Max Gate

On day 5 of our trip, we got in the car...with me behind the wheel for the first time, and set out driving from Canterbury to Dorset. When we were planning this day, we had a few choices, and Christina humored me by agreeing to go to Hardy country. Hardy being, of course, Thomas Hardy...who wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Return of the Native and Far From the Madding Crowd.

When we were roommates (way back when BYU Idaho was Ricks College), Chris had to read Tess for an English class. I had read it as a senior, and since it was lying around the apartment (Chris refused to read it), I read it again. It was one of my favorites in high school (which is really saying something...I really didn't like required reading at that point). I've since read it a couple more times, and I still love the book. Chris still hates the book. This is why I say she humored me by visiting Dorset instead of Glastonbury.

So, I got us safely out of Canterbury without hitting anything (pedestrian or vehicle) with the left-side mirror of my car, following Mavis' navigating instructions. Mavis was what we named our GPS voice. She had a calming effect (probably thanks to the British accent), and would say "Go right on the roundabout, third exit," and when you missed the exit, she would say it again, just as calmly. Except often times the roundabouts weren't so straight-forward and were "Go right on the roundabout, fifth exit," which would leave the person who was not driving to count the exits out loud so we didn't find ourselves driving in the opposite direction from where we wanted to be going.

The countryside opened up into rolling green hills, which I largely missed, because my focus was on the road. And also partly because they have hedgerows growing on the sides of all the motorways and it is hard to get a view of anything without pulling over and standing on tip-toes. But every now and then we crested a hill and a gorgeous view opened up in front of us and we would gasp in awe of the beauty that is southern England.

Another thrill of driving in England is the names of all the towns and villages you pass. There was one sign we passed giving mileage to a village called Piddlehinton. I was immediately seized with a fit of giggles at this name, and Chris said to me "Did you see the name of the town below it?!" Turned out it was Puddletown. We both giggled like school-girls over the unfortunate names of these towns, wondering where they came from, and if the locals find it as funny as we apparently did.

As we were got closer to Dorchester, I was getting nervous. We did not have an exact postal code to give Mavis to get us directly there. And Max Gate (which was Thomas Hardy's house) was only recently acquired by the National Trust, so it isn't that well known. I hastily pulled into a car park so we could ask directions. In reality, I had just narrowly missed being hit by another car, and I'm sure I was cursed at on my way into the car park, and I had to collect my nerves. Parking the car momentarily, Chris tells me to ask someone walking through the car park if they know where Max Gate is. Laughing inwardly while thinking "Yeah, right...if she does know where it is, I am never going to be able to understand the directions! I need her in my car to act as my Mavis if we are going to get out of this parking lot, let alone to Max Gate!," I say in my most polite American accent "Excuse me, do you happen to know where Max Gate is?" The planets and stars had all aligned for us (as was evident with the weather we experienced) and she did know. Luck smiled on me even more as she explained how to get there, and I actually understood where she was explaining and I remembered the directions exactly. We drive right there. Literally. It was meant to be that we visit the birthplace of the book Tess. I bought a copy of it while there. Something neat about buying the book in the house it which it was written.

It was a very welcoming welcome, after the nerve-racking drive there.

Thomas Hardy was also an architect, and he designed this house. The ladies working here said that his father apparently did not appreciate his design of this house. The floor plan was a bit odd, but it was a neat old house.

Some of the furniture was original to the house, but the house had been rented and lived in up until very recently. They believe this was a secretary's desk, and the typewriter is not original to the house, but still cool.

Bathroom with an interesting toilet.

Thomas Hardy's study.

View out of one of the upstairs windows.

In one of the (hot) upstairs attic rooms where his wife spent most of her time. I just liked the textiles displayed here.

Another decoration that I loved. :)

Neat old shed

View of the garden off a porch.

Back view of the house. You can see the porch (or green-house, really) from where I took the above picture.

This is one plant I never thought I'd see growing in England. I had no idea palm trees grew there.

Cool old water pump.

Bathroom Renovations

One more post before getting back to the fun stuff.... Several months ago, we had a leaky toilet upstairs. We tried to fix this small problem ourselves. Then, about a month ago, I was in L and D's bedroom, trying to fight my way through the mess, when I noticed their bookcases had water damage at the bottom. Bewildered, I started pulling books from the shelves (some of which had mildew growing on them), and took the bookcases out. Mildew all over the back of them. Mildew in the carpet. Nasty mildew smell.

The source of the water is a puzzlement to me. Did it come in through the window? Nothing on the ceiling or walls indicates a water leak. But then, when Ben came home, he cut out the moldy piece of carpet, and broke into the drywall and it was all mush. The studs had black mold growing on them. I wondered to myself if this nasty mold was the source of D's cough that has nagged him for months.

So, the short of it is this: The toilet was leaking for months and months. They had to tear up the floor in the bathroom upstairs, and the sub-floor had so much mold and mildew in it that they had to remove a big section of it around where the toilet had been, and even underneath the tub. Which meant the tile surrounding the tub had to go, and the tub had to be removed, as well as the vanity (which has a lot or water damage and needs to be replaced). The toilet leaked between the wall that separates the bedroom and bathroom downstairs, which meant the flooring in the basement bathroom also had to be removed...which means the toilet and vanity in there had be removed as well. And the carpet in the boys' room.

We are down to one bathroom for 7 people. And it is the master bathroom. We are learning to live around each other and be patient for the toilet and shower. L and D have their beds in the basement family room, which is always a continual mess anyway. Everyone keeps asking when we will have use of the bathrooms again. Who knows. The insurance company isn't very happy with us, and we are waiting on approval for all that needs to be done.

This is the bathroom where the leak started. You can see the newer sub-floor section. All that was cut away while they cleaned the framing and tried to get everything to dry out. It took 7 days of heat, fans, and dehumidifiers to get the framing completely dry.

Where the bathtub was taken out.

The boy's room. There is a void between the walls (of about a foot). The toilet is directly above this void.

Basement bathroom

The vanity in this bathroom is still ok. Somehow, the laminate floor in this bathroom showed no signs of top of water damage. I don't know why the people who finished the basement put laminate flooring in a bathroom, but we will be changing that to tile.

Epic Crazy

I'm interrupting my England memories to bring you pictures of a crazy race. Last year, Ben and I ran in this relay. Basically it's a Ragnar, but it is called Epic--a team of 12 people who don't mind running long distances and not sleeping relay for 200 miles. It starts in Logan, UT and goes to Jackson, WY. I had fun doing it last year, so I committed to doing it again this year. And, since Ben hated it, Erik decided to take his place. So, Erik and I ran on this crazy team that consists of my brother-in-law's family. We were the Retro Rockers. Glance through the pictures and you will see where these crazy people took this theme. Yes, we had an old-school ghetto-blaster playing AC/DC or KISS or some other classic rock band they had a tape of. Erik says he will, and Maren (who volunteered with Ben at an exchange and met us at the finish line) even says she might run next year--if she's given an easy course. But, I am a little relay burned-out. I'll take a year off and see how I feel after that. Volunteering at an exchange sounds like it is more in my future.

And it begins!

Erik (in the red) getting ready for his first leg...which was his longest at 7.39 miles.

First van pass off. The crazy Retro-Rockers who were in our team's other van had the wild wigs that they wore at the exchanges. Our van was a little more laid-back with regard to the theme.

The three brothers...Brent with the boom-box, Nate with the denim jacket, and Russ (my bro-in-law) in the Def Leopard Shirt.

Running through the exchange.

11 of us (one runner was off on his first leg) in front of Preston High...of Napoleon Dynamite fame.

Shorty-shorts. Don't bend over!

My last exchange. Katie (the girl in red behind me) was a cross-country champ in school and ran right before me. She killed on time. And then I slowed us down for a reality check. 37-year-old mom on the road does not = speed.

Erik and me at the end of my 7.2 mile climb up this canyon. 

The canyon I ran through.

Finish Line! YAY!
Teton Village (finish line) is such a neat place. Jackson is beautiful and I always enjoy spending time there, even if I have just run 16 miles in 28 hours.

Air guitar. I don't know why these finish-line pics are so over-exposed.

Another pose with our medals.

Crazy rockers!!! I think a couple of them are stuck in the '80s and '90s.

Windsor

Windsor Castle was our last stop in England, on a Monday afternoon. We went to the Harry Potter WB studio tour that morning, and Windsor Castle in the afternoon. I managed to drive us there and park without getting us lost in London traffic, even with a detour off the motorway to get petrol.

We ended up in a car park next to a sweeping green field, park, and tennis courts. It was an amazing sight to come around a corner and see the massive castle where the queen spends weekends and vacations. After going through security, we entered and saw that the queen's flag was flying (indicating she was in residence...though when we were done touring the state rooms, the union jack had replaced her flag...indicating she had gone).

We walked all over the grounds, toured through St. George's Chapel...where we had to backtrack and go through the quire twice in order to see the tomb of Henry VIII, wondered at the Knights of the Royal Garter, toured the State Rooms of the castle, and sat down every chance we got. We were tired. Our feet ached. And by the time we were done, we still had a bit of time to kill, since we didn't want to end up in the hotel room at 3pm twiddling our thumbs.

Thinking of the lush park we parked near, I said to Christina, "I wouldn't mind sitting in the shade in a park, people-watching for a while." So, with this in mind, we headed back to the car park and as we are just entering the park, there is a man standing next to a tree, with his back to us, peeing on the tree. Not really what I had in mind as far as people-watching was concerned...it was a classy end to a very royal tour!

We decided maybe sitting in the park was not such a good idea, and did end up back at the hotel room, where we had another adventure checking into the right hotel. (Turns out there are TWO hotels with the same name, within about a mile or two of each other. We ended up at the wrong one, and had to take a rather scary taxi ride to the right one.) It was actually good to be in the hotel, where we had a crappy dinner and turned in early.

Queen's flag flying on the Round Tower

Taking aim!

This is the moat around the castle which was never filled, and is a lovely garden.

St. George's Chapel

The Gvard

St. George's again.

The Globe and the London Eye

On our third day in London, we went to the Tower of London (which will be another post), the Globe theater, and then walked to the London Eye area--because there was no convenient way to get there by train, and we were too chicken to figure the bus system out. We then took a trip on a boat down the Thames, and ate dinner at a tasty pizza place where I'm sure we tipped way too much but had a good time people-watching.

A random church we passed by on our long, hot walk. Have I mentioned the weather we had was very hot, sunny, and unusual for England! 

Waterloo Royal Hospital for Children and Women

My kids have been big Mr. Bean fans, so when we saw him on the pier, I had to get a pic!

How unfortunate that this man happens to look just like Mr. Bean!

The London Eye. We were totally going to pay the outrageous 35 pounds for a ride, but the line was HUGE and it was HOT and I thought it would just make me ornery to wait forever for a glorified amusement park ride. 

The Globe, viewed from Millennium Bridge.

We both wished we had brought sunglasses. Who knew we would need them the whole time we were there! Here we are on Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.

As we crossed the bridge, we found a guy in a wet-suit singing in the river. I'm not sure how he did not electrocute himself. He was called Flame-Proof Moth. (Maybe someday he will make it big and perform in a real venue.)

Miniature replica of the Globe.

A really cool period costume.

Queen's garb.

Detail

Undergarments

There were lots of costumes. I spent all of our waiting time before our tour looking at them!

Back view of the Queen's dress.

People pretending to be "groundlings"--which were the people who paid a penny to stand in the area between the seats and the stage.

Everything is made of oak, and painted to look like other materials. Even the roof was oak. You can imagine how much it weighs! Add the thatch roof, and it is just waiting to go up in flames. Which it did.

The stands

This was a poster which was for sale in the gift shop. My friend had seen it on her previous trip and kicked herself that she did not buy it the first time. So she bought it, and I believe it survived the trip home without getting bent or crushed. Can you find any phrases you use that you didn't know came from Shakespeare?