Wednesday, Aug 29

 

Ate breakfast at the B&B.  Here is the lovely family who "saved" our trip,

and fed us breakfast.

A "full English breakfast," consists of chips (fat french fries) or hash browns (usually patties), sausage and bacon, egg (not turned, but the whites were done), fried tomatoes, and beans.  And you could have toast if you wanted.  All English food is greasy.  The first time I (Lynn) ate the full English breakfast (well, I didn't even eat all of it) I had an upset stomach from all the grease.

I was afraid I'd be two sizes bigger when I came home, but I got used to it and we walked it all off, I guess.

They also often have fruit compote and yogurt as well as chutney or preserves for the toast.  Everyone was shocked when we didn't order coffee or tea!

************

When we left the B&B it was raining, but when we reached Teignmouth, on the coast, 

it was absolutely pouring, so we didn't stay long.

************

This picture of the sea and coastline was taken from a pullout on the drive between 

Paighnton and Cockington.

************

Cockington is one of my favorite places in England.  I really love the quaint atmosphere in this setting.  Lynn feels the same.  The thatched roof homes, the manor surrounded with spacious lawn, the gardens, blacksmith shop, just everything.  It's a tourist area, but it doesn't seem as busy. 

  

If you drive through the other end of Cockington, you come to a very narrow road up a hill.  If you happen to be the first going up, then the other car coming down has to wait.  

 ************

Close to Cockington is the flat (apartment) where I lived while serving in my second area on my mission.  We walked around to find it and I think we found it.  This is the front of the place.  Elders actually had to walk to the back of the building to gain access to our flat.  

Next, Lynn and I went to where I had lived in my first flat.  We lived on the second floor facing the back yard.  We were able to see the train track and beyond that a short way was the beach.  My trainers were district leaders.   My first companion was trunky and went home a month later.  Shortly afterward I was moved to the place above

(not because I was naughty--I was needed to help with a companionship).

 ************

Some of my children may remember me telling them this story:

When I was in Paighnton we had a couple of elders stay with us overnight in preparation for P-day the next day.  Since Elders are not to swim, we decided to run from one set of stairs to the next set of stairs to see if we could make it before the waves hit us.  Well, this is the very place we did it and I had Lynn demonstrate the fun.  My voice is thanking a passerby for picking up Lynn's jacket because it was windy.  Lynn got wet just about as much as I did. The next morning our slacks had a ring of white sea salt on them.

************

From there we headed to Dartmouth Castle.  The castle was actually closed for touring, but we took pictures of the castle and coastline.  It is a beautiful inlet.

  

This castle was constructed to protect the villages upstream.  Ships coming up the river would be met with canons that could easily demolish them.  Also on this site is a church.

************
It was getting late in the afternoon.  We wanted to go back across the ferry and see Stoke Gabriel, but because of festivities in Dartmouth they had closed the ferry and we didn't want to wait until morning.  We wanted to be on our way to Wales so we wouldn't have such a big day the next day.  We found this motel in Exeter after stopping at three motels and finding them booked or costly.  Once again we had the humorous experience (well, now it's humorous) of going around in a 3 block circle trying to find a location.  MapQuest lets you try it a few times and then says, "Would you prefer walking instructions?  Your destination is within walking distance."

Our apartment was on the "first floor," yet we had to walk up two sets of stairs.  Explain that one to me.  It was the same at every motel we stayed in England.

Tuesday, Aug 28

Awoke early and went back to Southampton so I could show Lynn around my old

mission stomping grounds.

Found the apartment where I lived on Darwin Road.
I am not pointing up just for the exercise, I actually lived on the second floor.
Had to pay for the electricity a schilling at a time in a coin op thing.
This is where I had an English companion that would not go out to work.  David Hutton came with me tracting when he finished his postal job for the day.  Yes, probably was not a good idea to leave my companion in the apartment alone.  It was a lonely time for me. 

This is the same post box where I used to mail letters. Not telling to who. Don't want to get Lynn jealous. (yeah, right)

We also walked through the memorable "Common,"

which is a large and lovely park I used to walk through 

and where I also played soccer on P-days.  
Lynn loved the trees. 
 See if you can see me in the tree.

Can't see me? Probably because I am not there. :)

The park is quite large and so pretty, but not as pretty as the Temple grounds,
 which you will see later.

Please notice that all the paths are paved.  It rains so much that if the paths were not paved they would be a muddy mess, making them unusable.

We stopped at the famous Bargate in Southampton before heading toward the coast.

 





It started to rain as we left Southampton.
It's been the wettest year on record for England, and the countryside showed it.

Notice how, instead of weeds alongside the road, they have bushes or trees.

The 500 year old B&B , Southern Cross, made of cob and sod 
where we stayed Tuesday night in Sidmouth.

Andrew, the owner, was very friendly and didn't run our credit card that night when we arrived.  He told us of a place up the road, an Italian restaurant, that served gluten free food.  We went there to eat and when we finished our yummy Spaghetti Bolognese we gave them our credit card and it wouldn't work.  It had worked previously so we had them try it again, but to no avail.  Several of the places we had been accepted American Express, but not this place.  Luckily, we had literally just enough cash to pay for the meal and a tip.  We went back to the B&B and told them we were having trouble with our credit card and would they please run it so we could see if it was going to work.  It wouldn't.  They were so nice that they trusted us to call Visa, and then our credit union (Visa said they couldn't help us because our credit union serviced their own cards).  Another of God's tender mercies--the credit union was open and resolved the issue within minutes.  
What a blessing we discovered it that night and not the next morning when we went to pay.  
The credit union would have been closed!   

Saturday, Aug 25 thru Tuesday morning, Aug 27
Derek and Ruth's "flat" where we stayed four nights.

Notice the red van.  That's Derek's.

Directly in front of the van is their red front door (almost invisible).

The tree covers their living room bay window, 

and the bay window just to the left of the tree is their neighbor's.

It's three stories.  No front yard, but a small back yard with a garden.

Monday, Aug 27
Great Hall from Knights of the Roundtable in Winchester. 

This is "the round table" but not confirmed to be authentic.

We walked around Winchester with Derek and Ruth, did a little shopping, bought a couple of books and some yummy chocolate, then went to Winchester Cathedral.  Pictures of that are forthcoming.  Our camera died and our friends took the pictures.

Before leaving Shepherd

Friday, Aug 24

Later Friday, Aug 24

We landed in Minneapolis where we had a 5 hour layover, so we took the tram to the 
Mall of America and did a little shopping and browsing.

We flew all night, ate dinner, tried to sleep on the plane, and landed in London about noon Saturday, Aug 25.
We picked up our rental car, a BMW MIII (Austin was jealous when he heard)

 and headed out of the busy London metropolis as fast at the BMW could go
and the speed limit would allow (although we didn't know the speed limit at the time).

We headed toward Southampton where we had reserved a motel for the night.
 
On the way we stopped in Winchester and took in a bit of the farmers' market on High Street. 

This is where Brent left me to wait for him while he went to move the ticketed car.
He got lost and we met up again in an hour or so. (None of the roads have street names in the same place, and some not at all, and there are one ways and dead ends.) (( So I did get lost in a 4 block radius. How can that be? You should have been there.))
Then we went to a restaurant that was recommended on internet as being gluten free.
We tried out some new food.  Fish was not surprisingly a big part of the English menus.
Lynn's food was a seafood combo including mussels, baby squid, crab, prawns, shrimp, and ???

Brent's was some type of winged fish.  Can't remember the name.

After dinner we went for a stroll through Winchester.

The River Itchin flows right through the town.

Next we drove to Southampton.  We stopped at the docks before going to our motel.
 I found this beautiful maiden standing by this anchor. 

We stayed the first night at a bed and breakfast.
 (Lynn got us lost again while looking for the motel.)
We didn't eat their breakfast because it was served buffet style 
and we didn't know if the food was gluten-free.
We bought some yogurt, etc., the night before and ate in our room. 
Found out later that England is more gluten-free than USA, or at least MT.
Brent hardly got sick from gluten during the whole trip.

Sunday, Aug 26

Went to church with Derek and Ruth Smith at Bassett Chapel in Southampton. Brent couldn't remember the way to the chapel so we were late by about 30 minutes.  It turned out to be in the Bassett area just off Bassett Avenue.  Couldn't find the Bassett Pub which he thought was nearby.

Derek and Ruth live in Winchester and go to church there, but they went to Southampton with us as that is where they lived when Brent was on his mission.

Thatched cottage near Winchester (we didn't stay there).

An old British phone booth in the country

Don't let your children look at the next picture.

Could this be two old people being smoochy in the phone booth?

Ha!  We got caught making a long distance phone call. Right?

My professional photographer daughter took this picture. She caught Lynn and I flirting which is not to hard to do.  Lynn is such a flirt with me.