KEEPING TRACK OF ERWIN & GAIL: 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