July 4, Friday

As usual, this morning Adam got up with the sun.  By the time everyone else wakes up at a decent hour (like 6:15 a.m.) he is itching to get on with his day.  These photos are from the walk he took this morning while he waited for everyone else to get ready.  They are scenes from Stow-on-the-Wold at way-too-early-o’clock.

Today turned out to be a dream come true for me.

We started with Cotswald Farm Park.  As is implied in the name, it’s a park full of farm animals.  The guy who runs it — Adam Henson —  is a BBC star with a show I’ve never seen, but his goal in life is to preserve rare farm animal species and run a place with very humane treatment of the animals, with a hands-on experience available to the public so they can appreciate what life on a farm is like.  I am totally on board. He had several different types of rare sheep.

Baby meeps! We’ll see them later on in the bottle feeding demonstration.

Under close supervision, children are allowed to hold baby chickens.

Goats, begging for alfalfa pellets.

This cow is being acclimated to the milking demonstration.  She wasn’t ready to be the focus of a crowd of people yet, but was hanging out in a nearby pen.  The milking demonstration was done happily by a nanny goat named Lily.

Nearby goat getting treats while we wait for the milking demonstration to begin.

So cute!

This is a quite rare Hebridean sheep.  They have found fossil records of multi-horned sheep going back thousands of years.  Some of them have six horns.  All the sheep here had four … and they looked like something cooked up for a science fiction novel.

Lily, in the “before” photo of the milking demonstration.

Lily hooked up to the milking machine.  The guy said it would take more than an hour to milk her by hand, but the machine can do it in less than 10 minutes.

Shetland ponies.

The girl standing on the box is giving instructions for the bottle feeding demonstration.  Nobody could hear her over the noise of the sheep, who knew exactly what was about to happen and were very vocal in their excitement.

Bottle time!!!

Giant “air pillow” for the kids to play on.  Isabella got on here and was hopping around like a maniac.  I forced her off and made her sit on a bench in consideration of her ankle.  One wrong landing and we’d end up in the hospital for sure, and our trip would be over.  She grumbled, but didn’t argue too much.  She’s stuck in a limbo between being a little kid and a grown-up.  Here are Holden and Josie enjoying their fully-functioning ankles.

Eventually I look pity on her and we reached a compromise:  she could roll around on the air pillow as long as she didn’t stand up.

Me feeding one of the four-horned Hebridean sheep.  She was so gentle and sweet!

After the farm, we headed to a nearby town for lunch and a wander-about.

Josie’s feet STINK.  This is the first evidence.  Long after this photo was taken and we were headed back to our house, someone took their shoes off the car and I said, “Oh, good heavens!  Whose feet stink?”  Josie’s.  She was forced into the bathtub the minute we got back.

We just happened to pass a place called Birdland.  There was NO WAY I wasn’t going in there.  It was pretty much the highlight of my trip so far, which is really saying something after a morning of holding baby chicks and bottle-feeding lambs. At Birdland, we were treated to an amazingly good penguin feeding demonstration.  These guys are King Penguins — the only King Penguine flock in England.  One of the 12 penguins here starred as one of Danny DeVito’s henchmen in Batman Returns.

Southern Ground Hornbill (Africa).  This was a very large bird.

Isabella, doing her “Blue steel” look.

More King penguins.

Pinkest flamingoes I think I’ve ever seen.

Adam:  At the Bird Park – Here, Holden is actually being naughty. At an earlier store, he bought a small LEGO toy. Brenda wouldn’t allow him to open it up and play with it at the park. She wanted him to direct his attention towards the birds.

I caught Holden sneaking off to a park bench, away from Brenda, to open up the package. The temptation was just too great. He’s looking off to see if Brenda is noticing.

Back at the house, enjoying the chocolate cupcakes with copious amounts of frosting and sprinkles, left for us as a “welcome” gift by the owners.

As one might imagine, The 4th of July (or “American Independence”) is not a very big deal over here in England.  We did run across this billboard near our place …. a town full of American tourists.  We’ve heard more American accents here than in any other location.   We’re not sure what “American music” is, though.

July 5, Saturday 

It’s raining!  We can’t really complain since we’ve lucked into fantastic weather for nearly the entire summer, but we were still bummed when we looked out the window this morning.

We stopped at Hailes Abbey, a ruined Cistercian Abbey founded in 1246.  By 1539, it was basically in it’s current state.  When it fell into disuse, people scavenged the stone for other buildings.  They have a really neat site set up, though, with informative plaques scattered about that really let you imagine what daily life was like for a monk back in the day.

[below] Example of the type of stonework removed from the site to use in other buildings.

Josie, more interested in catching rain water in her hand than looking at the museum artifacts.

What’s left of the ruins.

The monks had very structured days, beginning at 1:00 a.m.  They would get up for prayers, then go back to bed at 6:00 a.m.  Rise again at 8:00 a.m. to start chores.  They were not allowed to speak, save for in one small, cramped room.  There were specific “speaking hours” where monks who needed to discuss something could go to the room and communicate.  It was ONLY for important topics.  No chit-chat allowed.

This long green section was once the dining hall. The monks only ate one meal a day, consisting of beans, vegetables, bread and ale.  (No meat.)  They were not allowed to speak during the meal, which was eaten to stay alive, not for pleasure.  The room was kept cold on purpose, lest anyone get too comfortable.  (There was only one room in the entire building that was heated, aside from the kitchen.)  During the meal, which took about 3 hours, one monk would read out loud from the Bible.

Can you imagine how boring that would be?  I think having to listen to someone read out loud from the same book for three hours every single day for decades would be torture.  I can hardly stand re-reading a book once.

We went back to Bourton-on-the-Water (name of town — same place we went yesterday with Birdland).  The kids bought some more Legos.  Those little packs were £2 each, which seemed high …. but yesterday Adam got online and discovered those stupid little things are collector’s items and go for $9 each in the States.  So, the kids loaded up.

Mermaid!

Bourton-on-the-Water was having a street fair of sorts, it being Saturday and all.  These guys were doing some kind of dance, accompanied by a live accordion player.

What is a dance without jingle bells on your legs and sticks?

Festive march through the town.

Rubber duck race for charity.  It cost £1 to enter, and winner received £5.

Then we found a curious mama duck with a real live baby.  She was obviously hoping we had treats for her, but we didn’t.

In what turned out to be the highlight of the day, we did a puzzle maze.  The kids wanted to do this yesterday but it was getting late so we skipped it.  They were all overjoyed that we had another opportunity to do it.  From the front entrance, they all took off, running in three different directions.

It had 14 clues scattered about the maze that you needed to collect and answer correctly in order to figure out the riddle in the middle.  Those smart enough to figure out the puzzle are rewarded with being able to reveal a hidden dragonfly.

The first clue was a flounder.  We were convinced it was a flounder.  Then we found a Buddha.  Then a dollar sign.  We diligently wrote our answers on the sheet provided.

Turns out one needs to be British in order to figure out this maze because even though we technically speak the same language, not all words have the same meaning.   Our clues made absolutely no sense.

As I discovered from google once we got home, a flounder is known as a plaice here in England.  The Buddha was supposed to be a monk.  (Really?  A hugely fat monk?  We just read about how little food they ate because they were into self-deprivation of anything indulgent.  Those guys must have been skeletal.)  The dollar sign (which was pictured with a weird lightning streak) was meant to be “step.”  (?????!!!)

In the end, Adam “solved” the riddle by accident by leaning on a pillar in the center of the maze because he was tired.  It was much like Shaggy and Scooby Doo accidentally finding hidden stairs behind a bookcase.  Lights came on and a giant frog in the center display case opened his mouth to reveal a jeweled dragonfly sitting on his tongue.  We found it … but did we win?

Back at the house this evening, Isabella convinced the other two to play a board game.  They didn’t like the choices on offer, so they invented their own game using Legos, a monopoly set and a jigsaw puzzle of the British Isles to come up with some sort of “Risk” inspired tactical warfare game.