Coming to you from the scotish highlands

Since we arrived in Glasgow on Monday the 25^th of August we once again have been on the go. I don’t know where the rest we are to accomplish during this time off is to come from, there doesn’t seem to be much time between the comings and the goings anymore. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, we are enjoying every busy moment of this adventure.

Two days in Glasgow we took a bus into the city then toured via the hop on hop off sightseeing bus. Even after two days of that we didn’t see it all, but what we did see once again was history. The place is filled with history, some as long ago as the 6^th century and others as recent as the 19^th century. I disliked History with a passion when they tried to teach it in school but seeing it come to life before your very eyes puts a totally different slant on it and I am now just amazed at all there is to know.

We left Glasgow this morning and drove on some of what I can only describe as the narrowest of major highways. Some places when two buses met they had to reduce speed to a bit slower than dead slow in order to pass and other places even two cars couldn’t pass, but, there were wide spots with signs that read “Passing place” where, with great caution, two cars could meet and pass without excess damage happening. We arrived at out quaint little bed and breakfast and have been able to get our pounding hearts down to a dull roar and we will rest before another day of highway terror sets in.

I’ll post a few pics and let go for now but don’t get too comfortable, there will be a lot to tell you about the things we will be doing next.

God bless. With love.

Erwin & Gail                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

           

 Left:   Scotland from the air.

       


  Right: Downtown Glasgow

 Left: The Squinty Bridge????
Right: One of the Retunda, there is one on each side of The River Clyde They are like elevators that would lift or lower the horses and wagons down to and up from a tunnel that went under the river.

This Cathedeal is one of only two churches in the whole of Scotland that survived the reformation in tact

This is the tall ship now moured in Glasgow as a musium.  It Circumnavigated the globe 4 times and spent more than 5000 days at sea. As you can see it has a new Captian


                                                                                                           

 

This is the home of Doug and Jeanette Craig
They have shared their home with  us while we
are in Glasgow

This is one of the major cross country Highways in Scotland I haven't been on them all but am told this is quite typical

This is the Fasgad B&B Where we are at this moment in Port Appin.

Coming to you from Scotland

I’m sitting right now in the London Gatwick Airport, Gail has gone shopping and I suddenly realized that I had not yet told you about Bulstrode. So now the problem is where to begin, how do I tell you about the place we have called home for the last eleven days. The place that has been the home of lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, earls and whatever their counterparts, even some judges and some prime ministers for centuries yes I mean centuries from before Christopher  Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in as few a words as possible so as not to bore you.

The day following our trip to Leverstock Green and some family history I was able to get together with Chuck and go over the workings and through the buildings and grounds of Bulstrode. Chuck and Cathy are the newly appointed facilitators at Bulstrode. A new position created in an attempt to bring the practical workings of the place under one head and lead it into the next life as changes are necessary because of the absence of some major ministries that once called Bulstrode home.

So let me tell you a bit about the place. The place has been here and has housed many nobles of England for many centuries but the building we are looking at now has only been here since 1868, when the previous mansion was torn down and replaced after it stood for more than 200 years, having itself, replaced a previous very old mansion. So this building, although relatively young is now almost 150 years old. So following history it has 50 more years before it is due to be replaced with something that has yet to become modern.

The grounds cover 50+acres of land that contains some beautiful gardens, many fruit trees and berry shrubs, along with many different kinds of trees, like  cedars of Lebanon, and giant sequoias just to mention a couple. It also contains this mansion with its inner and outer court yards and I’m not even going to guess how many hundreds of rooms, some very small and others very large.

I have had the privilege of seeing it from a maintenance person’s point of view, I have crawled in the belly of the beast, I have climbed to its highest towers. From its darkest catacombs and dungeons to its brightest belfries and lookouts I have been and I have seen only a little bit. If I spent forever in this place, and if Chuck had his way that is what would happen, I still couldn’t tell you about all the places that are tucked away in this monster of a building.

It has been an awesome eleven days and I do wish we had more time to see more of the attractions of the area but alas this is not to be just a vacation. There is a purpose beyond that, which we could easily forget if we don’t remind ourselves. We did however get time to take a walk in Langley Park; yes, we had to come this far away from Langley to walk in the park. This too is a place filled with the history of this nation, with the remains of many mansions, gardens, and trees. It housed many a noble over many centuries. In one place there is the remains of a building that was put there simply so that you could view the Windsor Castle way in the distance beyond the River Thames.

We are now in Glasgow Scotland at the home of Doug & Jeanette Craig the WEC representatives for this area. It is our hope that this coming week will afford us the time to get a little rest and also see some of this also very old nation.

Ok then I’ll  pop a few pics on here and let you go for now.

God bless. With love

Erwin & Gail

 left:
The Bull (on the top most tower made of lead About 5' wide and 15' tall)
right:
 More of the Building

left:
More
right:
The keep (this is what is remaining of the previous building)





Left:
The building from the back
right:
One of several inner courts

                                                       One of the previous estate mansions

 Some pictures of the inside

 Just a sample of the grounds

 left:
an abandoned mansion in Langley Park

right:
A view of Winsor Castle from Langley Park

Once again time has slipped by and though we have done quite a lot I haven’t had the time to tell you. So here is another little bit about us and our adventure in parts unknown.

The day after that London trip I told you about, we headed out to a small town (Leverstock Green) not too far from here to find a pub, that’s right a pub. Ya, to a little place called the Leather Bottle, a place that I often heard my Grandfather speak of when I was a growing boy. We found the place with a little help from GPS and then once again we found ourselves in the middle of history, but this time we were in the middle of family history dating back into the 1800s. Family history my grandfather and his brother left behind to begin a new history of which I am part.

We had a coffee at the Leather Bottle then went to the library just behind it to do a little family research. We found out several things, one of which was that sometime in the later 1800’s the Leather Bottle was in fact owned and operated by a family of Seabrooks. They had chickens and pigs in the backyard and sold Bacon and eggs in the pub as an all-day breakfast thing. So I now announce that I hail from a long line of bartenders, well a guy’s got to start somewhere.

On the way to the church just up the block we stopped at a house where I believe I have seen a picture of my Grandmother and Grandfather and then another more recent one of my Uncle and Aunt. So, we stopped and Gail took a picture of me in front of the same house. Then we carried on over to the church to find some Seabrooks. We found more outside the church than inside which was not always the case because we found (in the library) some pictures of Seabrooks inside the church. We found a number of head stones with the Seabrook name on them and although we do not yet know exactly how these people are related to me, we are sure that most of them are. We also found some with the Sharp name on them which was my Grandmother’s maiden name.

We had supper at the Leather Bottle. So, in general we had a great trip. Although she doesn’t have to do any of the driving on the wrong side of the road, Gail does return from these little excursions quite a bit worse for the ware. I am getting a bit used to it but, I know that in any danger situation I would probably react exactly opposite to what would be right for here.

OK that’s enough for now. Talk to you later.

God bless. With love.

Erwin & Gail

                                    The Olde Leather Bottle inside and out

                If this is the same place it is a place where family lived once upon a time

                                        The church at Leverstock Green
  I'm not going to be so morbid as to post the picitures of a bunch of headstones but here                                                              are two

Good morning to you all.

 Just a little catch-up here.

 We went to London yesterday the 18^th of August. Did you know there are no elephants at the Elephant Castle? No, there isn’t even a castle there, no clowns in Piccadilly Circus, didn’t see the Queen at Buckingham Palace, London Bridge has fallen down and been replaced with a nice new one. The London Tower isn’t really tall but is old, some parts date back to the Roman Empire. The Tower Bridge is quite tall and has been in its place for almost 2 centuries. There are many, many people in London, mostly foreigners like us.

It was an awesome experience to be able to stand, in the present, and observe all the history that the place holds. Things we had only read about, or were told about, came to life and became real places and real things.

I still haven’t been able to grasp that the wrong side of the road is the right side to drive on, so we left the car at the train station at Gerrard’s Cross and for one price rode trains and buses all day.  We also did a lot of walking and are paying the price for that today. I’ll post some pictures of our experience. We have a lot of video footage but have not yet figured out how to edit it. If you know of a good reasonably priced (free) editing program I can download let me know.  

God bless.

Erwin & Gail