Tuesday, July 26
Sorry, right off the bat that this is late! Very busy day and by the time we were settled in Canterbury, we figured out that the place we are staying will not give us internet access. I’m typing this Wednesday morning in Canterbury Cathedral listening to the sounds of 250 angels singing in a rehearsal!!
Back to Tuesday! We left Wadham College at 9:00am and had about a two and a half hour drive to Leed’s Castle. Before we left Oxford Gavin was asked how many of the buildings were of medieval time. Oddly enough most of them are. During Hitler’s time, he figured out which cities were of most strategic importance and Oxford happened to be one of them. Because of that, his orders were not to bomb Oxford. Canterbury, where we are headed wasn’t as lucky. Most of Canterbury was bombed during the war.
We also asked Gavin about his training as a tour guide. He had to apply to the Institute of Tour Guiding. 200 people took a pretest with questions like, where was Churchill buried and what time does Harrod’s open? It gets narrowed down to 120, then 65. Those 65 have an interview and are asked more questions and have to describe sights. Then 35 get chosen to be part of a two week session where they are taken on walking tours and they are tested as a guide. The teachers are supposed act like “bad tourists” to see if the guide catches safety issues as well. If they pass this they spend two weeks learning more history, architecture, legal systems and have to write essays to pass the final stage. Out of the 35, 12 pass. It is quite an honor to be chosen for this position. Gavin has a chain necklace with a badge on it that designates that he has this position. He is now doing some tutoring for upcoming guides. We are so blessed to have him. If anyone has plans to travel to England, we would highly recommend him! As we passes an exit to Croydon he got on the microphone and pointed out that this was the most important city because that is where he lives!
Before I forget, I put in an earlier blog that gas was 136 pounds a gallon. I realized that it really means 1.36 pounds per gallon. Sorry!!!
We were on the road M25 and as we “ring” around London on our way to Canterbury. Gavin says they call this round the inverted donut because with the cars driving on the wrong side of the road to us, the heaviest traffic is on the inside and the lighter is on the outside! Guess you had to be there!! Speed limit here is 70mph but 64 for coaches. (keep forgetting to call the buses, coaches!) There are cameras all along the road that are taking pictures and can catch speeders. They also have a system approaching London where each lane has digital signs every few miles that tells you the speed to go which may be different than what is posted. The traffic is being monitored and if it is getting heavy near London farther out these signs will post a lower speed limit to try and slow the cars headed to London so that there are not traffic jams. Seems to be a good system, since we didn’t end up in a jam. They also have signs that read “Tiredness can kill. Take a break”. Good lesson for us all.
Gavin pointed out also that there are foot paths and bicycle ways that span the country and you can easily travel from one part of the country to the other entirely on these paths. Mr. C. wanted to get off the bus and go!! We continue to see a lot of sheep and cows. England is one of the world’s largest producers of lamb. Lamburgers were on the menu at one restaurant in Oxford! Wool, as you would imagine is another large industry for England.
We arrived at Leed’s Castle. This castle was given to William the Conqueror’s son, who became King William II. This castle was built because it was an important passage between London and France. It has had many owners over the years and was also the home of six widowed queens. The final owner was Princess Bailey who died in 1974 and left the castle to a foundation to continue its upkeep and has been turned into a tourist attraction!
The castle itself is on an island and we had a twenty minute walk from the bus to the castle. It was so beautiful with the landscaping being the highlight. We saw the biggest rhubarb plants ever. It was seriously the size of Volkswagen bug! One even had a worn path through it that you could tell people had walked to the inside of the plant, which of course some of us had to do! It would make a very large pie! We also had white swans, black swans and peacocks greeting us along the path. We even saw a white peacock.
We reached the castle once we crossed over the moat. The castle has rooms that have been decorated as they believe it might have looked in early times. We found it to be an eclectic array of décor. There was an I Spy sheet that That Mrs. Reddy’s group took with them as they walked through the castle and were to find different flowers in the décor. I hear they did well.
There was a maze on the grounds as well. It was made of hedges taller than most of the singers. I think every one of our singers did it. As some successfully made it through they were up on a hill portion around the maze guiding those that were still in there how to get out. Mrs. Crist’s and Mrs. Ceckowski’s groups had a young French boy giving them directions in French by yelling over the hedges to them… There was a language barrier but they figured it out with hand motions, I believe! After the maze was a grotto they walked through. It was underground with water and it was lit with colored light to see. There were mermaid statues and beautiful mosaic pictures on the ceiling. Caroline really liked the ceiling!
There were beautiful gardens that had flowers that we have never seen before. So many colors shapes and sizes. Rachel and Rebecca especially loved the flowers and took many, many pictures and want to make a slide show of them.
We all made the twenty minute trek back to the bus. We said good bye to the beautiful landscaping and the black swan nesting in the pond.
We then had about another hour drive to Canterbury. When we got here we came to our lodgings that are flats in a student village. We have a motorize gate to go through to get to the buildings which the kids thought was cool! We got settled in our rooms and it was pretty quiet until the next group got there. Then came a group from Roanoke, Virginia and our kids quickly made lots of new friends. Caroline met a girl named Caroline and our Carline says that is now her new best friend! When it was time for us to head on our walking tour, we got the children’s attention as we normally do singing “lu, Lu, Lu”. They kids responded back and then got quiet waiting for instruction and the Roanoke girls were amazed and thought it was cool!
Gavin took us on a mini tour of Canterbury on our way to dinner. As we walked we timed our journey to the gates where we will enter the cathedral each day and it was nearly a half hour! If the kids thought they were already tired, they have another thing coming!
Canterbury has been a place of Christian worship for almost 1,500 years. In 597 A.D., Pope Gregory the great sent a monk, Augustine, to England as a missionary. Augustine established his seat in Canterbury and became England’s first Archbishop. In 1170, after a long dispute between King Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Becket, the King is said to have exclaimed “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”. Four knights set off to Canterbury and murdered Thomas Beckett in the church. Soon after miracles began to take place, the Cathedral became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage centers.
The Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and still very much a working living church, where services are held every day. The building has been added on to and rebuilt after a fire. The length and magnitude of the church is hard to describe. Our best guess is that from one end to the other would stretch from the bridge at IPFW near Coliseum Blvd. to the Rhinehart music Center where the choir rehearses.
Dinner was at an Italian place called Zizzi’s. Our places were set with a napkin that had the quote by Virginia Woolf, “One cannot think well, sleep well, live well, if one has not dined well”. Sounds like the advice we gave the kids about taking care of themselves on this trip! The tables had scripts from various Shakepeare plays under a clear coating. We were given pitchers of water which turned out to be like lemon or lime water. We really couldn’t decide which. There were also pitchers of juice which some said tasted like watered down Kool-Aid! The singers had either pizza, spaghetti or penne pasta. We all agreed it was very good. Then the dessert came…tiramisu or gelato. Yum, yum.
We asked some of the girls what their favorite part of the day was. Sangeeta loves the flats we are staying in. Cassie saw a street named All Saints Lane that she thought was a great name. Mallory liked the bus ride because she got a chance to talk more with her friends, Ali C. like the soft serve ice cream they had today. Sarah C. enjoyed spending time and sharing the sights with friends. Hayley and Vivienne took enough pictures through today that they think they have enough for their photography class project come the start of school.
Mr. C and Mrs. Treadway left dinner separately for a meeting with Mr. Leck, Dr. Flood and the other choir directors and tour managers. It was a lovely reception getting to meet all of the directors, tour managers, and the English guides each group has. One of the guides we met had been a personal body guard of Princess Diana. Wow!
The singers returned to the flats, had a little social time and went to bed for much needed rest.
I hope the info from this blog was worth the wait.
