england!

Although I was well enough to travel, I was still coughing pretty ferociously when I left for England.  My transatlantic flight was on Virgin Atlantic, and for various reasons, I had ended up with a middle seat.  While waiting for the flight in LAX, I decided it was worth it to pay for an upgrade to an aisle seat in an exit row so I wouldn't be stuck between two people for 10 hours, unable to avoid coughing in the direction of one person or the other.  The upgrade put me in the upstairs of the 747, in a bulkhead row.  It ended up being quite comfortable.

I arrived at Heathrow just before noon, and walked out from customs to see Janine, Geoff, Grace, and Ewan waiting for me with big smiles and a poster to welcome me!  Janine informed me that sometime before I arrived, the following exchange occurred:
Ewan: Mommy, will she be in a wheelchair?
Janine: NO! WHY would she be in a wheelchair??
E: Well, you said she was older than YOU!

ewan and grace with my poster
(i was too out of it to take a photo at the airport)

We piled into their car along with my luggage, their luggage, and their bikes and drove off to Stanwick to Uncle Yan and Auntie Val's house.  Janine and family stayed for three nights, and we enjoyed time playing with the kids, taking a walk to the Stanwick Pocket Park, enjoying Auntie Val's birthday tea/ barbecue, and Friday I went cycling at Stanwick Lakes with Geoff and the kids while Janine had a girls' day reunion with childhood friends.  On the first night, this brief conversation happened:
Grace: I like Nancy.
Janine: Why?
G: Well... she's very nice, and she's STRONG!

grace, geoff, janine, and ewan
outside the church where j & g got married 10 years earlier

celebrating auntie val's birthday
geoff, uncle yan, auntie val, jeff, sharon, tony, jayne, and janine

grace, ewan, and geoff cycling at stanwick lakes

Saturday morning, Janine and family returned home.  That afternoon, Uncle Yan and Auntie Val took me via the town of Oundle to see Lyveden New Bield.  Oundle is an ancient market town that received its market charter in 972.  It's very picturesque, with centuries-old stone buildings on both sides of the narrow main street.

main street in oundle

Lyveden New Bield is an unfinished banqueting house or "secret house" on a site with an intricate history, from the Roman settlements in the valley to the schism between Catholics and the Church of England to the Gunpowder Plot.  The building stands almost exactly as it was left in 1605 when the death of the landowner was followed by the builders walking off the job as they were no longer being paid.  The building is boldly filled with Catholic symbolism incorporating the numbers 3 (the trinity), 5 (the number of the Christ), and 7 (the number of the Godhead), carved symbols representing sacraments and events in the life of Christ, and a Latin inscription just below the cornice along the top of the walls.  It was meant to be reached from the manor house along a very planned set of experiences in the gardens, including orchards, a moat, sheep pastures, a wildflower meadow, and carefully located mounds of earth to climb.

looking up in the south wing of the building,
where the stairwell was planned

view from one of the spiral mounds
incorporating the building and the "wildflower meadow"

Sunday, we just relaxed and prepared for our trip northward, to be covered in the next post...