase for us to London in 2005. The Birds have a small business selling home-school books, so they travel about quite a bit to do this, on Saturday they will be in the North of Scotland attending the Highland Games where they will both be participating in the Marathon events. Lots of people we know know them, so its really great to meet them at last. Their home is White Cottage, one of a row of cottages built immediately on the road side, an extremely narrow strip of tarseal which runs up the hill from the river. The small hamlet is surounded by hills of fields of long grass, and dark green forests. At the bottom of the lane is the small river, which is the border of Wales. The Birds own another house a short way down the hill from where they live, which they use for storage, and for visitors. It's kind of like what we would call a batch but it's actually been someone's home for a hundred and fifty years until now. It's very kind of them to let us use it and we are having a very pleasant stay here.

I've been doing a bit of smocking on blue gingham for a four year old girl. And this evening I found time to re-cover my bible, as it had been looking quite tatty. We went for a walk in the evening up over the hill, and were swooped upon by four inch bats, (not brick bats). Now Pete and I have seen bats before, but Nathan.... or shoudl I say 'I' because, Nathan, (me) is actually the scribe tonight, this lol... cause mum cant type fast : -) so, Nathan was quite scared (sure...).

It was semi dark, and the moon was luminous. Well, actually there was no moon in sight, but it was still luminos... And I'm pretty sure it felt luminous... Or maybe it was the single street lamp...

As it was nearing to 10:00pm, we desided to turn around and go back to the cottage, as being stuck out in the dark, on a narrow road, with bats and mosquitos flying about, sight seeing was not first class priority.

Nathan, (me) kind of wrote this with Mum dictating (kind of like Napoleon... kinda), and decided to 'spice' it up... ooh! So, exuse the, well, the New Zealand-ish-ness of it : -)

I had to do some editing on Nath's scribe work! : -)

We went to the Quinta church where the pastor, Digby James is an expert on George Whitefield so Peter had a great time with him. During the afternoon we had a walk along the canal and over an aqueduct as well a sthrough a 1/2km tunnel where the canal runs under the railway. A splendid walk and good weather to boot. It turns out that Peter's cousin Cyril and family have just had a holiday on a barge on this canal.

The evening meeting was in a home and here Peter gave a seminar on Rest Home Ministry.

Across the Mersey

Wednesday morning was a mad rush from Ludlow to Manchester; three and a half hours driving to meet the 7:20am bus to pick Nathan up from an all night trip from Karlsruhe in Germany. It certainly was great to see him! He was measured today and he's 6 foot one, the tallest in the family now I think. We buzzed in and around Manchester chasing a car part which didn't exist; well at least not in a form that was of any use. It's unbelievable what these Breakers (wreckers) try to hock off as quality secondhand parts! We think they are probably overstayers working under the table as their yards have no proper signage and all deals are done in cash.

In the afternoon we visited The Science and Industry Museum where we saw huge steam engines and all the paraphenalia of the cotton mill industry. This is so much more fascinating as it is where the series 'North and South' was set. I came away with samples of calico in various stages of production from raw fluff to fine-spun threads.

Our road atlas is about 15 years out of date which made navigating that much more challenging as some roads and motorways have been renamed. So we're driving on the highway and the road splits and we don't know which one to choose and come to an abrupt halt on the cross-hatched median right in front of the concrete barrier! Well I'm happy to report that we're still alive and somehow arrived at our destination.

So we've spent the last three days with old friends on the Wirrol across the Mersey from Liverpool. It's been a great catch up. Nathan's had a cold and Peter has fixed the last job on the handbrake. We've done plenty of talking and enjoyed a full Moore curry this evening after the little ones had gone to bed.

Tomorrow we head back South for a bit to Wrexham in North Wales.

ANCIENT LUDLOW IN SHROPSHIRE

Saturday took us through the Cotswolds - an area renowned for its gorgeous villages - we had already visited many of these and on this occaision went to Bourton-on-the-Water where Benjamin Bedome had ministered during the Evangelical Revival; he was one of a handful of Baptists who were involved and he was greatly used at that time. We also visited Stratford-on-Avon, the birth place of Shakespeare which was quite a delightful spot. We saw the half-timbered house where he was born and brought up; Quite a large house with diamond pattered lead-light windows.

That night was spent with a couple who live in the country near Hatton where we saw the 27 locks that work together to lower barges a long way over a very short distance. Next morning at` Emmanuel church at Leamington-Spa we met Sharon and Bill James and then had lunch with them before travelling due West to the ancient town of Ludlow in Shropshire. And it truly is incredible with so many half-timbered houses 500 and more years old. There's the huge castle where Catherine of Aragon lived and stone bridges. We're staying in a stone house 200 years old; the walls are so thick and we're sleeping on the 2nd storey but there's a huge cellar as well where the servants used to live, launder and cook.

We took a trip today to Worcester where my Great-Great-Grandfather was the lock keeper and he took the draught of the barges to calculate how much weight was in their load and what the tax would be, so we went to see the lock, built again of stone and it's still in operation, probably more than 200 years old. They built these mechanisms to last. We also got some good blackberries today.

North of Bristol Near Chipping Sodbury

Heading north from Bath on the A46 we crossed the M4 which is the main motorway East/West from London to Bristol. Bristol is a key port city right next to Southern Wales by the River Severn; it was for many centuries the second city to London. We took the small back roads so that we could drive through lots of villages. The road are indeed small in the sense that they are narrow, well to us NZers anyway, and it's always a challenge and slightly frightening when a car or lorry (read truck) is approaching from the opposite direction; you just have to breathe in and hope he's noticed you and will squeeze past safely. Our hosts for these two nights are the Tully family of Charfield who are members at Westerleigh but are emigrating to NZ in 11 weeks. Will has a job on the staff at Massey University in Palmeston North. They have 4 young children and are both vets (in the animal sense, not the war!). We took a long walk across a deer park with Louise and the children. The deer are not so shy as in NZ and posed for photos at a range of about 30m. There was a hunting lodge in Medieval style, not sure how old it would be. There were also great views of the Severn and surrounding country. The following morning we popped out to a car boot sale where Peter was able to buy some much need tools as he has a few jobs yet to do on the car; which by the way is going really well. We're so thankful for that. Needless to say I had to be very restrained about purchasing and was just able to pass up a Portmerion serving bowl for which was only asking a pound!

Near the Ancient City of Bath in Sommerset

At the moment we're staying in Bathford, just a few miles from Bath itself. Here we have a distant relative whom we stayed with last time. She attends the village church, St. Swithuns, and is fully involved there so we are being invited to several parish happenings including a coffee morning and a film afternoon; saw The Student Prince. Afterwards we drove along to Warleigh Manor Farm where Joyce was in service as a young woman as the Under Parlour Maid earning sixteen pound a year. We also went to see the cottage where she grew up and were invited to tea and a look over the now renovated house. The garden where we sat to drink the cup of tea has roses and hollyhocks, just as you would imagine, and the sun was streaming down and the dog was chasing a frisbee. At night the foxes come up to the house to be fed, this stops them taking the lambs.

Bath is exactly as you see it in the movies and is quite extensive with sandstone buildings for miles, all the same soft natural tones, none painted. The Cathedral is huge and is right down by the River Avon. There is a bridge which you don't notice at first because it has a row of shops on each side. The next bridge has a stairwell in it so you can quickly climb up onto the bridge. I saw the Assembly Rooms where they still hold balls under the huge chandelliers and watched by faces in the paintings on the surrounding walls. Yes and the walls are lined with chairs for those still awaitng partners. The Pump Room is still there and so are the Roman Baths, all fully restored now.


Yesterday we took in a tour of the environs and visited the famous village of Lacock where Emma, Pride and Prejudice 1995 and Cranford were filmed. And yes it really looks like it. Many of the cottages are used as shops and it's so interesting wandering about there. Biddeston and Castle Combe are near Chippenham and are also examples of delightful villages with half timbered houses, small pubs an beautiful churches. As you drive the roads are exceedingly narrow and often are covered with a canopy of pretty green branches.

Bradford-on-Avon is a closer village and here we found the Old Baptist Chapel mainly hidden from view behind the shops, this was to hide it during the unrest after the Civil War years. Here we sat and ate our lunch and chatted to various teams on barges who had to operate the locks to allow their holiday home barges to pass on down the Canal to Bristol Harbour where they have a regatta planned for Saturday.

As we drove into Trowbridge we were surprised to see a Surf shop called 'Piha' so far inland.

We've moved to Valerie and Satoshi Aoki's place in West Norwood a little further south of London. I had met Valerie on our last trip and we had kept in touch. She has a Lydia too. In fact Nathan and I stayed one night with her and her son James in 2005 while her husband was in Japan with the two older children. Her girls are both doing degrees in Music. While Peter was visiting a rest -home with a team from West Hill Baptist Church Valerie and I went to Parliament Square where Westminster Abbey is and it's also near the Parliament Buildings and the River. We found the Privy Council Buildings and were able to go in and see the archives and even sit in on a session. It was a beautiful building with lots of bas-relief carving across the front. We first had to be x-rayed just as they do at the airport. On the next day Peter and I repeated this trip, this time with my camera! We also went to Trafalgar Square where Nelson stands atop his pillar in triumph. There is a large fountain there in front of the National Gallery. This gallery holds a huge collection of famous art which we sampled. After briefly looking in on Churchill's War Rooms we crossed Westminster Bridge and took the memorial walk along the Southbank passing the London Eye which is a giant Ferris wheel with amazing views of London and the surrounding countryside. Another gallery nearby is the Tate Britain which holds a wonderful collection of British art - this was facinating and also very handy to the bus home which is good news when your feet were as worn out as ours.

Friday 16th was spent looking at a car and checking out insurance for it. There are 826 car insurance companies in the UK but after filling out lots of internet applications we soon found that they don't insure non-UK residents!

Satoshi took Peter and I by overground train to Tower Bridge which we walked across. What a fascinating engineering feat it is, this is the bridge that opens to allow tall ships to pass. At the Tower of London we toured the bloody tower where many martyrs had been held prior to their execution. Then the Keep which is the White Tower in the centre of the complex, there is a lot of armour in here. Next I enquired about the queue for viewing the crown jewels; it seemed to be 40mins to 1hour long, snaking halfway around the large courtyard and also far into the building. I was wondering if the queue would be shorter towards the end of the day. I mentioned that we were New Zealanders and did not want to miss seeing our Sovereign's jewels, the guard was excessively kind and took us right to the head of the queue inside the building! Needless to say we were astounded and very thankful. The jewels were truly amazing and contrary to my expectations well worth the visit. We also saw a room where Queen Jane's name had been etched into the wall along with many other famous names as these miserable men and women had awaited their doom. Later in the afternoon we took the tube to the area near Buckingham Palace and St. James Park and there sat down to have a bite to eat while listening to a band playing nearby in a band rotunda, of course.

Sunday was spent at Westhill Baptist church with Pastor Ray Poutney and his family. Peter spoke in the morning about the rest-home work and in the evening about the 18thC Evangelical Revival. Megumi took me to the city and we visited the Dickens House Museum in the afternoon and I had a stroll around some of his haunts; he was a great walker and he had lived in two houses in this part of London. Next I finally found Liberty of London, a famous fabric shop, which was quite as fabulous as its reputation; the front door was surrounded in fresh flowers. But I didn't buy anything, couldn't buy anything!
I did find some good quality fine lawn, in a street dedicated to selling men's shirts, at tailors shop, so shirt fabric and I'm hoping to make a smocked dress out of it for some little girl as it's gingham. Nearby was Satoshi's workplace, the Japan Centre, where I managed to pick up some basic Japanese cooking ingredients (yum). When I arrived back there was the 'new' car, a Hyundai Elantra Si, so very much the same as my car at home that we had just sold.

The next day we had to navigate up to North London to Wembly to pick up some hand-brake parts for the car, whew that was some feat finding that place! Hpwever we were soon on the M4 West heading for Reading.


Our friends the Baxters who live in Reading stayed with us in 2006; the boys had worked with them at a camp in the Lake District 5 years ago and we had met them then briefly. Since 2006 they have had two children, Stephanie and Stanley. We enjoyed catching up but actually stayed at their pastor's house (an amazing home) as they were away for the week. The pastor Bruce Jenkins, had done a pulpit swap with John Levers some years back, so there is a healthy interest in NZ there.

Windsor Castle is nearby, it's where the Queen generally spends her weekends, so we had a day there and also got a bit more done on the car, Peter took the hub off a wheel and packed grease into the bearing I think. These jobs are almost impossible without tools and with no off-street parking. But the castle was unbelievable and crammed with incredible art works and armour and spears and all sorts of weapons.

(I'm typing on my case while kneeling on the floor and have just found that half my leg in completely numb!)

It's enjoyable just driving around these towns and city districts and seeing all the old houses and walls etc. The people in Britain are very similar to Kiwis in many ways an d the countryside look a lot like NZ but the houses are very different, they are almost all terraced-houses or semi-detatched, which is two houses joined with a brick wall. All the houses are made from brick; I think there was a law passed in London about this after 1666 and the Great Fire of London. In the Reading Museum there is a 70m 19thC copy of the Bayeux Tapestry and we managed to catch the tour guide explaining it, fascinating, so that's 1066.

Several families in the church are considering home-schooling so we did a seminar with them and hopefully sparked some more interest. Their church once had mainly students, now they've become parents, so there's a healthy crop of young nippers there. Two of them turned one yesterday, they are an adopted set of African twins, Lulu and Isaias, and we were kindly invited to join in the Barbeque Party in the evening. This morning at church we met a couple from Gloucester who had spent some years in Sydney with Rob and Allison and family at the Stanmore church, Jim and Pam Alcorn, so that was a surprise. After an excellent lunch with the Baxters and a few friends we were on the road again for Bathford which is very near Bath. On the way we took a back road and came across these unusual place names: Pickwick and another called Box.

Having risen at 4:30am we took our 11 hour flight to Tokyo, arriving at 5pm local time. Air New Zealand, who have just won two world awards did a fabulous job and the trip didn't seem too bad at all. It was a great joy to be met by two dear girls whom we have had living with us previously; Minori, way back in 1992 and Hitomi, 2 years ago. They met each other for the first time; both of them had 'MOORE' signs so they could easily recognise each other : -) We chatted and ate in a tiny restaurant at the airport. Peter and I had had 2 meals already that day so we shared Oyakadombrie which is chicken cooked slowly in egg and served on rice. There was also the ubiquitous miso soup and of course green tea! All simply delicious - owshi. Taking our leave we left for the hotel on the complimentary shuttle bus and were shortly off in a whirl of motorways and high-rise hotels. This was Narita, the Tokyo airport city so we didn't actually see Tokyo itself. Surprisingly all is not 'neat as a pin', we saw plenty of weedy places, rumpty flat carparks etc. We were expecting high-rise carparks but saw none, even the hotel had a tarmac one. The room was very comfortable and cool. Although the night was misty and we were done for, we took the lift to the 10th floor and managed to find a viewing place on a balcony. There wasn't much to see; just a few roads, a sports ground and lots of trees. So our one night brief stay was soon over but not before we enjoyed some fresh onigiri (triangular rise balls that come with a separate sheet of nori to wrap it in) that Hitomi had kindly presented us with for our breakfast.

Another 11hour flight, this time with Lufhansa brought us to Frankfurt. For some reason to do with the winds the flight path went north of Russia, I could look down at the coastline and sea the pack-ice. This was truly amazing and quite unexpected. We also flew over Finland; a land full of lakes. The staff were excellent and the time passed easily and again we had the choice of Japanese meals as many of the passengers were Japanese. Here we had to transit and quickly change for a flight to London. There was no problem getting through customs, unlike many of our fellow passengers who were detained, they just looked at our NZ passports and nodded to us to proceed to the exit. It took a fair while to locate 'Travel Information' and organise ourselves and all our baggage on and off various undergrounds. Eventually we arrived at Victoria Station to meet our friend Mary, unfortunately there was a lengthy 'Comedy of Errors' an we attempted to find which of the many 'main entrances' to Victoria Station she had had in mind and also struggled with a dying cell phone. So, what a relief to finally flop down at No.21 where we were treated to a good cup of English tea.

The Tantons are all 5 years older (and so are we!) and taller (but we're not taller!). Lots has changed in their house; they've added a school-room which doubles as a guest-room and it even has an ensuite. Julian has done all of this addition himself and they're really getting lot of use out of it, and so are we. On top of all of this is their roof garden. I was keen to see this. It's 5x5m and has 4 skylight opening windows set into it like noughts and crosses. And what an array of edibles: various herbs, berries, rhubarb, cucumber, beans, fruit trees, and tomatoes and more. It really is very successful. Their church, Ridley hall is just across the road and parked outside are its 2 minivans. The church is housed in a Victorian building which also looks like tennements and is very

quaint.

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Having spent two solid days at a conference at Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle we have since been doing a great deal of walking around London.

In one back street we saw the house of Equiano, the Black guy who worked with William Wilberforce. We arrive at the British Museum unexpectedly and hadn't brought our DayOne guide, which was disappointing, however we heard a guide explaining some things to a group and stopped to listen and then he invited us to join their tour. After a while we realised that this was the author of the book we'd left at home! When his tour group departed he offer to spend some time with us which was fabulous. He is a pastor in a church just like ours near the south coast.

Sunday was full. Our first stop was Ridley Hall, just a few steps from where we were staying. There we met a lovely young woman called Jacinth who is studying dietetics in Plymouth and also various folk we had met on our last trip. After a wonderful lunch with the Tantons we walked to find another church but instead of Zion Baptist, there was a Black evangelist stridently exhorting a small Black congregation and intermitently wiping his face with a large crimson cloth. He didn't seem to be preaching but was very enthusiastic about people's need to give offerings! They were quite friendly and the pastor came down and asked us to bring greetings from New Zealand. A bus ride brought us to Wandsworth where we joined a congregation something like our own. The pastor there is from Zimbabwe. There were several of Priscilla Drake's family there so that was interesting.

Ready, Set, Go!