Some favourite images from my stay in England:

Friday Street, in Surrey

An old Saxon Church in Albury

Tower of London cannon

Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace from St James Park

Queen Anne’s Gate

Yesterday I had one of my best days so far in my trip to England.

We went to Canterbury, home of the famous cathedral. If I had to pick a favourite thing about Canterbury Cathedral (which thankfully, I don’t) I couldn’t overlook the statues of former monarchs and archbishops decorating the outside near the main entrance.

Meet the most famous of Canterbury’s many archbishops, Thomas Becket, who was in charge from 1162-1170, when he was murdered inside the cathedral itself (a heinous and unheard of crime in the 12th century) by four knights of King Henry II:

Most likely the statue’s head was struck off around the time of Henry VIII, who also destroyed Becket’s shrine inside the cathedral. Symbol of Catholic power and all that…

Thomas Becket’s actual head was partially struck off by his attackers. Later on, the church retrieved the crown of his head to be used as a holy relic (ewww…)

And his murderer-by-proxy (“Geez, I sure wish someone would go kill that annoying Archbishop Thomas Becket for me, wink wink, nudge nudge…”) King Henry II (notably still possessing his head):

I spent ages in mounting excitement reading “HENRICVS II REX…omigod…that’s Henry the Second! … HENRICVS V REX…omigod…that’s Henry the Fifth! … HENRICVS VIII REX…omigod…that’s Henry the Eighth!” Ahh…that’s a lot of Henrys. As the tour guide pointed out, the English were a bit unimaginative when it came to naming their kings!

Then we went inside the church. I was absolutely awed by the sheer history of the place. Everywhere you turn there is someone famous buried…Henry IV and his wife Queen Joan; Edward, the Black Prince…after touring all the big tombs in the quire (aka choir), we walked through a tunnel under the steps and back in time eight hundred and thirty-eight years. We emerged into the spot, just inside the cloister door, where Thomas was murdered all those years ago. Unfortunately, my camera battery died just then and the picture I took of it didn’t turn out. I did manage to get a picture of the door as seen from outside, in the cloisters…it’s just a bit ajar…try to imagine you are a monk running after the Archbishop to warn him that armed knights are awaiting him in the cathedral…you get there just in time to see the door close fatefully behind him…

Here’s a picture I’m actually proud of…it’s a shot of one of the cathedral spires framed by the archway of the cloisters. I’m trying to become more aware of composition and light when taking photographs now:

And lest you think that all I care about is history, here’s a lovely shot of the new juxtaposed on the old in Canterbury:

And what a picturesque town it is:

The old medieval town walls still stand: this is the West Gate, through which Chaucer’s pilgrims would have had to pass (and pay a toll):

See you again tomorrow…pictures of the Surrey & Sussex countryside to come!

Yesterday, after I arrived in London, my sister and I went to Stonehenge.

She captured a beatuifully evocative image of me seeing Stonehenge for the first time:

And I snapped 92 photos, of which these are my favourites:

And here are the prize-winners from my photo walking tour of London today:

Big Ben:

A gargoyle on Westminster Abbey:

Tower Bridge:

The “Old King’s Head” in Southwark:

Love it.

Don’t miss the chronicles of my English food experience in Losing It!

April 16, 2008 6:48 pm MDT

Here I sit, in seat 12H sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a feeling of utter – aloneness, I guess. For the next ten hours or so, that’s what I’ll be; alone, and enjoying every minute of it!

Don’t you find that we moms are the world’s most wanted? My mother-in-law said to me earlier today, “everyone seems to need you”. I know she knows what it’s like. She was a mom of young kids once. And of course it’s true! My kids do need me almost all the time. After all, they’re only 7.5 and 4.5. They need their parents to do most things for them. And perhaps I do oblige a little bit too much, but forgive me, please, if I want to treasure and enjoy the last shreds of littleness before they morph into fully-grown persons who don’t need their Mommy at all.

But for this next week at least, I’m planning to enjoy every second of independent time that I’m given, starting with this flight, as I write this post and save it locally, destined for publishing online after I am safely in London. I plan to start my “me time” by watching as much of the first season of ROME as I can before my laptop batteries conk out on me.

Why ROME? Ahhh…such a complex question! I have a thing for history, you see, and certain eras really grab me, notably the late Roman Republic/Early Roman Empire, the early-mid Egyptian dynasties, medieval Europe and Tudor England. So that’s how I got interested in HBO’s ROME series to begin with. Once I rented the first season, I loved it so much that I bought the DVDs. Now it’s like an old standby – I know all the scenes practically off by heart, and I feel like I have a personal relationship with the characters. When I find a movie with one of the ROME actors in it, I have to see it, just because I feel like I’m watching an old friend. So that’s why ROME.

And why not watch the movie on the airplane? Why, because it’s The Golden Compass, that’s why. And no, I don’t object on religious grounds (obviously!), but simply because I had “saved” the book The Golden Compass for this trip, and I never like to watch a movie before reading the book.

So for me the next 12 hours look like this:

2 hours (maybe) of ROME on the laptop
2 hours (or until I fall asleep) of reading The Golden Compass but not watching it on the screen (after I paid 2 pounds 50 for headphones!)
6 hours (hopefully) of sleep until we land in Glasgow, a 1 hour layover and then the rest of my flight to London

I wish I could say I’ll be thinking of you!

Okay, it was too funny not to share.

Girl1, in case you didn’t know it, loves dinosaurs. Loves, loves, loves dinosaurs. Ergo, we know a lot about fossils. And Girl2 equates bones with fossils.

So this morning she says, with her hand down the back of her pants:

“You know the fossil? In my butt? What’s it called?”

It took me a moment, but I was able to respond with a reasonably calm, “ahhh…that’s your tailbone.”

Which elicited a giggle. Evidently “tailbone” is funnier than “fossil in my butt”.