Hampton Court Palace

We took the tube to Waterloo station then a 30 minute train ride to Hampton Court. This is a view of the Palace after crossing the bridge over the Thames. Hampton Palace is a Palace that Cardinal Wolsely had built for himself during the reign of Henry VIII. It was later given to King Henry and was used for Kings and Queens thereafter.
There are extensive gardens at Hampton and this is a maze they had. There were only 3 dead ends and it wasn't too hard to get through. It's January but it has been mild weather and in some places of the gardens where it is sheltered, there were daffodils, crocuses and whatever this is.
Here is sooking at the Palace from the side viewing it from one of the main large gardens.

This is a huge arbor to the side of the palace. We have decided that we need to go back in the Spring or Summer when things are in bloom.

This is the inner courtyard. The ladies of the court would promenade around this square to show off their latest dresses.
The is the fountain in the centre of the inner courtyard.
You have to go under this large poster of Henry VIII to enter into the palace. Looks like Ed was trying to look up his skirt.

Foxes at the LMC

I was sleeping in on Sunday (our church is in the afternoon) and Ed was already up. He sticks his head into the bedroom and tells me to look out our back door into the back garden. In the shelter of the corner of a hedge were these two foxes. They were there all day and Ed has about 30 pictures of them using his telephoto lens. We've been told that fox are common in London.

It's been a busy week even though there have been no seminars going on. We've had some guests come through and more people show up at the door inquiring about the Centre. The last one was a man who gets our literature in the post but has never been here and had the day free so drove down to look at the book shop we have. He ended up staying part of the day and using the prayer hut. He had little knowledge of the Mennonites and Anabaptists so I did my best to inform him about who we are.

Our server is still being repaired/rebuilt and we are limping by. We met with the family who will rent one of our flats that has been empty for three months now. Hopefully they will move in next week. Ed spent most of today shampooing the carpets.
We had a great visit from Luke Thornton, one of Ed's co-workers from when he was at Harper Industries. He was in the UK on business and so he stayed at the LMC on his last night before flying home. We had a nice meal out and some catching up.

Ed bought me a Raclette machine for my birthday and we had most of the house up to our flat for raclette on Saturday night for supper. I meant to take a picture but forgot until all the dishes were washed. Can anyone take a guess as to what raclette is? Well you know it's something to do with food. I know Ed's family knows but how about you Kansans?

South Kensington Walk

We took a walk on Sunday morning since our church services are in the afternoon. We went to the area where there are about four museums within an easy walk within each other. We have actually been to them all so we just wanted to walk around the area. Here is the rear view of the Royal Albert Hall, London's grandest concert venue.
These buildings are just down the street from the first picture and I really liked the color and shape of them.
We walked through the Ennismore Gardens Mews through these quaint cobbled stone streets.
This is the Brompton Oratory. Legend has it that during the Cold War KGB spies used this vast Catholic Church as a dead-letter drop.
This was the highly original, proto-art deco Michelin Tyre Co. which now is home to the Bibendum Oyster Bar. You can see the Michelin man in the top center above the window.
We had just emerged from the tube station and I was looking at the information card that was directing us to these places. We stopped at the corner to look up at the building to admire it when I looked in front of us and there was a guy who had the same card in his hand looking from the card to the building just like we were. These cards are popular I guess. When we were at the airport a year ago in Atlanta waiting for our London flight, there was a guy with the same pack of walks of London cards that he was looking through.

We are still without a server and we are limping by with alternate ways of doing what we are used to doing. I can't get to alot of my documents that I had stored and so much of my work is waiting to get done at another time. I have been ending up with quite a headache each day trying to get done what I can.

Oh yes, Thanks to my former Sunday School Class at Pleasant Valley Mennonite Church in Harper for the wonderful rendition of Happy Birthday over the phone. The best part being that it was 9pm for them but 3am for me!!! Some people get more ornery and brave with age.

I turned 51 on 6 January. Since that was Sunday, I was honored at a birthday tea on Wednesday instead. So if you haven't read before what we do at birthday teas, I got to choose what kind of dessert/treat I wanted (it's hard to choose when you like so many things but I settled on lemon meringue pie), they sang happy birthday to me in whatever tune I wanted, someone read the 51st psalm, and I was to reminisce on past birthdays, especially a fond memory.

On Thursday we had a seminar at the Centre of 13 people. It went very smoothly. Ed and I are getting much better at getting all the details put together for seminars that it's not so much stressful as it is tiring.

There have been two different people ring the Centre's doorbell during the day this week to inquire about what our Centre does. One was a young girl in her 20's who was in the neighborhood interviewing for a nanny position just down the street from us. She said that she saw our sign and that if she gets the job she would be a live in nanny and wanted to get to know the neighbors and that she may come to church. The other was a Jewish man who lives nearby and was curious about us. He looked us up on the web, saw that we run mediation workshops and have a lot of books on mediation and he was intrigued.

Every day seems to bring something interesting. Except for the time when the electricity went off for 12 hours and has nearly ruined our servers and we have been without the main workings of our computer system for all this week. It's crazy how dependent we have become on email, the internet, etc. Well at least I have gotten a lot of piled up filing done waiting for the system to get repaired.

We have two flats that we let out, 16A & 16B. 16B was just occupied and 16A is close, so we will have new neighbors to get to know. Actually, in 16B is David George, from the states who has been here for more than a year and needed a new place to rent. He is originally from PA and is a Menno. 16A hopefully will be rented to an elderly couple. More on them if and when they decide they want it.

In closing I ask that you pray for a 20 year old girl in our church who is dealing with cancer. She has gone through much chemo and now has a recurrence and it doesn't look good. Her father died five years ago today of the same cancer. Her mother is in our home group. It gives me much to think about. She is the same age as our youngest daughter, Hilary.

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog and thinks and prays for us. We think about all of you often.

Jane Austin Day

This picture made us laugh when we first saw it. The butts is a large grassy area at the end of the town of Alton.
This is the house/museum that Jane Austin lived in while she wrote a lot of her novels.

Sharon's friend, Alison, was here visiting her from her VS position in Germany. While here, she wanted to do something very English. So we decided to have a Jane Austin Day. On Friday night the women watched the 5 hour BBC miniseries on DVD of Pride and Prejudice. Then on Saturday we took a train to Alton where we walked to the house/museum where Jane Austin lived and wrote a lot of her novels. We then took a bus to Alresford, a quaint village where we had a nice lunch at a pub (very English) with a cozy roaring fire. Then we took a walk around the village where we saw this thatched roof house (very English) stopped at a tea room for a creamed tea,(again very English) then went to a cute book shop and browsed for awhile. It was a nice day even though it was quite cold.

Things are back to normal at the Centre except that we have a major computer shut down. I don't understand what is wrong but I do know that we are really dependent upon computers because it practically shuts us down. I did get a bunch of filing done however.

Getting back into the swing of things

It's 2nd January and it is time to get back into the routine of our jobs. After having close to 50F temps for the past week, it has gotten colder today, now still at 38F. However the sun is shining so that makes up for a lot.

Yesterday was a relaxing holiday. In the afternoon, Ed & I, Sharon and her friend who is visiting, Alison Yoder, played a game of photography scavenger hunt. We mutually made a list of things to find and take a picture of and went out on teams for an hour and a half. We deemed it a tie and went out for muffins and hot drinks in Crouch End afterwards. The first picture is some of us playing PIT. The next picture is Ed's photo entry on the scavenger hunt titled: Reusable Rubish found on the street.That evening we had another New years party. This one given by the director's family of Vic, Kathy, and Janelle Thiessen in our lounge. We had cheese and chocolate fondue, lots of casual conversation, then went around the circle twice where everyone had a turn at saying what meaningful or memorable book, film, trip, etc they experienced in 2007.
When it came to Ed's turn, he reported on a trip and then gave a short report on a book along with the title. Thing is, he made up the name and author of the book. We found out that this was on a dare from Sharon. It sounded pretty good. Several people from the church joined us and of course there was some game playing afterwards.

What did you all do?

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Happy New Year 2008!

What did everyone do on New Years Eve? We first took the bus to Muswell Hill and spent a couple hours at Ed & Veronica Zondell Sirett's house for some mulled wine and eats and good conversation, then Ed (Shirk) and our friend Ian took the tube to Central London (after dropping party pooper Phyllis at the Centre)to view the grand fireworks to be shot off at the London Eye. So they got a good place to stand amongst the estimated 700,000 others along the Thames. However, about one minute after the start of the fantastic show which by the way Phyllis was able to see from many different angles on TV, the smoke from the fireworks blew over to where Ed & Ian were and they were unable to see anything after that. The other LMC group were across the river and had a good view and were really glad that they did this, even if it meant for some of them, standing in one place for six hours to ensure a good spot. So these are the only good shots Ed got off on his camera. Tube and bus fares were free from 10pm until like 4am. A good thing with all the partying going on.
I don't think I have any ground breaking resolutions to reveal just yet.

Christmas at the Baecher's

We were invited to spend Christmas with Claude and Elisabeth Baecher. Elisabeth is Ed's first cousin. They live in a town just a 15 min drive from the Basel airport. They have four children all living away from home now. Marie Noel, the oldest daughter lives in the south of France and was not able to join us. Olivier is the next oldest. He spent a summer with us when we lived in Kansas working some for Brad Shue doing roofs. He is married to Valerie and they have a little 18 month old girl, Lucie. Then there is Florence who married in September and lives about one hour away from them. Viviane is their youngest. She spend one year in school in Goshen going to Bethany Christian High School. During that time she came to Harper for Christmas with our family for a little over a week. She is now working and going to school but was home on a break. I was not able to sing the words to the carols but I did hum along as the music is mostly the same. Of course they all speak very good English so I had plenty of people to talk to. We had a great time with them all and are very grateful their hospitality.

In the first picture is right before we took a walk over a bridge to Germany. Ed is trying to look French with a hat he borrowed from Claude, I told him it just made him look older.

The next picture is of Olivier and his daughter Lucie.

And then a picture of Florence and her husband David.

Basel Switzerland

On Christmas day we went to Olivier and Valerie's apartment for lunch after we had gone to church. We had raclette which Ed and I love. If you do not know what this is let me tell you. Raclette is a type of cheese but you can use other cheeses for this meal. There is a raclette oven, or machine that is electric. It sits on the middle of the table so everyone can reach it. There are little dishes that you put your cheese on to and then put it into the oven and it melts the cheese. You then take a boiled potato, cut it up and put the cheese on top of it. You can add anything you want, either putting it into the oven first or not. The concept is a bit like fondue in that you eat slower as you are waiting for your food to bake and so the conversation flows on.
We were so into the meal that Ed forgot to take a picture.

The big red building is the City Hall in Basel. We were able to walk through the front part into a court yard where there was a huge decorated Christmas tree. It was at night, was very cold, and Ed's pictures didn't come out too well as he was shaking from cold so the camera wouldn't hold still.

The picture of the elaborate manger scene is one of the cute store windows.

Roman Ruins

We visited a town nearby where Claude and Elisabeth live where Roman ruins have been discovered. The town Augusta Raurica was first begun around 15BC, existing until around 320AD. In 250AD, a large earthquake, and then warfare soon made the city mostly uninhabited. In the picture of the theatre, we are standing where the statue of the God they worshipped at the time would have been.
In the picture of the snow, we are walking along the Rhine going to a place where they believe baptisms were carried out after Christianity arrived in about 310 AD. Christianity arrived in the city via traveling salesmen (traders) but was reinforced later by monks from IONA (Scottish monestary still active) who brought more formal teaching and doctrine.

December 22, 2007 is our 28th wedding anniversary. We had no specific plans so we headed out to Central London. Here is Leicester (pronounced Lester if you are American or Lesta if you're a Londoner)Square. Leicester Square is where they show the film premieres before they are shown anywhere in the UK. So if you are really ambitious you can head to Leicester square early, wait for a long time and maybe you'll see a movie star. It's always a hive of activity. There was a small carnival set up there over the holidays.

Hyde Park Square

This is Hyde Park where they set up a carnival, food mall, and arts/crafts boothes. There was also this ice rink there. During the holidays, there are several rinks set up around London.

I finally got to see the Nutcracker. Every year I think that I'm going to make it to a production and every year it gets by me. I mentioned this to some of the others in the office one day and so when Janelle had two tickets to see one at a theatre in Islington, London, she asked if I wanted to buy the ticket from her and go with her. The tickets weren't the best seats, but I could see it even though I did end up with a neck and back ache. Anyway. If you click on the little x in the upper left corner of the next entry below, you will see the advertisement for the ballet. It was a slightly different slant on the nutcracker but it was fabulous!

The Nutcracker

The following pictures are: Ed & Phyllis wearing their paper crowns at the restaurant. Jane and Tina, two of the part time workers. And Ed and Dora-Marie after our lunch back at the LMC showing off their chocolates and bows that were on their gifts.
For some reason I was unable to add the dialogue to each picture like usual.

Staff Christmas lunch at Bakko's

Christmas crackers!!!

I'm sure many of you have heard about Christmas crackers. Everyone does crackers here. We had them at our Christmas lunch. We (The LMC staff) walked to Muswell Hill which is a 20 min walk through the woods to a Turkish restaurant. Before the meal, we had our crackers. Here's a bit of history about crackers:
Crackers are very popular and accompany many meals over the Christmas period, especially on Christmas day. A Christmas cracker is a brightly coloured paper tube, twisted at both ends. There is a banger inside the cracker and when it is pulled by two people, the cracker snaps in half making a loud bang. Inside the cracker there is a paper crown made from tissue paper, a joke on a slip of paper and a little gift.

How to pull a cracker: The traditional way to pull a cracker is crossing your arms and pulling a whole circle of crackers all around the table. Everyone holds their crack in their right hand and pulls their neighbours cracker with the free left hand.

Why do we wear king's paper crowns?
We wear paper hats on special occasions like Christmas Day and birthday parties. The traditions of wearing hats at parties goes back to the Roman Saturnalia celebrations (celebrated around 25 December) when the participants also wore hats. The idea of wearing a paper crown may have originated from the Twelfth night celebrations, where a King or Queen was appointed to look over the proceedings.

LMC staff

This is Alastair McKay (pronounced Mceye). He works at the LMC in the Bridge Builders department. He is the director of the department. Bridge builders runs training courses in mediation and facilitation skills for church workers. The courses are 5 day courses which are quite intensive and have become very popular. Courses fill out quickly and have waiting lists. They run them all over England and Scotland. I am officially the BB assistant, doing lots of office work for them. There are 3 full time workers for BB, one of them being Sharon who is a graduate of EMU, majoring in peace, justice, and reconciliation studies. She is on a 3 year term through Mennonite Mission Network, same as Ed and I. We have been trying to get a one year volunteer to work at least 4 days a week for them but nothing has worked out so far. I don't know if MMN has advertised for it or not. However, we needed someone so I said for the short term anyway, that I would do as much as I could and see how it went. So now I'm host and BB assistant. It's good for me because I like to stay busy.

This was at someones birthday tea. We are having trifle I think. Yum!

London Mennonite Centre Christmas Party

Saturday, Dec 8th was the Centre's work day and Christmas Party. We meant to have people come in the early afternoon to help rake the remains of the leaves in the garden then stay for soup and later for the annual party. The rain forced us inside and everyone helped with the mass mailing that needs to go out next week. We were able to solve many of the worlds problems over two hours of labeling. There were about five or six others that are not in this picture that also helped. They are some of the Centre's workers as well as church members and other friends of the Centre.
In the picture above, some of the party participants are in the lounge stringing popcorn and cranberries, putting whole cloves into oranges, and making paper snowflakes and other ornaments for the tree.
Here are a few of the kids of those that came to help out. They took refuge in the office to make paper airplanes and play on the computers. I got busy and didn't get pictures of the caroling around the piano (about 40 people were singing). Plus all the cookies that were baked for the three days prior to the party which drove us all crazy having to smell them and not be able to eat them. Total party participants totaled around 58. Many people stayed around the centre talking, stringing popcorn and eating. We had a lot of fun.