Camden, Camden Canal, & Regents Park

Last Sunday we took a walk which started in Camden Town. Camden is known for it's bizarre stores. The next few pictures are of some of the stores and their marques.
I'm not sure what they sell here.
After going through Camden Lock market, we descended to the canal and walked along the canal path to get to Regents Park.

This was a restaurant along the canal.
This is what is called a narrow boat as they are used to travel up and down the canals of England. Some people have their own but there are a lot of companies that rent them out by the day, week, or longer. They are fully furnished with beds, kitchens, etc.
After walking along the canal for awhile, we took a path up to Regents park. In the middle of the park is Queen Mary's Garden which has over 400 variety of roses along with many other flowers and plants.
Enjoying the scenery and smells of the roses.
Central London's Muslim Mosque is on the edge of Regents park.

We walked outside of the park and along the canal again and this is an example of the types of homes along the park. The American Ambassadors home, which was designed by Mrs. Cary Grant, is in this park.

Greenwich & an international Festival

On most of our outings we take the tube as it is quicker than the bus.
We got off at the Cutty Sark stop. The Cutty Sark is a tea clipper which used to zip back from Australia in less than 80 days. Last summer there was a big fire on the Cutty Sark and we couldn't see it as it is under cover for renovations. Outside of the Visitors centre is this statue of Sir Walter Raleigh.
We walked on to the Royal Maritime College where there is a room called The Painted Hall. I think this guy is trying to grab me from behind!
This is the painted hall. Every inch of the walls and ceilings are painted. The ceilings alone took 19 years to finish.
This is the chapel directly across from the painted hall.

Captain James Cook statue outside of the Royal Maritime College.
The view of the National Maritime Museum while we were on our way up to straddle zero longitude at the Prime Meridian.
Greenwich time.
This weekend there was an international festival at Greenwich and the Docklands. All the events going on were free. This is called "Bend It" A barnstorming collision between football (soccer) and South Asian dance. Dancers and musicians fight it out for Premiership glory, with intricate footwork, slow motion aerial replays and that heart stopping ultimate goal.

Barbican to Covent Garden walk

I have mentioned before that we have these self guided walks that were given to us by the Aldis' and we have done a number of them. However, we haven't done one in awhile so today we had a free day and it was mostly sunny and mild. Also today is called Queens Day. The Queens birthday is April 21 (Also Ed's bday) but she always has the celebration in June when the weather is suppose to be better. It started off with numerous different aircraft doing a flyover. We didn't have the camera out in time for the first ones which were the older planes as we didn't know what was going on when we heard the noise.
This is the famous Smithfield's Meat Market, once the scene of jousting, royal tournaments, and grisly executions. The modern-day market takes place in a network of restored Victorian buildings; most of the meat traders are gone by 9am and local pubs open at 6am!
I think you all know about William Wallace from the movie Brave Heart.
This is just one of the many church courtyards in the city. I think it's really great that the churches all have these wonderful relaxing places with lots of benches to sit and reflect.
I guess this is on the walk because the Old Bailey is near by which is England's Central Criminal Courts.

Sir John Soanes Museum

Sir John Soanes Museum remains exactly as architect Soanes left it in 1837. He was the architect of many of London's buildings such as Buckingham Palace. The museum is free and it looks quite small from the outside but there is a lot of stuff chucked into it.
The walk ended at Covent Garden and this is a small nook off of one of the main streets. It's called Neal's yard where there are mostly vegetarian cafes. This is looking up to the second and third floors of the World Food Cafe.

A few random pictures from the week

We haven't been out and about recently, partly due to having a lot of work at the Centre to do. So here are a few pictures from the garden and this car that is parked close by.
The roses in the garden are looking especially gorgeous with all the rain we have had.
This is one of Ed's favorite roses.
For our house meal which we have every Monday night, we had a cookout. Since we don't have a grill, Ed started a fire in the middle of the day to get these really nice coals by the time we were to grill.

Worship at Wood Green Mennonite Church

This is Reyhanna. She has been attending our church for about a year. She is originally from Evanston, near Chicago and has attended Goshen College before coming to London to University. Presently she works for The British Library in the music department where they digitalize music. She really likes her job. She has a beautiful voice and today in Church she gave the homily and lead us in several Spanish songs and a dance.....................
............at a Mennonite Church!!! And look! She even got Ed in on it.
Today was a gorgeous day in London. Lots of sunshine and warm weather. Our church eats at The London Mennonite Centre together once a month so we were able to eat outside in the garden and enjoy the flowers, greenery, trees, and birds. Because of all the trees and shrubbery, it is amazingly quiet in the back garden.

Feb, March, April & May showers bring flowers

Blue sky and sunshine......glorious sunshine! Finally a day of sunshine! Of course I had to be inside most of the day cooking for a Bridge Builders course. The course participants are so nice and complimentary of my cooking I can't begrudge them. We were able to sit outside at the table after I served them their tea & biscuits. We are now headed out to walk to Muswell Hill to get some more groceries to make more food for this course.
All those showers have brought on the most beautiful flowers and greenery.

Finally some sun!

It's Saturday, May 31st and we had a seminar here at the Centre which meant serving tea/coffee, lunch and more tea.
It turned out to be a fairly nice day. We've had so much rain, cool and cloudy weather that it is really nice to get a day with some sun. Ed took to the back garden while we were waiting to serve tea at the end of the seminar and he shot these pictures. This first one is of a Jay.
Here I am putting my feet up enjoying a cup of coffee and the beautiful garden blooms.
The rhododendrons are mostly done blooming except for the purple/pink ones.

These were so hard to grow in Kansas but here they grow like weeds!

Back in the swing of things

We are now both back in London. Ed came back a week before me as I wanted to go back to Harper and visit some more with my mother. I was able also to visit more with my sisters, Linda and Rosemary. Us three along with my cousins Martha Ediger, Delaine Moncado, and Rhonda Gonzales went to see "The church Basement Ladies" at the Crown Uptown in Wichita. Good food and good fellowship! Another good thing about being away is that when you go home for a visit you tend to be more intentional about visiting with family and friends knowing that you have only a limit amount of time to see people.

We had a great visit here in London from our friends Dennis and Leslie Roberts who live in Harper. We had fun seeing some sights, the play "Chicago", and some great eating! I meant to download some of their pictures to put on the blog but forgot! They just left this morning in a cold rain. There has been a lot of rain lately and it's very green but a little cooler than I'd like. It was really nice to have so much sunshine and blue skies while visiting in Kansas and Colorado.

We are looking forward to this summer when we will get visits from three of Ed's siblings and their families. I hope everyone knows they are welcome to come visit if you can swing it. Let us know in advance and we will try to save a guest room for you. Otherwise you can sleep in our living room.

A hike in the Rockies

I see it has been nearly three weeks since I added to the blog. While we were in the States, I pretty much dropped everything and focused on being with Emily, Jay, Hilary, and friends while in Colorado and then my mom, friends, and other family while in Harper, KS. Thank you to those who hosted us while we were home. We have some wonderful friends and family!

Here are a few more pictures of our time at our home in Colorado. Ed helped me to place these trough type planters on our deck which came with straw like liners to hold the soil and plants. I didn't plant anything in them right away as you can see because of the snow. The next morning we found a stellar blue jay stealing some of the lining for her nesting material. We also put up a hummingbird feeder which was fun to watch.

We took a hike behind our house and these next pictures are of what we came across. This is "lichen"(sp) growing on the rocks. The camera didn't quite catch the true green color of it.
I haven't taken the time to look up what this flower is.
This is the path we took on our hike.

And this is the view of Pikes Peak at the top of our hike. It would have been great to build the house here for the view, but it's not our land and the accessibility is not so good.

Day one of our Vacation in the States

This is our first day in the States in this picture. We woke up to a marvelous day.....all blue skies and warm weather. We had coffee on our deck which was the first thing Ed said he wanted to do.
The next day however, we got snow! Nothing that piled up but it was rather nice.
Since then we have had a mix of cool and warm, sunny and cloudy. When we were in Kansas, we had some nice warm weather along with dusty wind while trying to drive on I70 from Colorado to Kansas.


Here is a picture of our finished house. Emily and I want to plant some flowers in pots on the deck but it's still a little too chilly at night to do that.

Take me out to the Ball Game!!

One of the trauma surgeons that Emily works with at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs gave her four of his season tickets to the Rockies game on Thursday. So Ed, me, Hilary and Emily went. JJ had to work. It turned out to be a beautiful day and the Rockies beat the Cardinals 9-3.
We were sitting in row 17 of the first section and about 30 feet back from third base. It was a great view.

This was the pitcher and the "Player of the Game".

Hilary Graduates from Hesston College

Congrats to Hilary! Graduated from Hesston College on Sunday, May 4th.

After the ceremony we loaded all her stuff into two cars and headed for Harper. Our plans were to travel on to Colorado on Monday, but discovered that one of the wheel bearings on Hilary's car was worn badly and very noisy. Ed is staying in Kansas now until Wednesday when he can get the wheel bearing replaced. He also had more time with friends and even had a chance to play golf on Tuesday. Hilary, Emily and Phyllis headed back to Colorado as planned and encountered a massive hail storm which put dents in the car and cracked the windshield. Yikes! In addition, Emily got sick from something she ate on the way.